bed time, the new regime
according to my four pol pots, for the past two months there has been a "must read" book that, not surprisingly, must be read every evening right before lovely blankets and right after "i don’t want to go to bed" (another bed time favourite). this classic has captured my four’s hearts. sebastian is wayyyy too old for this book, and doesn’t need to be in the bedroom for reading time, but he likes the atmosphere that descends over the room during this time.
the book is margaret wise brown’s goodnight moon. the kids love the way that every item in the room is identified, and then bid a quiet goodnight. their favourite is "the little old lady, whispering ‘hush’" and they prompt me relentlessly not to forget her. they have asked me what mush is. i have made it for them. they have agreed they do not like it, but for the sake of the story, they pretend they do.
goodnight moon. it wasn’t one of my childhood books, and when i flipped through it, i didn’t see what all the fuss was about. and then i read it to the three, well after a time they could have been hearing it, and the next night they asked for it, and they haven’t stopped since. it entrances them and helps them get into the evening mood.
i don’t think this kick will last forever. it has been two months of "goodnight moon" and i know they were late jumping over this book, but i am grateful they have had this little bit of magic in their lives.
with the addition of goodnight moon came the withdrawl of thumbsucking. magnificent and i agreed that we would let the girls go the summer using their thumbs right before bed, but when we got home we had a talk and i suggested that they don’t use their thumbs anymore. i wasn’t too worried about their teeth, they only suck their thumbs for 10 minutes per day, but if it’s not a big deal now, then why shouldn’t it be a big deal one year from now? stop it now, i figured.
surprisingly, the girls agreed and it has gone well. occasionally i find a thumb in a mouth, and if awake, the perp will drowsily grin and say, "oops!" and pop it out. but overall, they’re reformed. now we just need to work on screaming, getting them to eat vegetables, and all sorts of other things.
last night, after everyone was in bed, magnificent and i spent a good 30 minutes hunting for sebastian’s home reader. we couldn’t find it. it wasn’t in the logical places and it wasn’t in the illogical places. he needed to return it today…where could it be? this morning the hunt re-commenced. at the last minute, i repeated a question that i had asked charles the night before. "do you think sebastian knows where the book is?" magnificent again said, "no". but on a hunch i went to sebastian, who admittedly hates reading and i said, "sebastian, do you know where your home reader is?" and he turned to me, smiled and said, "i put it in a safe place, you stay right here." he trotted away and returned wtih the book.
what is the best way to handle that? do you think his intentions were to be sly? i do, but i am a naturally suspicious and bad person. i have mentioned that we all spent a lot of time hunting for the book (which he may or may not have figured out) and that if he had known we were hunting for it, he should have let me know. do i need to say more? touch on hiding and deception??
