Bedtime

Our family routine has changed quite a bit since Hank was born. One of the big things to change was John taking over Johnny's bedtime ritual... and boy is it fun to listen to the whole thing go down while I'm putting Hank to sleep. John has WAY more patience than I do, which is why it takes a good hour for John to put Johnny down.

And now, my husband's very first blog post!

Since right before Hank was born I took over the duty of putting Johnny down for bed, at first so Kelly could rest her very pregnant back, then so she could focus on putting Hank to bed.  Albeit sometimes frustrating, I really enjoy closing my evenings with some quality Daddy/Johnny time.  At first things were pretty easy; Kelly had a well established bedtime routine with a bath, bottle and blankee, but once we traded the bottle for a sippy cup full of milk, things got a little sideways...

You see, when Johnny was going to bed with a bottle we would do the bath, a little nakee time, get dressed, read a few stories, turn on Scout, turn off the light and sit down with the bottle.  By the time his bottle was dry Johnny was either asleep or in a sleepy, milk-drunk state in which he could be gently picked up and put to bed with little or no back rubbing.

Now that's all out the window.

I don't know if I can blame it on the sippy cup or Johnny's ever-changing toddler personality, but he is just all over the place at bedtime these days.  He's recently discovered the mirrored closet doors in his room; boy is it ever adorable!  He runs around naked, sticking out/sucking in his belly, making funny faces and giving himself high fives in the mirror.  The toughest part is convincing him to put on a diaper before he pees all over the place.  A few months ago Johnny was such a good deal maker:  "Johnny, if you sit down and put on a diaper I'll read you a book."  These days I spend about fifteen minutes watching him jamming stuffed animals into his crotch and running around with a big smile on his face saying "nooo, noooo!".  In the end he always comes and sits on his diaper, sometimes after faking me out a few times, saying, "Psych!" It can sometimes be frustrating and I would get mad, but he's just so damn cute!