Bedtime Last Night.

I have finally reached a time when my kids go to bed fairly easily. After years of playing whack-the-gopher (That one is down, this one pops up) at bedtime, my kids have finally learned to go to bed and stay there. So last night was highly annoying when Kiki and Link each got out of bed multiple times. Sometimes they didn’t even come to where I was, I could just hear the thump-thumping (Pitter-pat? get real.) of little feet up and down the stairs. I figured that all the out-of-bed was because they were wanting to watch more of Howard-playing-Fable. They’d been watching when I declared bedtime. I trudged myself upstairs a couple of times for warnings and revocations of Fable-watching priveledges. Each warning came with an increasing degree of displeasure/anger. Each time I returned downstairs where I was watching Howard play Fable. (Not fair, I know, but I’m the grown-up and need less sleep than they do.)

Then I heard it. thump-thump-thump-Thump-Thump-Thump A child had come down the stairs into the kitchen. Mad, I launched myself off the couch and ran for the stairs to the kitchen hoping to catch a child in obvious violation of Stay-In-Bed. The child heard me coming THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP the little feet made a fast retreat upstairs to the bedroom. I jogged after and entered the room to find Kiki in bed and Link’s bed empty. What I did not find was Link. I looked in all the corners of the room. Asked Kiki if she knew where he was, she said she didn’t. Then, thinking he might have taken refuge in one of the other bedrooms I searched them. Still no Link. I called for him repeatedly, getting madder and madder at his non-response. I knew he was some where he could hear me and he was HIDING FROM ME. 5 minutes of searching had me back in his bedroom ready to turn the place upside down. Link sensed that Mommy’s anger was reaching a very serious stage and decided it was better to appear. He crawled out of the cubby-hole by Kiki’s bed. He’d hidden and she’d lied. I was boiling. They got a full volume scolding. Howard heard it and added his clout to mine. Then with a command to STAY-IN-BED-OR-ELSE we left the room. I was so mad I was shaking.

As expected, 10 minutes later Kiki called out to me in tears. She had spent the time feeling the weight of her “sins” and wanted to appologize and make things right. Link did as well. As usual, honest appologies from the kids was the perfect solvent for my anger. We had hugs and talked through honesty and repentence and how to make things right when you’ve done something wrong. And I learned the whole story.

It turns out that Kiki and Link had been trying to sneak oranges from the kitchen. Chalain and Chaliren had given us some wonderful clementine oranges which the kids loved. Link was hungry and didn’t think I’d let him out of bed for an extra snack, so they made a plan to sneak oranges to their room and eat them. (Food in the bedroom is verboten.) They had quite an elaborate little plan which included several reconaissance missions before the actual sneak attempt. Part of me is pleased that they are capable of working and planning together to get things they want. I’m even more pleased that they chose confession and absolution rather than forever keeping hidden the fact that they were trying to break several rules in one go. Mostly I just laugh in my head, all that frustration and upset over oranges.

They didn’t get oranges, but they did get some cheese so they wouldn’t go to sleep hungry. Even more important we had a really good shared learning experience about crime, guilt, punishment, forgivness, and redemption.