Bedtime

Lately I want to do more daily posts so I can remember little things that will change so quickly or neat things that have happened.

Lately, because of things that have been taught at Cairn Parenting, I've been spending more one-on-one time with Haven and Jozie each night. I used to feel really anxious to check off all the nightly stuff, but now I've just made peace with the fact that I'll spend 20-30 minutes with each of them. I enjoy it more now and am glad I'm doing it. This seems to me to maybe be a parenting secret weapon. I used to have a lot of fear that something would happen to my kids that I couldn't help them overcome, but now that I'm spending this time one-on-one with them very regularly, I don't feel as much fear. I feel like something that's really bothering them would come up pretty quickly and can be overcome.

This is our nightly routine now: we clean up and I get ready for bed, then we have scriptures (the pictures one) and prayer. Then Jozie and Haven give each other hugs, which lately consists of them hugging and falling over and laughing hysterically about it. Then they give each other a kiss, which nowadays means Jozie pretends to be a kitty and gives Haven a big lick up her face. Then Haven hugs Chad and I spend time with Haven.

My time with Haven always goes in the same order, but it will change as she comes up with different stuff she wants to do. Right now, here's what we do: she drinks water from her cup, then she does some tricks for me to watch that are awfully cute. Then I pick her up and we say a prayer (lately with me saying things and her repeating them), then we do a big hug (which means a hug while I've picked her up) and a kiss on the face (which means a kiss on the forehead). Then I stand by her crib and rock her (don't know how much longer I can keep doing that because she's getting big) and we both sing "Rock a Bye Baby." After she's laying in her crib we talk a little bit about what she did that day and then she gets a blanket (usually her froggy fleece blanket from Grandparents Ross and Jan Taylor) and she also gets a little blanket covering her eyes - she says she likes to "hide." Then I sit in her chair and we sing three songs. The first one goes like this: "Mami y papi y Jozie y Haven y Baby Whining (her doll)." Then we pretend to get some cake and we sing "Happy Birthday" and then make eating cake sounds. And last we sing Haven's version of "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam."

Then I spend time with Jozie. Each night she can pick between me reading a book to her or me making up a story and a song. Usually the stories are about a princess and something we make up about her, and then the song is about the story we just told. Then we talk about each others' day, she prays, and we do a hug and a kiss. Lately she wants me to say another prayer to help her be okay with being by herself, and then lately she ends up coming out of her room about a million times. We're trying to figure out what to do about that at the moment.