Bedtime for Lexa

I punch my time card as soon as the kids go to bed. Clocked out. Checked out. What have you.

By the time they have been gently tucked away, prayed with, and read to, along with all manner of other night-time rituals, I am exhausted, and pretty much done for the night. This means that I don't typically do very well when they get up after they are supposed to be in bed. (And when I say, "I don't do very well," what I really mean is that I'm not very nice. At all.) 

Such was the case last night when Alexa got back up after an already particularly lengthy putting-to-bed process. (And after I had already let her stay up way past her bedtime to reenact the Nativity Story for me with the Little People toys, unhindered by the creative differences of her sisters.)

She walked in the office, and I looked at her and all I said was, "No." (Well, my mouth said "no." My brain said, "Aauugghh! Go back to bed where I just put you! I just spent the last 14 hours with you and I'm tired, tired, tired!) She proceeded to tell me that she was scared, so I suggested that she open the door to the bathroom (where the light was already on) even wider, and that she could also open the door out to the hall. (And then my brain begged her to please please please go back to bed where she belonged so that I could have a complete thought to myself and a moment of absolute silence for the first time that day.)

Then she confessed. "Well, it's not really about the light. It's just that I want to stay up and eat ice cream and watch TV." (My mouth stayed serious. But my brain laughed and laughed.)

What does she think this is, Bedtime for Frances? (A favorite childhood story in which Frances the Badger keeps getting out of bed because she's scared of different things in her room, and her parents finally let her stay up and eat cake with them before sending her happily back to bed.) One problem: I am not Frances the Badger's nice mommy. And Alexa is not Frances the Badger.

Quickly running out of patience, I told her that that would not be happening, that she had already had dessert and stayed up very late, and that this was Mommy's time for herself and that she needed to high-tail it back to bed before I told Daddy she was still up. (Daddy is notorious for taking toys away from Little Girls Who Don't Listen.) Lexa got a scared look on her face and started to slink out of the room. As she was leaving, she held up her hand to the side of her mouth and said, "If Daddy comes in here, tell him you were talking to yourself."

I didn't see her again for the rest of the night.

She is my favorite 4-year-old. But I tell you, that favorite status expires every night at 8:30.