My son sleeps in the dark now

My son, Jacob, stopped sleeping with a night light about 3 days ago. He's 6.

I have no idea why. I had nothing to do with it. I got annoyed with my husband when I went to check on the kids and J's room was dark...really dark. I thought Matt was just being careless. My poor baby could wake up in the middle of the night and be frightened, I thought.

I began to gripe at him and he told me J told him he didn't need it anymore. Heh? Since when? He's had some kind of extra light while sleeping since birth! And no one consulted me about it.

And I guess that's what's been bothering me, subconsciously. I didn't have anything to do with it. I didn't talk him into it, he didn't ask me questions about it. Matt says he doesn't know where it came from either. I'm proud of him, of course, for taking big boy steps. I think I slept w/ a night light until teen years most likely.

But as a homeschooling mom, there is very little about his life I'm not aware of. I can tell you exactly what he's learning, what he reads for fun, what he ate for lunch, how he reacts to different forms of correction, why he prefers to use blue erasers over orange ones, how he's equally talented with numbers and words in a way that boggles my mind, when to push him and when to back off, that some of his most insightful comments come during "school time" that have nothing to do with "school" if I slow down long enough to let them flow.

I think some folks think people homeschool because they just can't give up their babies to other people. That we're smothering them and we're holed up in our houses avoiding reality. The ones I know consider in great detail their children's gifts, talents and weaknesses and work very hard to get them prepared for life in every area: academically, domestically, professionally, spiritually, socially (yes, we do socialize our children just not in institutional schools).

Since the day Jacob was born I've always known that my job is to help prepare him for life without me in it...at least without me in the same house. To be light in a dark world. So when I really think about it, I have to believe that maybe I do have something to do with his new-found independence from an artificial light source...and it started somewhere around January 2, 2001.