Bedtime is the Best Time

Don't you just love bedtime with little ones? Snuggling and reading bedtime stories and giggles and cuddling and hugs and kisses and nursing and the smell of freshly washed little people and kissing clean little toes and... It's all just so precious. Isn't it? Brings back memories, right? Yeah. About that. Doesn't happen that way in my house! The run down this evening... Dinner was on the table by 6. Zach wolfed down his food and a thing of applesauce. Jeff and I both ate heartily. Leftovers of what I had cooked the night before- just some tossed together stuff (ground chuck, green beans, pasta, can of tomato soup, can of cream of mushroom, some milk, some seasonings, dollop of sour cream on top). Teagan... spreads sour cream on her lips like lipstick. Teagan... dances. Teagan... watches TV (the new Electric Company- it sucks). Teagan... complains about green beans. We get to 6:15 and I tell her she has 15 minutes to finish her dinner. She can choose to eat or choose not to eat. She has the opportunity to have a cookie with icing and sprinkles, it is her responsibility to eat her dinner. Choosing not to eat tells me that she doesn't want a cookie. And I keep counting down, minute by minute. We hit 6:27 and the hysterics start. "I want someone to take out de gween beans!" "I don't wanna be hungwy!" "I wanna eat but not the gween beans!" 6:30. Don't ask for whom the bell doth toll... I quietly take her plate and put it in the sink. The real screaming begins. I pick her up and take her to her room. She is red faced, screeching. "BUT I'M HUNGWY! I'M HUNGWY!" I set her on her bed. She is screeching and screaming and hysterical. Get this. I stay TOTALLY calm. I'm still not sure how. She squawks and flaps and screeches and screams and I pick up her toys and get her nightgown and I change her into it. She is fighting me. Screaming at me. And I stay calm. I turn on her night light. She screams. I turn off her light. She screams. I walk out. She screams. I tell Jeff he can be the good guy- he can take her in a piece of bread and a cup of water. He goes in and tells her that Mommy says she can have the bread and water... she apparently SNATCHED it from him and proceeds to shove it down her throat, as though she'd been deprived of food for weeks. And eats less than half of the bread and is done. Potty. Bed. Asleep. Isn't bedtime wonderful?