Every parent will agree with me, bedtime for children is one of the highlights of the day. Or if you've had a rough day, or the kids have been terrors all day, it is THE highlight of the day. But somehow bedtime becomes the hardest part of the day.
Children believe this is a conspiracy by parents to make them miss out on all the best stuff. They must think that once they're asleep, Mom and Dad are going to pull out these cool things to play with, all the candy and junk food to eat, and have a blast without the kids. At least, that's what I used to think when my parents put me to bed. Truth is, we're just so exhausted from the day, once the kids are asleep, we pass out too.
Bedtime at our house can turn into a circus. It usually starts around the time it starts getting dark. The oldest one starts, "I want to stay up." "Hey momma, let's have a movie night." "I'm not sleepy yet." "Since I don't have school in the morning, how about I stay up tonight and sleep late in the morning." (By the way all you new parents or people thinking about having kids, the term "sleep in" no longer applies, you might get to sleep until 7:30, if you're very lucky.)
Once I actually announce "Bedtime" to the kiddos, they run in different directions. The oldest runs to his room and picks out a stack of books that would take two hours to read while the youngest runs to our room yelling "Daddy's bed! Daddy's bed! Daddy's bed!" I firmly tell Connor to pick ONE book while grabbing Kenny off our bed. That's when the tears begin. "But I want to read two!" "NO! DADDY'S BED!"
Here lately I've been able to bribe Kenny back to his and Connor's room by saying we're reading a book. Then Kenny wants to read One Foot, Two Feet, while Connor wants to read How The Grinch Stole Christmas. We literally have hundreds of books for the kids as we've signed them both up for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library when they were born, so the fact that they pick out the same book night after night can get frustrating. But I read them, over...and over...and over.
So after finally settling on a book, we sit down on Kenny's bed and I read to them, doing all the voices, playing up the dramatic parts, and having Kenny point out different things from the pages. After this Connor hops up into his bed yelling "Cover me up! I want a super kiss and super hug!"
Let me just pause here and explain the super kiss and super hug. When Connor was about 3, I would kiss him good night and before I could leave the room, he'd wipe his kiss off and say I had to kiss him again. After a couple of nights of kissing him over and over (which I never get tired of doing, unless it's 8pm and I've spent all day chasing him around) I told him I was going to give him the super duper mommy kiss that could never ever be wiped off no matter how much he wiped his face. I then grabbed his face with both hands and planted a kiss on his cheek that lasted a good minute, with me making all kinds of kissy sounds. Then I had to do the same thing with the hugs. After that, I could give him one big kiss and the leave the room. So now every night, both boys want the super kiss and super hug.
Ok, back to our bedtime routine. So Connor is in his bed asking for the super kiss and super hug. I'm still at Kenny's bed, trying to get him to be still long enough for me to cover him up, because it's this time that he realizes the whole reading a book thing was a rouse to get him into his bed. Now he starts hollering for Daddy's bed again. After a few tries of tucking him in, I give up on covering him up right then and I order him to stay in that bed.
I turn to Connor, pull the covers up around him, give him his super kiss and super hug and tell him I love him. I then turn back around just in time to catch Kenny and put him back in his bed. It's usually at this time Daddy comes in and gives hims a big hug and tells him he has to stay in his bed. Kenny will calm down some as Daddy lays him down and covers him up then gives Connor night-night hugs and kisses.
Alls good until we turn out the light and leave the room. Kenny starts crying again. And not just "I'm mad" cry, this is a full on "You've broken my heart into teeny tiny pieces, I'll never be the same, I can't believe you'd leave me like this" heart wrenching cry. Even after almost three years of hearing this cry, it still gets to me. I don't know how he can sound like this every time he cries, but he has definitely perfected the heart wrenching cry. I poke my head around the door and tell him to be quiet.
Usually after this he settles down and we don't hear any more out of either of them until around 6:30am. That's our normal bedtime routine.
There are the occasional nights that Connor is crying just as hard as Kenny while tucking them in because he can't find one of his three animals that he sleeps with. He has Puppy, a small, tan blanket that has the head, tail, and feet of a puppy, Scary Bear, a black bear my parents brought him home from Gatlinburg, he's wearing a green Smokey Mountain hoodie and scares away any monsters that try to get in the room at night (hence his name Scary Bear) and Blue Bear, a blue, furry teddy bear. If even one of these characters is missing when it's bedtime, Connor hits meltdown mode. No substitutions will do, it has to be Puppy, Scary Bear and Blue Bear. I have scoured the house before looking for one or the other, even checking behind the couch and in closets and bathrooms. Once located, Connor is fine and goes right to sleep.
And then there's the nights we have a little visitor come crawl in the bed with us. At any time of night, I'll hear Daddy wake up with a start and Kenny will be standing there, staring, wanting in the bed with us. Brad will pick him up and put him between us. I usually give Kenny a little bit to go back to sleep and then I'll pick him up and take him back to his bed. Sometimes I don't hear him come in and I'll just wake up to him kicking me in the back or I'll roll over to see his face right there in mine.
I miss the days when Brad and I got ready to go to bed, we just got in the bed. We didn't have to put up with screaming fits, or little ones climbing in the bed between us, or being made to feel like I'm a horrible person just by laying them down and telling them to go to sleep. No doubt my kids think I'm just being mean, just torturing them, by making them go to bed every night. And I know that once they get older, all this will go away and there'll be days I won't be able to get them out of the bed. But I will always tuck them in and give them goodnight kisses for as long as I can get away with it. Even if they are crying cause they don't want to go to sleep.
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