Bedtime Blues

Amanda and her sister's are training for a 5k this October. As part of this they get together on Sundays at a local park and train. This left me home with the kids last night, but that didn't scare me too much. It's always nice to have a quiet house.

The problem was that Lily seemed to have a mild fever as a leftover from when she was sick over the weekend. We want to make sure she is ready for kindergarten tomorrow, so we figured she should go to bed early. She and I played chess in her bed until it was time for Amanda to leave. Her room is too dangerous for Noah, so I told her that she had to go to sleep while I gave Noah a bath.

Lily decided that she was scared from a movie that she watched over the weekend. Of course, this movie never scared Brenna, but Lily gets scared for unknown reasons (we also realize this is an offshoot from limiting her exposure to TV and movies). She came out while I was bathing Noah and was explaining why she was so scared. We talked about how God is always with her. We went over the meaning of Psalm 23. This was tough because it was tough to sort through how much this was a stall tactic, how much she was really scared, and how much her being sick played into all of this. By this time it was 6:45, so I told her that she had to try until 7:00 to sleep.

She started screaming and crying almost from the moment I closed the door, but she stayed in bed. I got Noah all ready for bed and just as I was about to put him down she came out and declared that she had "throwed up." She had it down her camisole too. Fortunately, she really just dry-heaved because it was mostly clear with a little bit of cookie from dinner in it. I was pretty upset with her because I think that she basically made that happen, though being sick was likely a factor. Still, there were no spankings.

We got her and her carpet cleaned up and then I put her down again. I tried to help her think of some good things to replace the scary movie. I kissed her, closed her door, and went to our room to unpack my bag from the trip.

I had just started to put my shoes away when I heard her yell "Dad!" I came in there expecting the worst, but then she declared, "Dad, I'm OK now. It worked. I'm not thinking about the scary anymore."

So through it all that was a nice way to end. It's nice to see some immediate parenting payoff, especially with Lily.