It’s the end of the day, and for the first time since the first child rolled out of bed this morning, it is quiet.
No laughter, no television, no conversation or bickering among the four kids or the sounds of cooking and eating. All the sounds I love and the ones that drive me batty are stilled.
I enjoy the quiet, but I am not a fan of the hour immediately preceding it. Many parents love bedtime and its routines and traditions. Before I had children, I thought I would enjoy bedtime, too. But I don’t.
In fact, I loathe bedtime most nights.
When we had our first child 13 years ago, I had great plans for bedtime. We would read books and listen to lullabies. When he grew older, we would read aloud from chapter books, say the rosary together and have important, sleepy conversations. My boy and his future siblings would drift off feeling calm, loved and treasured.
Instead, my first baby had colic, which meant during the first half of his life, it took hours to get him to stop screaming and pass out for the night.
Once we got past that, he never easily fell asleep. We read and sang and listened to lullabies, had warm baths and filling snacks, laid quietly in the dark or went for stroller walks in the cool air. No matter what, the result was the same: a wide-awake toddler.
I prayed, all right — for patience and the ability to cope while suffering chronic sleep deprivation.
My oldest finally slept through the night at four, more than a year after his younger brother was sleeping solidly from eight to eight.
As we had more children, and as they got older, there was always more to squeeze into that last hour before lights out: a baby to nurse, a toddler to take to the bathroom, school lunches to pack, bedtime snacks to make and eat. There never seemed to be the time or the inclination to regularly fulfil those old dreams of the literary, cuddling bedtimes.
My older children and I started reading a book together at bedtime half a year ago; we’re stuck on chapter six.
Most nights, I spend bed routine basically repeating a litany, “Lunch made? Room clean? Teeth brushed? Love you. Go to bed, go to bed, go to bed!”
Kids always seem to pop up in a room they should not be in, staring with unseeing eyes, not doing the very chore I just instructed them to do.
“What are you doing down here again?” I will ask my daughter.
“I dunno,” she will say blankly.
“Have you brushed your teeth?”
“Ummm, no,” comes the expected reply.
Finger pointed at the stairs, I mouth a silent “Go. Now.”
Once the oldest three are well on their way, it’s time to get my youngest, four-year-old Eddie, to sleep.
If you read my column frequently, you will know Ed is smart and headstrong, devious and charming, and above all funny. On a night when he doesn’t want to go to sleep, he has a thousand techniques to stretch out the agony.
Some recent examples include: hiding under his brother’s bed and pretending to be a Mine Craft zombie; climbing into his sister’s bed and insisting she needs a massage; offering Mom and Dad never-ending kisses and bear hugs; convincing a sibling to allow him to stay the night in their bed, and then being so hyper that he gets turfed after 20 minutes; declaring he is hungry, thirsty, or owie; and deciding he needs to sleep with the one stuffed animal you cannot find (I am convinced he hides these beforehand.)
By the time everyone is asleep, I admit it: I’m feeling frazzled.
So farewell, sweet dream of peaceful bedtimes; but at least all four of them sleep the night now. It only took 13 years.
