Bedtime for Babies

Bedtime has evolved into a dramatic performance that is sometimes Oscar-worthy.  Take the other night, for instance.

Little Sunshine comes in to my room, where I have already collapsed following a full day of work followed by a full evening of stellar parenting.  (Ha.)  "Mama, there are monsters in my room."  I reply, "No there's not.  Daddy scared them all away."  She comes back with, "But I need hope?"  Now that was a new, and creative one.  "Hope?" I ask.  She says, "Uh huh."  Well, "What are you hoping for?"  She looks left and then right, obviously working out her plan on the fly.  "Well, but it will hurt my leg."  Apparently someone forgot to tell us that logical progression of reasoning does not apply to kids.  Not knowing what else to do, I jump right over to this path of thought.  "How will it hurt your leg, baby?"  "Well, but there's a scratch." 
I had just bathed the child, and had there been a major gaping wound that prevented her from going to bed, I'm pretty sure I would have noticed.  But, curious as to where this almost-four-year-old would go with this argument, I went right along.  "A scratch?  Where's your scratch baby?" 

She barely contains an evil, knowing grin, definitely assuming she is near victory, as she crawls over me and proceeds to crawl under the covers.  (Once embedded, it is  difficult to remove the little terrorists.)  I ask again, "Where's your scratch?"

She checks one leg, and then the other.  She decides she is ok, but is hoping I have forgotten all about the reason she is now in my bed.  She settles in to watch some tv.  Now, I was watching CSI:Miami, and I'm pretty sure that was not appropriate for my precious darling, especially when we sometimes think we should sleep with one eye open when she is around.  I guess I'll become really worried when she starts taking notes.  I hustled her off to her bed, much to her dismay.

Round two started not much later.  "My bed makes my belly hurt."  "Well, baby, this bed will make your belly hurt."  I'm sure you can picture her clutching her belly, her lip quivering.  "No, it won't, " she cries.  At this point, I am tired.  As El Hubbo had abstained from the battle to this point, I decided it was time to tag out and let him have some fun.  "Ask your daddy."

She takes one look at him, and tries one of her best ploys.  "Daddy, I wanna give you cuddles."  And, cue the tears.  Oh the humanity.  The wailing goes full-blast, and then she looks up to see if it is working.  "It hurts!"  As the apple of his eye stands there crying, El Hubbo says, "What would make it feel better?"  She says, "A drink of your water."  So the Sucker, I mean, El Hubbo gives her a drink, and asks, "Do you feel better?"  She comes back with "My arm hurts!" 

At this point I am realizing that I may never know if Horatio is going to catch the bad guy.  It's definitely going to be a long night.  We hustle her back to bed.

And,  right on our heels ( I hadn't even managed to get my covers back over me) here she comes.  She marches right in and as she is passing the bed, "I gotta go pee in your bathroom."  Well, obviously, as the restroom that is right next door to your bedroom for which we have a fancy nightlight to allow you all-night access to potty facilities is definitely not the best option for you to relieve yourself.

Not to be outdone, Jake comes out.  Being much older, and much more suave, he decides he will try this approach, "Mama, sometimes I just lay in my bed and I start thinking about you and daddy, and I just have to come give y'all hugs and kisses."  Smooth, right?  You gotta hand it to him - that's pretty good.  It be even smoother if he didn't have the cheshire grin plastered to his face.  He's a little too over-confident in his smooth-talking abilities.

So, that is our bedtime routine.  In case you were wondering, it was after midnight before Horatio caught the bad guy, and Miami was safe again.