My younger child is forever trying to master the many ways to extend his bedtime. He no longer goes with the most popular trends of "I need a drink of water" or "I have to use the bathroom". No, those days are long gone.
His little mind now tries to come up with way more complex issues. Take, for example, the usual school-night excuse. We send him to bed at the same time each night. This always comes as a surprise to him. It's as if each night he is shocked to discover that it is 9:00 and that he is expected to go to sleep in preparation of the next day. This is no exaggeration, the boy is genuinely surprised by this event nightly. So he goes to his room after a long explanation of "Well, how was I supposed to know it was time for bed?" and then closes his door, shuts of the the light and we think we are done.
Wrong.
For 30 minutes, we are subjected to random items moving about in the room and telling him (at first) that it is time for bed. He says "Okay". By the third time, we are now yelling (which he finds upsetting) and his reasoning is that he is cleaning off his bed "Just like you asked me to". I mean, so in his little 8-year old mind, he is just doing what he was told to do. His timing, however, is making us lose our minds! So we yell, he cries and somehow we come off as the villains. "I was just cleaning up like you told me!" with big ole crocodile tears and you just want to wrap him in your arms and tell him that everything that he does is just fine.
Well, I guess that routine has gotten old because he introduced a new one last night. The good news is that it apparently can only be used once. He went to bed at his usual time and about 20 minutes later he came frantically running out of his room rambling on and on about a chemical spill and a clone trooper. He's heavily in to Star Wars right now and while I understand the clone trooper part, I'm more than a little concerned about a chemical spill. "What are you talking about?" I asked. "Well," he began calmly, "I got this glow stick from Colin and Quentin, you know, from their goody bag from their party, you know, the one I didn't go to but they gave me a left over one anyway." YES, YES, I get it, now get to the point! my mind is screaming. "Well," he continues, "I was bending the glow stick back and forth and back and forth, you know, because I don't like sleeping in the dark and well, I had my clone trooper to play with and then the glow stick from Colin and Quentin just broke! All over the clone trooper." Now Frank and I spring in to action and try to find exactly where the chemical spill was, get the boy cleaned up, take the sheets off, I mean, it was not fun. I'm ready to get a Hazmat team in there and the boy is more concerned about his new clone trooper action figure!
There was an eery green glow coming from the bathroom trash pail in the wee hours of the morning. Suffice it to say that glow sticks are now no longer allowed in the house and I think we scared him enough last night that he will be re-plotting his bedtime procedure.
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