Losing the Bedtime Battle

Bedtime is by far my  least favorite part of the day for many reasons.  Andy doesn't have a normal 9-5 job where he is home every night to help get the kids ready for and put them to bed.  No, I have to do all of it on my own EVERY weeknight.  By the end of the week, my patience begins to wear thin and I've had it with the bedtime battles.  I've been battling the girls since Sonya was born, pretty much.  


Sonya is much better now, but she went through a period of being up for half an hour to an hour after I put her to bed at night.  There would be requests for more water, going to the bathroom, being too hot, being to cold, wanting to read a book again, whatever she could think of.  Then she got older, stopped napping and now is usually out within five minutes of going to bed.  


Then there is Lana. (I think I say that phrase a lot don't I? "Then there is Lana".  Well she is usually her own category.)  She is the General of the bedtime wars.  Nobody could give more of a hassle than Lana.  Similar things were requested, water, bathroom, books, then she added her own flair: wanting to be covered up again (after kicking the covers off herself), wanting me to sing to her, or lay with her, or tell her a story.  Sometimes I obliged, sometimes not, depending on how late it was.  When these antics were still going on until almost TEN at night, we decided maybe Lana shouldn't have a nap anymore.  Now, thankfully,  bedtime is a breeze with her too.  She is out like a light by 7:30 every night.  


So I figured we'd taken care of the problem.  Lana was the one keeping Georgia up so late and now everyone should be asleep by 8pm with no battles, right?  RIGHT?!  Yeah... no.


Apparently, Georgia has taken over where the other two left off.  She does still nap.  She's not even  three yet, so I refuse to let her give up her nap completely.  Plus we tried that this weekend, and by Sunday at 5pm, we had an extremely, whiny, crying mess of a Georgia on our hands, and she's usually, the easy sweet one.  So now I have her up with me until around 8:15.  I figure that's enough time to get her a bit more tired and for the other two to be asleep completely. But no, because by 8:55 last night I was still fielding bathroom requests from her.  


Now, I'm sure some of you are wondering why I don't ignore them when all this is going on. The truth is, I would love to and if we lived in a big two story house, where I didn't have to hear such requests, I would.  Unfortunately, we live in southern California, in a house built in the '40s.  That means our house is fairly small and their bedrooms are fifteen feet from the kitchen and living room.  This makes it kinda hard for us to ignore them and vise versa.  They know we are here and doing things, so why not get our attention since they're not tired and bored.  


I finally got Georgia back into bed, somewhere around 9pm.   I was getting a bit frustrated with her and just wanted peace at some point in my night.  As I was saying goodnight for the fifteenth time and walking out the door she said something to me, I didn't hear.  I poked my head back in, exasperated, and said,


"What Georgia?  What is it?"


She pulled her thumb out of her mouth and said to me, "You da best mommy in da whole worl!"


Awwwww!  I know!  But,  why did she have say that for, because now I felt terrible about my frustrations with her.  Dammit!  


Fine, Georgia,  you can stay up until 11.