You don’t often hear a celebrity talking about some aspect of his or her life and think to yourself, “Man, I sure can relate to that!” So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw this recent clip from the Tonight Show (with new host Jimmy Fallon!!) where Jerry Seinfeld goes off on the utter ridiculousness of his childrens’ bedtime routine. Because bedtime in our house can be described as nothing short of ridiculous too. REE. DICULOUS.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE2MY5v-7Wk]
When the boys were infants it was a quick, easy and painless process that started with a calming bedtime story and ended with 12 glorious hours of child-free bliss. That’s still the case with June, and with the boys we get the twelve hours eventually…but ever since about the ages of two and three we’ve had to work a whole lot harder to get it.
Every night starts off with me and Jake somehow luring them into their room, fulfilling their bizarre and extravagant comforter placement requests, giving hugs and kisses, and heading for the door. And then it begins.
“Say the five things mommy!”
“The what?”
“The five things!!”
I still don’t know exactly where the five things came from, or when they started, but it is basically a weird senseless list of things that somehow our boys have insisted on hearing about not happening every night before they go to bed. They want assurance that nothing on the list will appear, or happen or… I honestly don’t know what, but they are sure about the five things on this list and you better step your game up before you start reciting it because if you stumble or fumble along the way you have to start all over from the top. And at the top of any kids’ bedtime no-no’s list is of course… monsters.
“Ok… no monsters (Ford’s pointer finger pops up), no… (I can literally never remember this one so about 5 seconds in Ford claps his hands together to make a swim-move and lisps me a “ssssss” -“tttttthhhhhh” hint) SNAKES! No snakes (finger “V”)… no crocodiles (duh. three fingers.)… no guys with silly hair (absolutely no clue what the hell this means or how they got added into the mix or, for that matter, what Ford and Cal have against guys with silly hair because umm… have you met their dad?!)… and (four fingers are up now) mommy will come in the middle of the night to give you a kiss and bring you a sip of water (miniature hand with all five fingers extended triumphantly shoots up in the air). At this point a debate ensues about whether or not they want me to come in the middle of the night and what they do or don’t want me to do while I’m there. Ford wants me there. Cal does not. That used to make me sad until I realized that Cal had figured out that on nights I come in the middle of the night I’m not there the next morning (workdays) and on nights I don’t come in the middle of the night (as in before I leave for work at 3am) I’m there in the morning and they get to see me. So forget sad. Now I’m full-on clinically depressed.
After a few flubs and re-takes and re-done recitations Jake and I somehow get them to change the subject to hugs and kisses at which point whichever one of us has gone to say goodnight to a child they have each decided they’d prefer the other parent first. Of course they do. So we switch sides and they try that bull again and this time we’re onto them. We put our foot down. “No… daddy is saying goodnight to you first and mommy will come over after she… (wailing, collapsing noodle bodies, stuffed animals strewn across the room)… ok, I guess that’s it then I guess we’ll just say goodnight now and you can tuck yourselves in.” We both start walking toward the door until they call our bluff. Tears start getting wiped, sniffles ensue…
“Ok I’m ready. I’m ready to say goodnight with nice manners!”
“Are you sure? Because we are only gonna do this one time (HA!)”
“Yes we’re sure…”
No they’re not. They never are sure and they never are ready. And the rest of the process involves at least seven “I have to tell you a secret… I need a drink of water… or my personal favorite… I have to go potty again.” I swear both boys develop simultaneous bladder infections and diarrhea each and every night right at about 7:30. And of course most of the time they go to the bathroom and it’s nothing more than an unproductive trip down the hall. But every now and then… every now and then they’ll surprise you and what would you rather do… take 5 more minutes letting them relieve themselves at bedtime, or spend 25 minutes cleaning and changing sheets in the middle of the night? It’s a lose-lose.
Oh, sweet crib tent, how I miss thee.
At some point during the process Jake or I will tear ourselves away from whichever child we’ve ended on and make it to the doorway. And we will stand there glaring at the back of the head of the other parent who’s still stuck in the grips of the bedtime manipulator like YOU HAD DAMN WELL BETTER REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THIS SITUATION QUICKLY BECAUSE DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD I WORKED TO MAKE IT TO THIS DOORWAY?! At some point finally we both make it to the door and then I kid you not we exchange “Goodnight. I love you”s for at least five minutes straight. That’s with the door opened. When we mercifully get it closed Cal, in particular, insists on hearing us scream “I love you” to him both through the closed door and over the blaring sound machine.
700 hours later we stumble into the living room and talk about how much we hate them and how did we let bedtime get this out of hand and oh my gosh my alarm is going off in like 4 hours for work and I still have to pump and pack up June’s bottles for tomorrow and wash the dishes and…
“ummm… mommy? Daddy?”
An escapee.
“If I turn around and see a little boy out of bed right now there is gonna be a problem.”
“But mommy…” and now there’s a skinny little Superman underpants-clad body leaning into the backs of my legs and reaching up to lightly pat my back with one hand and suck on his favorite finger with the other. “Cal’s sad because he didn’t get to say goodnight and he loves you.” And although that is a big fat bald-faced lie and we all know it we scoop up the one who was brave enough to make it out of the bedroom to help out his bro. And now he’s heavy and long with gangly limbs hanging down way too far from a body that used to fit curled up in my arms that can now barely manage holding him for the 20 feet back to his bed. Back in the room whimpering Cal pops right up as soon as we walk in. “One more hug and a kith?!” he yells and then headlocks me and releases only long enough to give me a kiss that more closely resembles an overly aggressive head-butt. “Bad kith, mom” he announces before pulling me back in to plant a juicy one right smack on my lips. One of those for Jake too and then he plops back down for one simple comforter adjustment, one simple goodnight from the door, and a “thank you Ford” to his brother for having his back. Jake and I stick around long enough to hear the “you’re welcome, Cal” and throw out one more “goodnight boys we love you” on the fly. And then we’re done. For tonight. And ready to do it all again tomorrow.
