Moms around the world look forward to the setting of the sun and the quiet slumber of night. My children have never been sleepers. None of them. I am not sure how that worked out exactly. They are up with the chickens and none of them slept through the night until, well, I am not sure until when. At some point I didn't care if they woke up at night. J still wakes up every night and doesn't sleep well. S is a night owl and so is H.
For the little three I still have a "bedtime". Lu actually goes to bed well, if we put her down by herself. She is really a crack of dawn riser no matter what but she will also go to sleep at 7:30 or so and often even earlier. When I am on the ball I go upstairs with her before 7 so we can brush teeth, go potty, read stories, say prayers and if it's relatively quiet and no one else is in the room she will go right to sleep.
H and E, not so much. The lighter it is in the evening the harder it is to get them to go to bed. Nonetheless we still try. Usually I can get them into their jammies and into their beds at a reasonable time, then they read. Which is fine. H will often read for hours. E usually hops out of bed a few times to tell me something really important that has happened in his book and to get a drink, or to try and sneak in the covers between BigB and I.
Last night was one of those nights, Big B was working late. Lu was sleeping, I was in my room, H was reading in her bed, S was watching a movie downstairs, J was trying to sleep and E was bouncing around his room. I could hear the bed springs creek and moan as he jumped around, then it would quiet down, then it would start back up, then it would be quiet and I would think "he's sleeping"...then the bouncing would start up again. Finally I went to his room to tell him to go to sleep and he was laying on the floor with a Book of Mormon open and papers spread out around him and he was mapping out Nephite battle strategies. In particular he had a little map of Moroni's attack on the Lamanties. He had Gid and Teonum's armies on the left and right wing circling around and Moroni attacking in the middle overtaking the city. He LOVES battle strategy and spends a lot of time drawing attacks. I am choosing to believe this in normal boy behavior. I guess he'd read, figure out what happened, jump on the bed in excitement (probably while reenacting a battle in his mind) then hop down and draw it out.
I guess if he does that every night for the next 11 years and ends up like a stripling warrior, or Captain Moroni, or Helaman or any of the prophet/warriors that he loves I won't complain about the lack of sleep, or broken beds.
For the little three I still have a "bedtime". Lu actually goes to bed well, if we put her down by herself. She is really a crack of dawn riser no matter what but she will also go to sleep at 7:30 or so and often even earlier. When I am on the ball I go upstairs with her before 7 so we can brush teeth, go potty, read stories, say prayers and if it's relatively quiet and no one else is in the room she will go right to sleep.
H and E, not so much. The lighter it is in the evening the harder it is to get them to go to bed. Nonetheless we still try. Usually I can get them into their jammies and into their beds at a reasonable time, then they read. Which is fine. H will often read for hours. E usually hops out of bed a few times to tell me something really important that has happened in his book and to get a drink, or to try and sneak in the covers between BigB and I.
Last night was one of those nights, Big B was working late. Lu was sleeping, I was in my room, H was reading in her bed, S was watching a movie downstairs, J was trying to sleep and E was bouncing around his room. I could hear the bed springs creek and moan as he jumped around, then it would quiet down, then it would start back up, then it would be quiet and I would think "he's sleeping"...then the bouncing would start up again. Finally I went to his room to tell him to go to sleep and he was laying on the floor with a Book of Mormon open and papers spread out around him and he was mapping out Nephite battle strategies. In particular he had a little map of Moroni's attack on the Lamanties. He had Gid and Teonum's armies on the left and right wing circling around and Moroni attacking in the middle overtaking the city. He LOVES battle strategy and spends a lot of time drawing attacks. I am choosing to believe this in normal boy behavior. I guess he'd read, figure out what happened, jump on the bed in excitement (probably while reenacting a battle in his mind) then hop down and draw it out.
I guess if he does that every night for the next 11 years and ends up like a stripling warrior, or Captain Moroni, or Helaman or any of the prophet/warriors that he loves I won't complain about the lack of sleep, or broken beds.
6 comments:
i wake up at least two times a night, and not just because tatum wakes me up. what is it with our fam?
that is an awesome story! I drove the weblos to twilight camp today and they were talking about the Utzingers and how cool yall were when yall all used to play "killer bunnies" together. LOL
I told my boys about E's "bedtime battles" and you should have seen the wheels start turning in their heads. They got some graph paper notebooks yesterday and have been drawing castles and battles all day. We'll see what they come up with now that I shared your story.
LOVE it!
That's my boy!
~DH
Wow--that is so cool
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