Ever since he was about five months old, Elliott has pretty much nailed the sleeping thing. He never fought bedtime or nap time. He cheerfully climbed the stairs, books or stuffed animals in hand and either drifted off to sleep right away or chatted contentedly with his animal friends until sleep came to him.

At just past two-and-a-half year old he began almost half-heartedly employing some stalling tactics when it came to naptime or bedtime. Requests for stories and more stories, multiple drinks of water, light adjustments and lots of last minute complicated conversations began to occur.

One Sunday night in November, Elliott spent the night at Gaga and Gagi’s house. After multiple stories cuddling on the big bed with Gagi, he transferred happily to his crib and managed to get a few more stories from Gaga, holding hands with me through the crib railing. When I too said good night and closed the door, all was quiet for a few minutes.

And then the urgent calls began again. “Gagi! Gagi!” After a minute or so Gagi went to the room, opened the door and asked Elliott what was wrong. Elliott, standing in the crib, held out his hand to Gagi as if to give him something. In the dim light coming from the hallway, Gagi couldn’t tell what it was. When he got closer he still couldn’t tell what it was. In fact he couldn’t see anything at all pressed between Elliott’s fingers. He finally saw that there was, indeed, something between Elliott’s thumb and forefinger. Something tiny. Something almost microscopic, in fact. Elliott carefully transferred it to Gagi’s hand and pointed to the garbage can. Gagi took the microscopic piece of something to the can and threw it away. Elliott nodded with satisfaction, laid back down, snuggled into his blanket and went to sleep.

The mystery remains as to what exactly was handed off in the dark. Was it a sliver of lint? A molecule of dust? Or, perhaps a tiny bit of a treasure found in a tiny boy’s tiny nose? Personally, I bet on the latter. But whatever, with that little bit of a problem resolved, sleep was finally possible – for us all.