Tipping Point

I'm experiencing a bit of post-holiday blues. Brian has been home since early Wednesday afternoon. It's lovely to have him around, really. I get to sleep in (or at least take a mostly uninterrupted nap). I get to actually accomplish, from start to finish, simple household tasks. It's a little slice of heaven.

Now it's back to the grind. Mondays are our heaviest day of activity. Jeremy has OT and Speech, Bekah has dance and I spent two hours in the van or sweating my tookus off at the dance studio. It's good for Doug, though, because he ends up taking a nice, long nap.

Today was a lot of fun. I actually channeled my mom today. It was a perfect summer day for playing in the pool. There was no reason to sit in the A/C and I gave my kids an option--nap or play outside. For them, it was a no-brainer. I will say, though, that Bekah tried some pretty tough negotiations. I was a brick wall, but a lesser man would have crumbled.

I put Doug down for a nap and then I fiddled on the computer for a while. I could hear the big kids playing in the pool and they were having a blast. I finally went to lie down and texted Brian, asking him to wake me an hour later.

I found out, when I was awakened, that the kids had played in the pool for almost two hours. Brian had joined them and had managed to wear himself out. We were starting to reach the tipping point, I realized.

There is a sweet spot, in parenting, where you try to maximize your kids energy expenditure while not wearing yourself out so much that you can't guide them to bed. I spend a lot of time trying to wear my kids out. I am finding that water leverages the expenditure. If my kids are in water, they are going to play just as hard as when they are on dry land. The bonus is that they are using more energy than they realize! Awesome!

The problem is that you can't see the fruits of your labor until bedtime. For us, bedtime is a special kind of crazy. It starts with the initial shock of having to go to bed. Our kids have been put to bed every night they've been outside my womb. Every night, though, there is shock and consternation that they are being asked to end their day.

I think Gru says it best, in Despicable Me. There is a scene where he is putting the girls to bed. They are still full of energy and bouncing around the room. Gru is trying to coax them them into bed. They exclaim, "but we're not tired," to which he responds, "well, I'm tired." And that's the point of bedtime. The parents have come to the part of the day where their compassion, their patience and their sanity has evaporated. There was a tiny bit left after dinner but it disappears in a puff of smoke.

Typically, Brian puts the kids to bed. They all go upstairs together, brush their teeth and watch a couple of kids shows. Doug gets put in his crib and the big kids get tucked into their beds. We have Jeremy, who needs to have 18 blankets on top of him (it's part of his sensory concerns). Bekah has one blanket. I've even stopped tucking them in because they spend the next half an hour acting out any of a number of Nick Jr. shows. Then, after that, starts the parade downstairs. Mostly, it's Jeremy, telling us his sister has fallen asleep. He likes to come downstairs and snuggle on the couch with us. It actually helps him a bit because he gets the compression he needs from wedging in between us and the couch.

Bekah will sometimes make appearances too. She uses her most pathetic voice to convey how awful it is that we're imposing a barbaric construct like bedtime on her. She begs and pleads with us to let her stay with us, downstairs.

So it's not always immediately evident that you hit the sweet spot of activity. It's a delayed response, but it's so blissful. Like tonight. I played with the kids in the pool, too. I had a sense that just the small amount of activity would help get them over the edge.

And I was right. 9 PM, I'm working out and I see Brian turn the corner from the stairs. Usually, there is a bevy of sounds that follows him (the sounds of live-action Nick Jr.). Tonight? Silence. We had no visitors, we had no pleas for freedom, no snuggling, no protracted negotiations. Just me and Brian, working out and enjoying the 10 o'clock news.

I must remember to use water more often!!