Other People's Kids

A Nice Attempt

Last night I flew solo with "Angel", The Wife having kidnapped "Josie" and taken her to town to do a bunch of shopping. Divide and conquer, as they say. It's just as well...I'm not much for shopping and am most useful for hauling the stuff into the house after the trip anyway.

When I do bedtime, it's usually more...final than when The Wife does it. There is usually less screaming, less tests to see if somebody will really come flying at her to swoop her into bed again if she opens her bedroom door, and generally just less trouble. She has to get used to The Wife doing it as well, but last night she should have known better.

She didn't.

We went through the whole regular routine, getting into jammies, brushing teeth, storytime. Then bedtime prayers ("talking to Jesus"), a hug and kiss, and finally pretending to reach for the light, at which she says loudly "PeePee!". This is every night folks. Part of the routine.

Then the last PeePee, and the usual reluctant perp walk back into the bedroom. At this point she unexpectedly stopped. This was not part of the routine. I waited. She turned around and faced me, looked up coyly, smiled, actually batted her eyes at me and queried: "PeePee?"

Yeah, girl. Good luck with that.

But now I knew I was in for it. I don't know how, but I absolutely knew if I didn't handle this right there would be holy hell to pay.

"You just went, now get into bed."

Way wrong answer, dude. The siren went off. I scooped up the siren, deposited it in bed, managed to silence it a moment with a firm kiss on the lips and left the siren wailing in bed while I finally shut out the light and closed the door, diminishing the volume somewhat.

I then went into the other room to wait it out while waiting to do my duty by the grocery and other bags when my other two ladies got home.

15 minutes or so. Longer than usual these days, but not all that long compared to what I remember a few weeks back. Ladies and gentlemen, slowly but surely progress is being made.

And now I must go and help get ready for guests. The public celebration of "Angel's" fourth birthday begins in a couple of hours. The "Princess" party favors, food, grill and assorted other tasks await.

posted by Dan @ 7:23 AM