loving bedtime

You love bedtime, right? 
That quiet part of the evening, where the house becomes quiet. The pitter-patter of little feet, the constant question asking, arguing over a toy, chasing each other through the home, asking for another story to be read, etc... it all stops. I can actually hear myself think during these nighttime hours! Its beautiful. 
I love my kids. You guys know that. But I also love bedtime. 

 Kara isn't a 'fan' of bedtime. She never has been. 
From infancy, she's been our "I'm going to try and stay awake as long as I can", baby. 
She also hates to be alone and hates to be away from Jason and me. 
Even when she's awake, she loves being near at least one of us. 
I sympathize with her, because I was the same way. 
I used to follow my Mom to the bathroom, chatting her ears off about who knows what. 
I hated sleepovers until I was a teenager, because come bedtime, 
I wanted to be in my home, tucked in my bed, down the hall from my parents. 

I'm still a home-body to this day... 
although I moved 2 states away from Mom and Dad, so go figure. 
I guess I followed the leave and cleave verse pretty well ;-) 

 Kara has also, thus far, not been our child who's into books. 
Ethan and Rachel love books. They always have. 
I would sit and read to them when they were babies and they loved it. 
Kara? Not so much. 
She'd shove the book away and want to crawl off and get into something. 
As she got older and more independent, I would get books from the library and try really 
hard to get her 'into' them. But to no avail. 
If she could watch it in a short movie, she would. 
Probably about a year ago, she began to get into books a bit more and then a bit more. 
Jason and I would get super thrilled when we'd look over and find her huddled over a book.
We'd hear her telling her own version of the story, complete with fake voices and everything. 
yay :) 

 So I walked into her room the other night and had to get some pictures of this 
book 'reading' taking place. 
she was lost in this book; had no idea I was even snapping pictures. 
She even raised her eyebrows a couple times and said, "oh, wow!" as if whatever she saw 
suddenly made sense to her and a story was opening up. 

She's almost 3 1/2 and still hates bedtime. 
She doesn't stay in bed very well either. 
We've tried everything. 
We've received lots of good advice for things to try... 
none of them work. 
She comes into our bedroom pretty much every night, asking if she can lay with us. 
We started to think it was because she needed to eat more, sleep less during the day, 
sleep more during the day, have a better bedtime routine, etc... 
because it seemed odd that she really just wanted to lay with us, 
smack in the middle of the night. 
So off I went to California a couple weeks ago, leaving the kids with Daddy. 
About 3 nights into my trip I asked Jason, "is Kara doing okay at night?" 
and he replied with, "Yeah... she's been sleeping in our bed with me and hasn't woken up one 
time in the past 3 nights. She's been sleeping in until at least 9am every morning too." 

DING!!

Yeah, a light went off. For whatever reason, she really does just want to be with us. 
Its been pretty simple all along. I think sometimes I like to complicate things. 
At any rate, she's into books, she's getting better with bedtime, and I wanted to 
capture it on film, before these days are gone and its too late. 




Comments

jillyco said…
Cute! Lizzy was like this a little bit, always wanting to be with us. Sometimes we'd lie on her bed with her at night until she fell asleep. Usually it was Kenny, and he'd fall asleep too. :) She eventually outgrew it...
Stef said…
Yes! We do that too. She still ends up awake around 3am, asking to lay with us. I keep reminding myself she'll outgrow it, because then I realize its a phase to be cherished :)
W and J said…
LOVED this post!! SO very sweet!

E is so very much that same in that he must be near me during the day. But it makes sense since *both* W And I are very much like that. Still, I'm always amazed when I hear about other kids going off and doing their own thing. Probably just since T was born has he even ventured out into another room. Baby steps. ;) At least I know he's not getting into trouble!

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