Bedtime-A Reverse Hostage Situation

Ben and I love to watch Jim Gaffigan.  He's a comedian and he is hilarious.  I know some of his stuff is on Netflix.  He describes having four children like this," Imagine you're drowning and someone hands you a baby."  Sad but true.

Let's see, when I was dreaming about the picture perfect family, before I ever had the picture perfect family I thought a lot about bedtime.

I imagined that all of my freshly bathed littles would crowd around me before bed, I would read them a story and say prayers with them and then I would sweetly tuck them in admiring their sweet slumber....NOT.

Okay, this is how it really goes. After dinner I look at each of my children, size up how dirty they are, think about the next days activities and figure out if there is any way I can get away with not giving them a bath.

Reading, um no.  I will read you 50 books during the day but at bedtime I am done. Done. Done. Done.  Put a fork in me. Not to say I don't sometimes read but I get to pick the book.  There is no way I am risking somebody picking the long book with 100 words on each page.  The more pictures, the better.

Then you have to factor in that each child will come out for some reason at least 2.5 times.  Yesterday to give you an example, Brynn came out to tell me Anna was listening to her iPod under the covers. Caroline came out to tell me Aubrey was stuck between her bed and the wall (background noise Aubs yelling "Help!").  Caroline finally came out for about the 6th time around 9pm crawled up next to her dad on the couch and said, "I'm going to sit here by you and watch TV.  I'm not really tired."

Whack a mole I tell ya.  Just like a game of whack a mole.  It is impossible to win.  Jim Gaffigan describes bedtime as a reverse hostage situation. "Just stay in there.  I will meet any demand.  I'll give you whatever you want, but just stay in there."

Somedays you have to laugh.  What else it there to do?