With a two year old in the house, some days I dread bedtime. I'm playing with my son, doing puzzles or playing with Play-Doh or some other super fun activity, and I don't want to have to end our fun together for him to go to bed.
Then, there are days where I can't wait for time to get ready for bed to roll around. He wouldn't take a nap that day, and he's tired and super cranky and he won't listen and he isn't being a very good boy and......
I try to keep our bedtime routine roughly the same each night. We pick up the toys and books scattered through the house and return them to his book table and toy boxes. (Yes, plural. My son has two toy boxes, plus a wagon we keep all his cars in, plus space in his closet for large toys like his sit-and-spin, lawnmowers, and ride-on toys.) We tell my boyfriend and anyone else in the house at the time goodnight. (My sister is currently renting our spare bedroom, and occasionally one of our friends is visiting at bedtime.) We pick the toys and books up in his bedroom floor and return them to their designated location. We go potty. We get pajamas and a diaper on (he is mostly potty trained, except for getting up in the middle of the night to go potty. He'll catch on soon enough.) We call his father and his big brother so he can tell them good night. We read two books. I arrange his bear, sock monkey (which wears a miniture miniature University of Alabama sweatshirt,'cause ROLL TIDE Y'ALL!), glow worm, Tad, and Spider Man in his bed. I tuck everyone under the covers (his Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger blanket, and Lightening McQueen sleeping bag), give him a hug, kiss, Eskimo kiss, and tell him I love him. I check his closet for monsters one last time, turn out the light and shut his door.
Then for the next hour or two, I constantly run him back to bed and tuck him back in every ten minutes.
What gives? He was going to bed fine, then all of a sudden he decided to act like a two-year-old when it comes to bedtime.
Like last night. Bed time routine? Check. Even let him keep his TV on (Cars 2 in the DVD player) while he went to sleep. An hour and a half later? Huge crash in his room, followed by Help-Me-I'm-REALLY-Hurt screams. I jump up off the couch and run to his room. He had hit his nose pretty badly, and it was swelled and scraped across the bridge. I thought he had fallen out of bed. I kissed it and put him back to bed after some snuggling and rocking to calm him down. Ten minutes later, when he started crying again, i went back. He said his head still hurt. I checked him for proper pupil dilation, gave him a dose of Tylenol, and put him back to bed. I checked on him twice before I went to sleep, just to make sure he was breathing OK and all that. This morning my boyfriend asked him what happened to his nose.his answer? "I 'bout fall down on toy box". He had gotten out of bed at eleven o'clock to get his guitar out of his toy box and play with it. And then promptly busted himself when he told us how he hurt himself. We laughed about him spilling the beans and let it go. I figured the bump on his nose was punishment enough for that one.
Sigh. At least I know where he is at ten o'clock every night. In another fourteen years I won't even know that much for sure some nights.
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