I don’t know what we are going to do with our middle two
fellas. Don’t get me wrong, it is not
that they cannot get along. We have quite
the opposite problem; they get along so well that there are not enough hours in
the day for them to say everything they need to say to each other! Their bond is wonderful and definitely better
than hearing voices raised in sibling rivalry.
Their ongoing discourse has become particularly noticeable at bedtime
when the rest of the house is settling down.
One of our beliefs, that we like to think is important, is the benefit
of a good night’s sleep. This sounds
reasonable and our youngest and oldest have a similar Pavlovian response to
their pillows in that as soon as their heads hit them they are asleep.
The other two share a room by desire and what ensues at
bedtime is nothing short of comical or ridiculous, we are not sure which. Their ritual reminds me of my dog Jack. He used to step into his doggy bed, circle it
three times clockwise, slump the full weight of his body down into the cushions
and then let out a very audible sigh that seemed to say, “What a stressful day
I’ve had. I had better get some rest.” With that his head would flop on his paws and
his heavy lids would give in to the sleep of the righteous. It
takes the middle two at least twelve to fifteen minutes, while talking
non-stop, to ceremoniously peel off five articles of clothing, and that is
counting each sock as a separate item.
These articles are then left wherever they are standing at the time so
unless they are actually standing in or on the dirty laundry hamper, and
weirder things have happened, this twelve to fifteen minutes does not include
their dirty clothes making it to a logical landing place.
Then the ritual of readying their beds begins while they
discuss some other topic that intrigues them.
Both like lots of pillows and fewer covers so what happens next is the
plumping of about five pillows each followed by the careful placement of these
pillows around the tops of their beds, looking something like a trench wall
made of sand bags, and is concluded by pulling a single cover over them. This takes about five minutes and if Dad and
I do not show up within the next two minutes one or the other typically leaps
out of bed to come and remind us that we have not tucked them in yet. Routinely we remind them that we cannot tuck
them in if they are not actually in their beds but the mild sarcasm is usually
dismissed and then we move onto the fake reason that we have to be out of our
beds. This can range from the need to
brush teeth, which should have happened about twenty-five minutes earlier, to
moving a poster from one spot to another because it might fall down and
frighten someone in the middle of the night.
Now that we are out of bed we have to go through the pillow bashing session
again just like Jack circling his basket.
Then the covers are pulled up and we finally get to deliver
goodnight hugs. We are reminded every
night that they like the hallway light left on and we remind them every night
that it can stay on if they settle down and go to sleep. This rarely happens and usually they have
started to chat in stage whispers before we are up the half flight of stairs
that separates us from them. Within ten minutes there are often snorts and
guffaws or if they are seriously discussing something, the constant chatter of
their voices. At this point we turn off
the hallway light as a warning and that serves its purpose for about a
nanosecond before they resume their conversation. From our observations it seems that one or
the other tires and the other keeps on talking for a couple of minutes before realizing
that their audience has fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion. When they do realize they give that big sigh
that Jack used to give and their head finally sinks into the mass of pillows
and their eyelids drop. All chatted out
they can finally have a good night’s sleep…goodnight!
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