Procrastination

Aiden, at a mere 26 months, has mastered the art of procrastination, particulary at certain times of the day that involve the closing of the eyes and quiet.

Some may call it a "bedtime ritual" but I'm pretty sure in his little mind it's "let-me-see-how-much-I-can-do-before-they-can-plop-me-into-my-bed". When he hears the words "bed" or "sleepies", often he immediately starts pulling out every toy he can get his hands on, particularly the ones that require a lot of clean-up, like legos, blocks and puzzles. This is because he knows his mommy can't handle these messes sitting around for long and so not only will he get to play with them but he'll have to pick them up, too. Not that he in any way enjoys clean-up (although he is improving in this slowly), but time spent cleaning up toys means time spent NOT in his bed and this to him is good. 

After we've settled the toy issue and prevented many a household disaster, there's brushing the teeth. This is somewhat of a sore spot for Jamin and I. I would rather wash the dishes, vacuum the entire house AND scrub out the garbage can than brush that kid's teeth. And I'm pretty sure Jamin would rather clean the gutters and pull the weeds. So when brush-the-teeth time rolls around, we may be seen engaging in a battle of the excuses to determine who can come up with the single best excuse for not being able to brush his teeth that night. I once had to help my sister administer pills to her neighbor's cat. If you've ever done this before you will know that it involves a lot of gagging, salivating, flailing of the tongue and scratching on the cat's part. I won't describe what it involves on the human's part...but I'm sure you can imagine. If you're imagining this, now put Mom or Dad in this setting with a toothbrush instead of a pill and Aiden instead of a cat and you have a pretty good idea what our nightly tooth-brushing ritual is in this house. Sometimes, when I'm really tired, I conveniently forget to brush his teeth, and this brings me great delight.

Reading books is also typically part of the procrastination schedule. We usually try to pick out a few before he gets to the bookshelf on his own and in a matter of minutes has every book on every shelf lying in a smoldering pile in the middle of his bedroom floor. Reading books together is actually one of the funnest activities of the evening, though. He has his favorites and even has some of them memorized so he can fill in the blank if we leave a word out. If we happen to get to the end of the book before he realizes it and has had a chance to slow us down somehow, he immediately says "again". 

After this we pray and put him in his crib. But we're not done yet, oh no, not yet. There's still the song "Aiden-weiss" (Edelweiss with a slight twist) and the kisses and the hugs. He has slowly accumulated more and more stuffed animals into his crib. So now instead of just his bun-bun and his blanket, he has Moose, Bear, Sheep, Roar, Pooh blanket, Eeyore and drink, all of which are "sleepies" and he must tell us so. So it goes a little like this:

Aiden: Bun-bun sleepies.

Me: Yeah? And what about Eeyore?

Aiden: Eeyore sleepies.

Me: Is Roar sleepies?

Aiden: Roar sleepies.

And so on

And today instead of just explaining to me that each individual animal is sleepies he also insisted on giving each hugs and kisses. Oh well, at least he's not throwing them across the room...he waits until the morning to do this.