Bedtime

Our bedtime routine of the moment goes something like this:

After dinner, if there's time, Griffin and Holly have a bath together.  Jai holds Holly while she flips and flops all over the place, Griffin practices cleaning himself, and I try to put some laundry away before Holly falls asleep in our closet.

While I put Holly to sleep, Griffin and Jai head downstairs .  Tonight they played Candyland for the first time.  (It didn't go super well, in terms of actual rule-following, but I think they had fun.)  I come back downstairs and help get Griffin ready for bed, then we head up for stories.  We feed his fish (all 23 of them, and counting), and pick out two stories.  Every night he gets two stories.  One out of bed, and one in.  Then we turn out the light, and I give him a big snuggle and a million kisses, and leave the room.  Jai stays with him for a little longer, depending on how tired he is, and how willing to stay in bed.  Tonight, as I was leaving, I heard Griffin ask, "How come fish can't blink?"  (Whew!  Dodged that one!)  Sounds like a night where I will have time to sit and write a blog post before Jai makes it back downstairs.

Holly is getting to the age now where she will need a new bedtime routine soon.  Right now I nurse her to sleep almost every night, but she is currently waking up five to seven times a night.  So that's not really working any more.  I think she would happily nurse all night long.  We ended up doing the whole "cry it out" thing with Griffin, and it totally worked, although it was very hard to do.  Holly is another story entirely.  She doesn't cry, she stands at the end of her crib, and SHRIEKS her little head off.  Sounds that a human being should not be able to make - especially one that is so small.  More thought is needed on this subject.

Usually, if Jai doesn't fall asleep trying to put Griffin to sleep, we have time for one t.v. show before we go to bed, too.  I try and do something with my hands while we watch t.v.  Sometimes I sketch in my sketchbook, sometimes I do some needlefelting, once in a while I pick up some knitting.  Some nights I don't have it in me by the end of the day.  Lately I have been spending too much time on Etsy, daydreaming of all the wonderful toys I would like to buy my children.  Mostly, I ignore the mess.