I’m stumbling along, got a cold for a week (on the up side I’ve lost more than 10 pounds), planning what most 37 year old parents of two small children plan for New Years Eve…
“Make sure I’m asleep in bed by 10PM.”
The I hear the fateful words this morning from Lady Chance…
“Sweetie (the four year old), it’s New Year’s Eve…you can stay up as late as you want tonight!”
“REALLY?!?!?!”
“Yep, tomorrow it will be 2005!”
“Yippee!”
Um, honey?
“Oh, don’t worry. She’s never stayed up that late before. She’ll be asleep by ten. We’ll put on some movies and she’ll drift right off.”
Bear in mind her normal bedtime is 7:30.
Picture the kid up watching Kim Possible, Chicken Run, and Darby O’Gill and the Little People until just before midnight.
Where’s Lady Chance? Asleep in her recliner while I’m keeping the kid company. The kid is determined to stay awake.
DOatLP ends and 11:56, coincidentally. We flip to one of the celebration shows. Watch the ball drop and tell the four-year-old Happy New Year and bring her (very) tired body up to bed.
Where are they both now? Both asleep. But our DOGS paid no attention to the alteration in plans and needed to be let out at 7 this morning (an hour later than normal).
The Bricker family is on vacation in the sunny Dominican Republic. Bricker Jr, for those keeping score at home, just turned three in September.
After we got here, we decided we hadn’t brought enough DVDs for him to watch. He’s been into some of the Spanish children’s shows, but he was also asking for some old favorites, so a few days after we got here, we bought him a DVD collection of Arthur shows – on of his faves.
Grrrr. One of the three shows on the Arthur DVD was about New Year’s Eve and the quest to stay up late to see New Year’s in (as well as some of the whacky ideas kids have about what actually happens at the moment of New Years).
Well, my son was an instant convert. He actually asked for ice, so he could practice the technique of staying awake by dropping an ice cube down his back, as demonstrated on the DVD.
Needless to say, he was awake and with us – although a bit intimidated by the explosions here, where fireworks are the norm – for the big moment.
Geeze, guys. All you have to do is have one parent distract them while the other secretely turns the clock ahead now and then. “Gain” a half hour here, twenty minutes there, another half hour… With any due diligence you can get the little’uns into bed and out of of your hair, happy about having seen the new year in, and still have the last two hours of the old year to snuggle with your sweetie.
Heh. My son went on a sleepover years ago to a boy’s home. They were oh, in about the 2nd grade. Maybe 3rd. I go to pick him up the next morning and he’s SO excited.
I put him in the car and look at the little boys mom, who right up until this moment had seemed pretty on the ball. She softly whispered " I turned the clock in the den ahead two hours. They got plenty of sleep, but don’t realize it. "
There’s a smart Mommy.
Last night I had 6 kids sleep over. Mighta run into 13, but some weren’t able to attend. 4 boys crammed into my son’s room and the Fem-Bot and her Fem-Pal in the family room. All either 13 or 14. They had a blast, hung out, played pool, ate junk food, watched the ball drop, shot tons of Silly String around ( I bought 16 cans…heh heh ). Then they were incredibly good about cleaning UP the Silly String before sitting back down to watch more music on the t.v. There’s bits and pieces of it around, a vaccuming will happen when they all go home.
They carried sleeping pads and blankets around, they carried all of the party food back up into the kitchen. Nice, polite, helpful kids. A total success.
I cooked them scratch pancakes with M&M’s in them.
FOr the first time, my 8 and 6 yo kids stayed up, it helped we were at a neighbor’s place. Just a few adult couples and the kids, it helped it was a balmy 49F outside by the bonfire. They were good, played well together and were geeked about staying up till midnight and 2005.
The girls managed to stay awake, helped by the pranks of the 3 Stooges marathon, then we went outside again at 11:59 to light sparklers, and watch some big pyrotechnic explosions goin off at a house across the lake. WOo Hoo.
Sent the kids back inside for a few, adults lost track or time by fire, and at 1 AM the 6 yo was insisting to go home and go to bed.
Had enuff did ya?
The usual early birds rose at the usual hour, the snoozers stayed in bed till oh just a few minutes ago.
JC that seems to be pretty much the standard fare in my house as far as the missus goes as well, but one thing I’m amazed at:
You can get your four-year-old to bed at 7:30?!?!?!?!?!
Holy crap. We have to fight with our three-year-old - kicking and screaming - to bed every night at 10! She’d stay up til midnight if we let her, and we often have to tuck her back in more than once and order her back to bed as it is.
What do you do, sedate the kid? Man, we can’t get a moment’s peace alone because she doesn’t bloody sleep. How do you do it, man?!
