Bedtime

One of my favorite times of the day with little man is bedtime. We have finally gotten such a great routine down that even I love the consistency and calmness of this time of night. It seems that with summer has come even later bedtimes. The fact that the sun is out longer, the nights are gorgeous and I just can't get enough of spending time with our fun little guy definitely doesn't help any.

Our normal bedtime is around 8:30pm to 9pm, but lately it seems we're not settling him down until 9:30pm. I don't like putting him to bed so late, but by the time I get home from work, we have dinner - or better yet he eats while I watch him toss food from his highchair to the dog - and then we play, go for a walk, take a bath...it's already 9pm.  Nick made a comment to me the other day, that really made me think broke my heart and it was something along the lines of "when you think about it, you really only get a couple hours with Cruz a day on work days. 2 1/2 to 3 max. Wow, that's crazy."  That is crazy. And sad. But true.

Three hours out of twenty-four.

Generally, I'm long gone before our sweet boy has even thought about opening his gorgeous blue eyes for the day. Depending on the day, I don't get home until 6pm and that is the earliest. No wonder I soak up every minute we have together on our days off. I can't get enough of him.

I think that is the reason I adore our bedtime routine so much. It's the time in the day where it's just him and me. Mama and my babe.

Here is what it looks like:
I say, "let's go pick out books to read before night night." He yells, "boots, boots!" Then proceeds to walk around the living room to say good night to dada, Maya, his tractors and his baseballs before he will walk into his bedroom.

Once in his room, I shut the door and Cruz walks over to his Offi dog light to switch it on while I shut off the overhead light and sit in the rocking chair. Then he makes sure his Mobi nightlight is turned on across the room and hits the button to start his dehumidifier. (I never realized how much he picked up by watching us until one night he started doing this on his own.) Then he walks over to his bookshelf and starts browsing through the books, pulling some out, deciding he doesn't want those and pushing them back into their place.

He will bring a book over to me and then walk back to the bookshelf until I ask him to come back to read with me. He will look over his shoulder and say, "one moh?"  How can I not give into that? "Yes, one more," I tell him. He grabs another book, hands it to me, climbs up on my lap and snuggles in while I wrap his baseball blanket around him. We read through the books, while he adds his commentary and makes me laugh, then I lean over and turn off his Offi dog light and tell him it's time to 'rock-a-bye.' He shifts to wrap his arm around my waist and we cuddle while I sing - yes, I sing (sorry buddy, I know it's not pretty) - either Rock-A-Bye Baby or You Are My Sunshine. I ask him if he has his eyes closed and he will reach up and touch my eyes and say "mama eyes closed?"

After some more rocking, he will be close enough to sleep that I will put him into his crib, cover him up and then he gets a good night from each of his stuffed animals - Wally the Wolf (from our Great Wolf Lodge vacay), Owlie the Owl (been part of his nursery since before he was born) and then I will tuck a Mickey Mouse and Spike, his shark from the zoo, under his arms, blow him kisses and close his door.

If we are lucky, he will go right to sleep.

Well...this is a much, much more detailed description of our bedtime routine, but what can I say? Once I got started, I just wanted to write it all out, so I would remember exactly how amazing this time is. Lord knows, it will only go so quickly.