Bedtime

I had to make an important decision last night, go to cubbies or don't go to cubbies. Now, I certainly don't go to cubbies for my benefit (although the Bible Study for parents is great) and if I never mentioned cubbies on any given Wednesday Miss M wouldn't remember herself. But once the word cubbies is spoken into our day, the countdown is on. So yesterday morning as we ate breakfast and went through all we would be doing for the day, of course I mentioned cubbies. You would think by now I would have learned, don't mention anything to small children until 15 seconds before you arrive, begin, etc. Nope, haven't learned.

Here is where the debate arose...Miss M has been "cranky" for a few days, maybe even a week or so. Since JB had a few sick days I was writing some of it off as, maybe she doesn't quite feel well. But the sassy mouth was really getting out of control so I had to consider the big picture. Am I just getting lazy with discipline (always a possibility), is she sick (she sure seems fine when we play outside), is this a 'fun' sassy stage (beginning to think girls live in a perpetual sassy stage) or is there something else contributing. As I evaluated the last few weeks I realized we had gotten really lax on bedtime. It started ever so innocently and then just snowballed into nights that she wasn't going down until 8:30/9 pm. That is very late for a child who spent the first four years of her life going to bed promptly at 7 pm every night!!

I could list a thousand excuses but you already know them all, you've probably said them yourself about some area of your parenting that you aren't happy with (or am I the only 'bad mommy'??? that thought does cross my mind occasionally). The bottom line is I think she is over tired and I have to address it. At the same time we began getting lax on bedtime she decided she was about done with naps--double whammy!

That all being said, we stayed home last night from cubbies. Miss M put up a small stink about missing cubbies but it was quickly forgotten when I said we could go outside and use the new "bubble gun". Situaltion averted! JB was in bed by 7:15 and Miss M by 7:30. Both went down without a peep and slept through until morning. The obnoxiously early time my children wake up is a whole different blog topic...we won't go there today! I noticed a nice difference as soon as they woke up today, clearly they got out of bed well rested! Hope we can keep this up, I do like having my evenings back :) I even had a chance to eat some ice cream, with sprinkles of course!