Rock-A-Bye Baby

A few years ago after spending the day covering John Rocker, the Atlanta Brave’s pitcher with “sensitivity” issues, I turned to my cameraman and asked, “So you going home now?” It was about 7:30pm and I assumed he was eager to get home to his three young children.

“Nah,” he answered, “I usually wait ‘til all the bedtime stuff is done.” He detailed the never-ending rituals of bath, teeth, toilet, books, water, etc. I thought about his poor wife and his apparent dereliction of duty. I did not have kids then.

Now tonight I find myself at 10:00pm crammed in a 3x5 toddler bed with a child on my right, a child on my left, a computer on my lap and a cramp in my leg growing in intensity. It is my version of a compromise (don’t ask).

The child on the left is reading Junie B.Jones and the Yucky Blucky Fruitcake in what I can only describe as “total darkness” while the one on my right has finally passed out – something she should have done hours and hours ago based on last night’s excruciatingly prolonged 11pm lights-out.

I know we’re technically on vacation but bedtimes in our house have become tortuous. I’m talking bamboo-under-the-nails tortuous (no disrespect intended). Take now for example with this so-called-compromise. My daughter who has just finished Junie B. Jones is shining a flashlight in my eyes and writing in her diary. “What’s the date?” she asks. “Choke it out. Don’t be shy.”

I try the following tactic which I read in a magazine and which seemed to make sense when I read it in the quiet of some doctor’s office. “This is my time. Mommy time. It’s after nine. I’m done for the night -- unless it’s an emergency, like blood, or vomit, or fractures.”

It’s not working. In fact, it worked only once—probably because it was so new. Somehow, pretty quickly, both kids discovered the loophole, the Achilles heel. You see, no matter how much I tell them they have to get 10 hours of sleep to grow, to learn, to play, to have adventures, no matter how frustrated I get and demand the right to have my own time, they know deep down that I love this time with them. I love the fact my own Junie B. has somehow stumbled on a pencil sharpener in the dark and is sharpening a red pencil asking me, “Is this Verizon wireless?”

I love the fact that just before she passed out the little one said, “Mommy’s doing something. Don’t bother her” even though she is usually the architect of the mayhem and couldn’t care less whether I’m actually doing anything. I love the laughter and the silliness and the joy that is always so pure when they’re in bed at the end of the day. And I especially love knowing that my little one has fallen asleep because I’m smushed next to her, leg cramp and all, and that the older one will drift off any minute.

The truth is I know they should be asleep by 8pm. Every night I vow I will make that happen and that tomorrow will be different. But secretly I would miss this. And not-so-secretly, they know it.