MoseleyWorld

With summer comes daylight saving time. And with the additional hour of sunlight in the evening comes one more excuse for our oldest daughter to not go to bed.

Excuse #27: But the sun is still up.

Samantha and Saxon. 6.8.2009

The list of excuses gets longer and longer. Saxon, who isn’t yet three, is an incredibly good negotiator. With her skills, she may be able to bring peace to the Mideast before she reaches junior high. Here are just a few of the other reasons why it’s not quite time to go to bed.

I’m hungry. I’m really, really hungry. Carey is nearly defenseless on this one. Although she denies it, I’m guessing she was oft forced to go to bed without dinner and is repressing these childhood memories in order to cope on a day-to-day basis.

I want a snack. See above.

I want to watch TV. Well, who doesn’t? But the big people want to watch Weeds and True Blood.

I want to sleep in the big bed.

I need some water.

I want you to cover me up. She does know how to do this, it’s just another excuse to lure me into her room and give her one more opportunity to negotiate her way out of her own personal prison.

I have to go pee pee in the potty. I’m having a hard time with this one since we’re working on transitioning to big girl pants during the day. Just tell her: “oh, it’s dark, pee your pants?” Instead, I’ve resorted to reminding her that she can do it all by herself. After the 9th time she got out of bed in a 30 minute stretch the other night, I said, “Gotta pee pee? Just Go. Go. Go. Go to the bathroom. Goodnight. I love you. Don’t get out of bed again.”

I’m not tired. Or if she’s really tired, she just says, “But I’m too tired to go to bed.”

I brought you this book Daddy. Oh, sure. Instead of watching vampires, I’ll read Horton Hatches an Egg to myself, even though I just read it, aloud to Saxon, two times in a row just thirty minutes earlier.

But my very favorite excuse du jour is:
Look what happened to my nightgown - which is said while walking into the room with one of the shoulder straps undone (one arm in, one arm out).  Saxon says this with a look that ranges from one of curiousness to one of puzzlement, as if to convey, “the strangest thing magically happened to my dress. So strange that I had to come down and show you..oh, hey, by the way, I’m hungry, I wanna watch TV…”

Thank goodness, her baby sister, Samantha, turns into a pumpkin at 1900 hours and practically demands her evening milk, a quick reading of Pat the Bunny and a kiss goodnight.

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Saxon’s pre-school had an end-of-the-year “musical” performance recently. Fortunately, Carey was able to block the date on her calendar. Unfortunately, the kickoff time for the musical extravaganza was right in the middle of an already-scheduled week-long seminar I was attending - in Arlington, which is nowhere close to the neighborhood school.

I had wondered whether it would be a big deal to Saxon whether I was present, but decided I would go. Any questions about the importance, to Saxon, of my being there were answered the second she walked through the door scanning the audience for her parents.

Seeing Saxon’s warm smile while she told her friends, the teacher and anyone who within earshot, “That’s my Daddy,” made me so glad I came. My good friend Gary G, of once told me that being a parent is the greatest thing in the world, but admitted it was difficult to describe.  Well, for me, Saxon’s saying, “That’s my Daddy” would be one of those je ne sais quoi parenting moments and one of those times the love for my daughters wraps itself around me like a warm blanket.

to her friend Quincy, Saxon is saying, “that’s my daddy”