My children are very, very different.
“It’s time for bed,” I say to the 5-year-old Butterfly.
“I’m not tired,” she says.
“But you will be in the morning when you need to get up,” I reply, “so now it’s time for bed.”
“Okay, Daddy,” she says.
She hops into bed, kisses me goodnight, pulls the covers over her head, and closes her eyes. I turn off her light and shut her door.
About an hour later, I hear noises coming from her room. I open the door just in time to spy the Butterfly hurriedly cram some chocolate (which she had been hiding in various nooks in her room) before jumping back into bed, trying (woefully unsuccessfully) to pretend to have been sleeping the whole time.
“It’s time for bed,” I say to the 9-year-old Ladybug.
“Oh no!” she cries. “I finished my reading homework, but I forgot to do the character map for it!”
“You can finish it up tomorrow morning,” I offer, “but now it’s time for bed.”
“Okay, Daddy,”
She hops into bed, kisses me goodnight, pulls the covers over her head, and closes her eyes. I turn off her light and shut her door.
About an hour later, I hear noises coming from her room. I open the door to find the Ladybug at her desk busily writing a note, a completed character map next to her. “I was going to slide this under you door,” she says glumly as she hands me the note, before crawling back into bed.
It reads:
Daddy,
I couldn’t fall asleep because I was so worried about not getting done with the character map, so I got up and finished it and went back to bed.
Then I couldn’t fall asleep because I thought that you would be disappointed if you found out that I got up after bedtime, so I am writing this apology note.
I’m sorry I got out of bed to do homework after bedtime.
Love, Ladybug
So there you have it. Both of my daughters break the rules about bedtime, one of them to sneak candy and the other to do homework.
Yay! I was the good girl, still breaking the rules!