My kids are adorable. Almost perfect perhaps. Now I may be a bit biased since, well....they are my kids. But I come across enough other kids to realize that I am a pretty lucky mom. My kids don’t hit, bite, scream, etc. They are (most of the time) fairly well behaved and polite. In fact today, at a birthday party my daughter actually apologized for being impolite, even though she wasn’t being anything close. Her and her friend were sitting on the floor eating birthday cake and made a bit of a mess. Lily promptly said "I am so sorry! How impolite of me!” Obviously we expect great things from her. Speaking of expecting great things...Caleb has some strong expectations on him. He is a bit of a genius (again, possibly biased) and someday he will for sure win a Nobel Prize....or be living at home till he's 40. We’ll see where it goes. Christian on the other hand is Mr. Independent and will probably end up like his dad, smart, successful and very good at talking his way out of a situation. He’s already practicing now, on me, and doing pretty good. Now this post is not really supposed to be about how amazing my kids are, though I guess when you have such amazing kids it’s hard for any post about them to not turn into a brag fest ;). But let’s bring it down a notch. When it comes to day to day things my kids excel. When it comes to bed-time, they all turn into master manipulators. Anything that can be done to extend play time is done. In fact, they had even suggested CLEANING to get out of bed time (obviously I use this to my advantage as much as possible). So when the teeth are finally brushed and the pajamas are finally on, the game begins. Tonight it was toys. I made the mistake of allowing them all to pick out a stuffed animal before bed. Usually they have a favorite in their bed or nearby but tonight the usual's were nowhere to be seen. I, being the practical mom that I am, said "just pick one that’s in the room and get in bed". They did and I kissed them goodnight and shut the door, quite pleased that I had stopped potential chaos from ensuing. But I was wrong. It took about 20 minutes, but eventually Caleb came downstairs and informed me that the action figure he had picked was "too hard" (go figure). So to avoid any bedtime disruption or tears, I said grab and animal from the toy closet and run back up to bed. BAD IDEA! Pretty soon after, upon hearing that Caleb had been allowed to get an upgraded toy, Lily came down the stairs. She told me that she would rather have a different toy and don’t worry mom! I know just which toy and where it is. Again I relented and Lily got a Barbie (what it is with these kids and plastic toys for cuddling?) Finally Christian made his way downstairs, offended that he had not gotten a new toy. He had also brought along Caleb, who told me that Christian had requested his presence at the toy choosing melee. Kids! So after extending bed time for a good 30 minutes, all kids had the toy of their choice (for now) and were in bed. Now they aren’t sleeping, I can hear their sneaky little voices probably plotting another way to extend bed, but at least they are great kids 99% of the time! So, although bed time is sometimes (i.e. always) stressful, I just have to remember, at least my kids are such a wonderful blessing, and are just fantastic on a regular basis. So here's to children, an incredible blessing from God, an exceptional gift of joy, even if they don’t come with an instruction manual. :)
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