Driving Nephews to Sleep

Leina has a bad sore throat and can barely talk, though she still called Tony last night and had him tell her stories about how he went to the Cal basketball game against Kansas State and there was a guy on the Kansas State bench with a mohawk who everyone in the stadium was cheering to get into the game, and when he finally did with two minutes left, he didn't give them the pleasure of heaving even on off-balance three point attempt.

It is a well-known fact that many young children don't fall sleep when their parents want them to. Babies and toddlers don't seem to understand that just because you've sung them a song and tucked them in to bed, that means they should sleep. And what does one do when a child won't fall asleep? There are many theories on how to react, whether or not to respond to an insomniac child.

Leina has no children of her own, but has, on numerous occasions, found herself responsible for a nephew who just won't fall asleep. Now many people would just let the kid stay up, because who cares, he's not her kid anyways. But not Leina. She feels a moral obligation to make sure that any young male nephew or hers get his rest, one way or another.

Liane, or perhaps Noriko, explained to her that Dominic, or maybe Yuto, falls asleep best when he is being driven around. So on numerous occasions, Leina has taken to the streets with a youngster strapped into the backseat. This happens so often that she mentions it to her friends as though half the cars on the road were just taking leisurely drives in order to coerce a young passenger into nodding off. She recently explained a route that she took where she drove Dominic out to the zoo, past Pacific Heights, and essentially all over town, past many places that this author couldn't find with a GPS system in his car, and Dominic still wouldn't sleep.

What's more, she even passes this burden on to Charles. On Thanksgiving, while they were waiting for the turkey to come out of the oven, it was decided that Yuto should be asleep, and he wasn't in agreement with the decision. So somehow Charles found himself trying to get lost in Marin County with Yuto in the backseat, and the treatment much more effective on Leina, who passed out riding shotgun.