Occasionally, in our house, bedtime just goes bad. The kids delay, fuss, whine, and refuse to listen, and at the end of a long day it's enough for me to lose my cool. Tonight was one of those nights.
Every night each of the kids gets to pick one book to be read, and once they're in bed they each get a song. They love this part of the routine, I love this part of the routine, but sadly it's also the only thing motivating enough to threaten (somehow "behave or you can't brush your teeth!" just never seems to work), and sometimes, like tonight, they lose some or all of it.
So, Zach had just lost his story, and rather than quickly shape up so as to not lose the song, like his sister did, he chose to hit me instead. Bad move. He was lucky, I was patient tonight and actually paused to warn him that hitting would land him in his bed without the song. He didn't seem to care, and hit me again. So into his bed he went. Light off. Door closed. Commence screaming. I let it go for two minutes and then went in to calm him down. Once the crying stopped I sat him on the bed and reviewed the situation, explaining again why he would not be getting songs. I told him that even though I love singing to him, he needed to learn that not listening, and hitting result in losing the things that he loves. He sat there for a minute and considered what I said. Then he looked right in my eyes and said, "Well, I can't respect that."
Sadly for Zach, not respecting my decision did not earn him the song back. But we're both looking forward to a lovely ballad tomorrow night.
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