Night Time is a pretty crazy, exhausting, and magical time in a house of 15 people. In this post, I'll handle the first half of the night which is the somewhat predictable part. I'll pick up from there in my next post. The entire day usually tends toward the hectic and can often feel like herding cats, but Night Time is special. Days are about accomplishing. They are about staying on track, completing tasks, checking things off the list. There are a certain number of things that must be done everyday and they will inevitably have to be done while at least one of the children has a full blown emotional meltdown, demanding that the entire universe focus all attention on this one thrower of tantrums, complete with gallons of tears and a running nose. Days are about getting through it. Dragging yourself and the crew behind you to the finish line. In our house, days are hard, but Night Time is that time that makes each day worth it. It's the amnesia that makes you forget how much work a big family is.
In our house, Night Time is a rough blend of routine and spontaneity, predictability and surprise. In my reckoning, dinner and the subsequent clean up are the final activities of the day. (For a transcript of an average dinner conversation, please refer to earlier post) Night Time begins each day with the words, "Can we get Little Ones ready for bed?" These words are always spoken by the Mom and they generally set in motion 30-45 minutes of chaos. When these words are spoken, far too many of the children have already mysteriously vanished to unknown reaches of the house, but whoever is in earshot of the decree to "Get Little Ones ready for bed", partake in...
(Please note: For brevity's sake, I've chosen to lay out an evening that does not involve bathing. I'll handle bathing and all of it's adventures and mysteries in another post)
1. The putting on of the Jammies-
This involves catching Isaac, changing his diaper, and engaging him in a full scale debate concerning the virtues of wearing pajamas to bed. Isaac prefers to sleep in nothing but his diaper. Nightly, Isaac's handler will try to put Jammies on Isaac while he thrashes, bites, and scream that he wants to sleep naked. Because we are generally against those who won't stay under warm covers sleeping naked, we force young Isaac into nighttime clothing. Incidentally, once in bed for three minutes, Isaac strips off these garments and throws them on his floor where they will lay until morning at which time they will be picked up put in the dirty clothes and washed. His pajamas literally spend more time in the washing machine than on his body.
Levi, who is seven months old, receives a diaper change and we remove his daytime clothing and replace them with his nighttime clothing, which at his age looks remarkably similar to his daytime clothing. I do not understand this ritual, but I am told that it is essential.
Rebekah and Eve exchange undies for Pull-ups and fortunately, they are capable of clothing themselves for sleep as long as someone stands over them to insure they stay on task. The only snag we generally have from this arena is with Jammie selection. Apparently, Jammies have to match. It is an unheard of sin to wear the shirt of one Jammie outfit with the bottoms of another. I do not understand this logic, but I assume it stems from the same place as putting pajamas on infants who wear pajamas all day.
Grace, oldest of the "Little Ones", is usually downstairs with her older siblings hoping that we forget that she goes to bed with Little Ones for another few months. This generally amounts to her saying, "I haven't brushed my teeth yet" as we are tucking everyone in. I would work to fix this, but as I said, she graduates to being an Older One in a few months and some fights just aren't worth fighting.
2. The Brushing of Teeth-
Levi has but two teeth. We generally allow him to skip this event.
Rebekah has teeth brushing down to a science. She uses a timer. She never forgets the mouth wash. I expect her to become a dentist.
Isaac and Eve are the adventure. First, tooth brushing involves spitting. That's all I have to say about that. Basically we can always count on some combination of the following: crying, tightened lips, biting of the brush, sticking out of the tongue, shaking of the head, laughing, drooling, begging to rinse, escaping, or spitting early. We follow with rinsing and more spitting. I'm thinking of changing the name of the ritual from Brushing Teeth to The Evening Spit. I hope it catches on.
As I've said, Grace won't brush her teeth until later
3. The praying of prayers-
This is where the magic happens. Isaac and I always wrestle a little. Esther scolds me for "getting him all riled up". The girls and I hug and snuggle. I usually do a fair amount of tickling; more riling up. Sometimes we sing goofy songs. Sometimes we read stories. Sometimes we play silly games that we've made up. But always we pray. I pray basically the same prayers every night. You could call it our night time liturgy I guess. For my boys, I pray that they will know that I love them, that they will grow to have integrity, that they will always chase after God, and that they will sleep well. For my girls, I pray that they will always know how much I love them, that they will always know how much their God loves them, that they will always understand how beautiful they are, and that they will sleep well. One night Gracie asked me why I always pray the same thing and my answer to her was that someday I would giver her to a husband and I completely intend to tell him that I have done my very best to make sure that this girl knows the love of a man, the love of her God and that she is beautiful. I will then tell him that that is now his job. I have prayed these prays for years and years and they never get old.
4. The giving of kisses-
We put each kid in their individual bed. We give kisses and hugs and a few love words. There might be a few more tickles if Mom isn't close enough to slap or pinch me for riling them up. We tuck them in, tell them one more time that we love them and turn out the lights.
This all happens twice, in two different rooms. Sometimes, when the day has been unusually hard, we might rush it a bit, but this time is as important to Esther and I as it is to the kids. Nothing sets off the magic of Night Time like the routine of "Getting Little Ones ready for bed".
More to come.
