Bedtime for two

Sharing a bedroom is the best thing that ever happened to bedtime. I’ll admit that I was a little nervous to put the girls in together—and not just because Miriam has been in our room since birth and I was sad to let her move out, either. Turns out, though, that bedtime has been far less painful the last few nights than it has been the last few years. And I don’t think it’s all jet-lag, either.

Rachel has started asking me to close the door behind me when I leave, which is weird because she always wants the door open. Last night, though, Miriam needed some extra Mommy-time before bed so I took her out and left Rachel alone. And who, do you suppose, screamed for the door to be left open? Rachel.

When I put Miriam back down she fussed for a bit so I walked back to check on her and paused before opening the door. I could hear Rachel frantically trying to soothe her.

“Meme! Meme! Meme! Don’t cry! Meme, I’m here. I’m here. Don’t worry. I’m here, Meme. I’ll always be here for you. See? I’m here.”

It was sweet.

The only downside so far seems to be the fact that both girls are sun-worshippers. They get up with the sun and don’t want to go to bed until it is dark, which would be fine in the winter but it doesn’t get late until nearly 10:00 here and when you’re two years old and are waking up at 6:00 in the morning that is far to late to be going to bed.

Both girls have come down with a cold—I don’t know if it is airplane sickness or climate-adjusting sickness or what—and were up all night so today was fairly painful. I can hardly keep my eyes open.

Rachel was rather emotional around dinnertime (and, you know, before dinnertime, too) so we put her straight into the tub after dinner. She played until I turned off the water and walked out of the bathroom and sat down to finish my dinner. Only then did she inform me that she was finished.

“If I get you out of the tub I’m putting you to bed,” I warned, “So if you want to play you had better do it in the tub.”

“So, I want to go to bed,” she retorted.

Perfect. It was only 7:00 but that was late enough for me. I had been up with children since 5:00 in the morning. Both girls were in bed by 7:20 but they certainly weren’t asleep. Rachel had gotten out of bed to get a book and was reading it to Miriam, who was standing up in her bed. Then there were some personalized lullabies before Rachel started repeating, “Go to sleep! Go to sleep! Go to sleep!”

Shortly after 8:00, though, both girls were soundly asleep.

I’m hoping that even though we put them to bed an hour (or…more…) earlier than they’ve been going to bed that they’ll still just get up at around 6:30.