Sunday Nights
Any excuse will do when it comes to going to bed.
One day I will have a night where my writing is not interrupted by a small person.
Tonight is not one of those nights.
We had an early dinner, so there should be no excuse. By 6pm tonight we were ahead of schedule. All she had to do was bath and bed. Easy, yes?
It’s now 9:15 9:30pm and she’s still up.
For those that are not keeping score, that’s 3.5 hours of going to bed.
3.5 hours is a long time - with good traffic, I could go to Toronto for a coffee and come back in less time.
Tonight’s excuses or stall tactics include:
A fashion show of her new outfit she got today to wear for thanksgiving.
The snack. OMG the snack. Then she won’t eat the snack unless I sit beside her. So I sit and wait, and remind her again and again that the point of the snack is to eat and not fart around with whatever it is you have in your hand that’s not an orange slice.
We have a routine where we look at some old photos. Photos of the day we call it. This takes about five minutes. I’m okay with this. After this, this should be the end of it. It is not the end of it.
Now we’re at me saying “okgoodnightiloveyou” and I go shower. Afterwards, I’m getting dressed and I’m still in my birthday suit in the bedroom with the door closed when both the dog and the child - who have been nowhere to be found until I’m naked - needs me at the same time and right now. “Give me a minute so I can get dressed!”, I yell as I block the door with my foot. It turns out that she needs technical support because her little story box thing isn’t plugged in right, and at this point I don’t care what the dog wants.
I hear thumping and she’s in her chair at her desk rocking in the chair and not sleeping. Strike 2, (or 3, I lost count)
I make coffee, go downstairs and fold one more load of laundry and then I get 3 words into writing this and I hear a little voice behind me: “I’m scared”, she tells me. “You’re not scared, mommy is in the next room over and I am downstairs directly under you and the dog …nevermind, I have no idea where the dog is”
I tuck her in for the last time and I pull out a flashlight that’s getting shone everywhere it doesn’t need to be shone - and then I remove an empty paper towel roll thats being used as a weapon or instrument - I’m not sure which.
For what I hope is the last time, I tuck her in and tell her there’s nothing to be scared of and that I’m downstairs and mommy is next door and so on. By the time I finish, she is ignoring me completely and singing christmas carols at fuill volume.
Good. This means she’s so delierious with lack of sleep that it should come soon.
I hope. I’ve managed to get this far with this post without interruption so I’m calling that a win.
Good night, Sunday Night.
TH and Co.