If you have children, then you know that bedtime can often be the most challenging time of the day. At our house, after years of trying to figure out what works, we’ve finally gotten into some sort of routine. It doesn’t always work, but it works enough of the time that we keep doing it.
Emma is wonderful about going to bed. We’ll tuck her in and then she’ll read until she’s ready to sleep. Her body seems to know how much sleep it needs because we never have problems waking her up in the morning. In fact, most of the time she will wake herself up.
On the other hand, Alex and Hannah can either be very good about going to bed or very bad. Most nights, we have to get after them a bit to stay in their rooms but it’s generally not too trying of an ordeal. I will say though that Hannah does not like to go to sleep. Even when she was a baby, she wouldn’t nap. She just doesn’t need sleep like her brother and sister do. About a year ago, I figured out if we leave the hall light on and give her a large stack of books that we have a better chance of her staying in bed than if we just tell her to go to sleep. It’s pretty effective and it means no yelling or crying so, like Emma, Hannah will read until she’s ready to sleep.
On a good night, Alex will just go to sleep. Of the three kids, he seems to need his rest the most. Once he is settled down and tucked in, he’ll usually be asleep within a few minutes. Unfortunately, because he goes to bed early, he also wakes up early which creates a whole new set of adventures.
I told you all of that so that I can tell you this…
Last night I was busy watching something on TV with Holly. We told the kids to get into their beds and that we’d be in on the commercial to tuck them in. Alex prefers Holly to tuck him in so that means that I get to tuck in Hannah. As I went into her room, I saw that she had a stack of about 20 books next to her pillow, each of which had a picture of the Cat in the Hat on its spine, and was already immersed in Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman. For those who have not read this literary classic, it follows a confused baby bird who’s been denied the experience of imprinting as he asks cows, planes, and steam shovels the Big Question. (Spoiler alert!) In the end he is happily reunited with his maternal parent in a glorious moment of recognition.
Hannah was only a few pages into the book when I tucked her in but she thought that it would be a good time to take a break and tell me about what she was reading. I thought that she summed it up quite nicely when she said “Hims looking for hims mother, huh Dad.” While this is a simple thing, it pleased me to know that my daughter enjoys fine literature. Now I just need to get her hooked on Green Eggs and Ham and The Poky Little Puppy.
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