I let my guard down...

Okay mommas, have you ever had things going so well with your kiddos that you just took it for granted? Have you ever thought to yourself, "well, we seem to have (insert any random parenting struggle here) under control, so I can cross that off the list..."

only to have it come back to bite you in the slightly-bigger-because-of-way-too-many-christmas-cookies-in-my-house bottom?

Or is it just me?

Since coming home from all of our Christmas gallivanting around, my girls have been ANGELS at bedtime. They have been nice to each other in the bath, had a relatively small splash radius, fully cooperated while getting lotioned-up and donning pajamas, and even let me floss their teeth with little protest. We've read sweet stories together, and then they have had a few moments to read (or in Little Sister's case, make up) books in bed. Then, I'd deliver kisses and tuck them in tight, they sweetly said "goodnight" and that was that.

The other night, Little Sister even said something like, "I love you Mommy. I wish I had you when you were a tiny little baby." I'm pretty sure she meant that she wanted me to be snuggle-sized, to be able to love me and squeeze me and call me George.

So, yeah, I thought I could check bedtime off of the battle list.

I thought wrong.

Last night, all hello-I'm-your-mother-please listen-to-me-before-I-run-screaming-from-your-room-in-horror broke loose.

It all started when I gave in to a tiny little request: to go ahead and give "bedtime smileys" before they were completely merited.

See, every night, we review our behavior charts. I draw faces for things like respect, helping, getting ready in the morning, etc. All smileys in a day earns a star, and a pick from the goody basket. At the end of the week, they also get a small allowance based on the number of smiley faces.

There is one smiley that always waits until the morning: bedtime cooperation. It entails all of those lovely things I said my children were doing so well just a day ago. sigh. It also entails staying in bed all night long except for emergencies (which, by the way, we are still working to define, ahem.) At night, I've been drawing a circle & two eyes, waiting to draw the mouth in the morning when I've had a chance to see all aspects of "bedtime cooperation."

Last night, Big Sister talked me into drawing the smiley before bed. I made a big deal about how I was trusting that the good behavior they've shown me all week was going to continue, and that this was a test to see if we could do this beyond one time, and all that jazz. I'm pretty sure I sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher to them: "wah-wah-wah-wah, wah- wah..." which they translated: pick from the goodie basket and now you're home free to act like crazies for the rest of the night.

Ugh.

The only positive thing I have to say is that when I left them (which may or may not have involved a storming out of sorts, not my proudest moment), they didn't fuss too long before falling asleep. Even if Little Sis had no pillow and was later found sleeping on wadded up blankies.



This morning, they woke up sweet and rested and with some nice snuggles. At breakfast, I apologized for losing my patience. Big Sister replied, "oh no, Mommy. We're the ones who need to apologize."

What a sweetie. Maybe we're figuring this stuff out after all.

Oh, who am I kidding? I'm not going to assume anything is a done deal in mommydom.

Now, excuse me while I referee between a crawling, meowing Big Sis and the Little Sister Elmyra who is currently laying on top of her.

A mommy's work is never done. ;)