Pillow Talk

The nighttime ritual in the Hodge household is fairly sacrosanct.  Dinner, bath time, super bear/monkey, pick socks, pick books, "you stay for a widdo bit",  and "don't shut door/turn off light".  Most of that is fairly self explanatory, "super bear/monkey" is a naked toddler running rampant through the house in his hoodie towel chanting "supah bare" or "supah monkeeee".  Then we pick out our jammies and without fail he always says "OH! Socks." like he forgets every night.  I then get the two fingers and directive "TWO books" and his little butt scampers off to the family library to select the night's selection while his father and I secretly pray for board books or at least something with less than 15 pages.  The newer part and (quite frankly my favorite part) of the ritual is "you stay here for a widdo bit."  As new parent suckers Brian and I were trained by Dex to stay with him until he fell asleep.  This was not a huge deal for the first year or so of his life, however as the bedtime creeped to a later and later hour this started to be an encumbrance to our ability to get ANYTHING accomplished in the evenings.  I finally drew a line in the sand that the child was going to have to figure out how to put himself to sleep.  To Dex's credit, it wasn't that big of a deal; the compromise that was reached is that we would leave his door open and the hallway light on until we he was good and out.  The tiny ritual I have snuck into the middle of all this is that after books, Dex and I lay face to face and he tells me about his day.  It's pretty much the most awesome thing ever.  However, last night mommy was tired and a little disoriented and forgot about that part of the ritual.  What resulted is decidedly a parenting highlight.

We finished the books (Dex sits in my lap) and he crawled to his pillows and laid down; I started to get up and he said "you stay here for a widdo bit"  Which I did, I laid down with my head in my hands and he said "no, you head go down, like me" and he pushed my head with his little hands.  So I giggled and laid down on the pillow; "like this?" I asked and he said "yes, you're a good boy"  Then for fun I didn't say anything and without missing a beat he stroked MY cheek and said "how was you day?"

Good god I love that child.

We then proceeded to have a conversation about how disgusting his "nee nee" is (his little blankie needs a b-a-t-h) in what states all his loved ones live, (Grandpa, Grandma, Jolie -floreeedah, Aunt Worie - Fornia, Mommy, daddy, Jackson, Stammy-Arizoooonuh)  He asked "where you used to wive?" I said "Massachusetts" He said "I don't wanna live there." Heh. His dad would agree. Finally, I told him it was time for bed, to which he replied "okay I ready if you don't turn off the light"

Of course, Dex.  Of course.