Sleeping, goofy, singing child...much better than the punkass I had in his body this morning.

* Sometimes, you just need to tell your kid to "go the F*^# to sleep, you obviously need the sleep". Today was that day.

   It started with Nixon coming over to me, with his water bottle, and saying "It's empty, this is not right!". I looked right at him and said "Excuse me?", to his credit he quickly changed his tune "May I have more flavor water please?". I told him I'd be happy to get him water, but he needed to apologize first, because his first way of asking for water was rude and very disrespectful to me. He said "I'm not sorry!" and stormed to the stairs. He immediately came back over to me, I'm expecting an apology from my sweet and loving baby boy, instead I get: "I said do it now!"
    Nope, sorry son, it's time for you to go lie down because you have obviously just lost your damned mind!

   We got upstairs and I snuggled with him. I told him I still love him, I'll always love him, but he can't be rude and demanding to me like that. It's just not okay. Sometimes we just need to rest and reset our mood.
   He and I napped together in the spare bedroom, because Mac was still sleeping for the day in our bed. When he woke up....whole new mood!

* Nixon is making up silly songs. He made one up tonight about Daddy.

About last night....

* Nixon got a whole bunch of "new-to-him" toys. He also got new organizational groups for all his toys. Yeah, I'm OCD like that. Because these new-to-him toys had been stored in a shed for a while, we needed to clean them first. They were cleaned in the bathtub and then drying. Nixon was coming down frequently to tell me  "Mommy, I think they're dry now".

* Nixon was showered, dressed, teeth brushed and in bed before 9pm last night. So why were Mac and I still trying to get him to fall asleep well after 1030pm? That's a good question! We were trying everything. At first we were lying on the floor of his room, with him in his bed. Then we moved to our bed, where Nixon and I were cuddling and Mac fell asleep. I sang to Nixon his Baby Song, and then told him the story of how I made up the Baby Song. Still he wasn't falling asleep.
   Finally, I resorted to trying quasi-hypnotic sleeping techniques. I had him lay his head on my chest, right over my heart and focus on listening to my heartbeat. When he was calm and focused, I added deep breathing. When he was doing good with that I asked him if he felt his eyelids getting heavy? He was really getting deep and sleepy, and everything was pointing to him finally falling asleep (this was around 11pm now). I moved him to his bedroom and went downstairs.
   Less than ten minutes later, Nixon was slowly coming sneaking down the stairs. Mac caught him and he went back to bed. I checked on him about 20 minutes later and he was FINALLY asleep.

   The lesson?? Hypnosis is not a successful way to get your stubborn child to fall asleep

Arwen photobombed Nixon's picture last night.