Bedtime at the end of recovery day.

To all outward appearances bedtime has been quiet. There were stories and then the three younger kids all stayed in their beds. More or less. There were long spans of quiet interspersed only occasionally with whispers or quiet singing or the resounding thumps of a child trying to sneak out of bed. The scene appears quiet. This does not change the fact that 90 minutes after I tucked them into bed, knowing that they are all in dire need of sleep, they were still awake. Add to that the fact that Kiki and I can not watch Dr. Who until we’re sure it will not wake up a younger child or cause them to get out of bed and tantrum because they can’t watch too. Add to that the fact that I’m running on only five hours of sleep and I know I need to get up on time in the morning to begin reasserting the normal schedule, so I need to get to bed on time. This means time is running out for me to watch anything at all. All of this leads me to grouch at the kids and bark ridiculous orders like “Go to sleep!” as if the kids could choose to comply rather than having to lay still in the dark and wait for sleep to come to them. The fault is not theirs. Staying up until 1 am then sleeping until 9 has tweaked their biorhythms. I can’t expect to fix that in a single day.

It has been a good day. It really has. None of the tantrums and conflicts I expected showed up. I’m just tired and I can’t be off duty until they are sleeping.

8 thoughts on “Bedtime at the end of recovery day.”

  1. depends on your viewpoint, I guess. There’s some violence and some sexual innuendo and some swearing. There’s not much in the way of gratuitous nudity or explicit “adult” material, from what I remember.

    I’d not object to children watching it, but some parts maight be scary for youngsters. However, Dr Who used to be scary at times when I was a kid – didn’t stop me watching it, though.

    I don’t think it deserves a 15 rating though. PG, maybe. I doubt that young kids would get the various innuendo anyway. But then I’m of the school that would explain things to kids rather than invent untruths to hide facts of life – I realise not all people subscribe to that though.

  2. It’s more the gore than the sex.

    My 13 year old is self-censoring on sex. She thinks it is gross. I’ll start to worry when that changes. Scary is fine. It gives me the opening to discuss the difference between real and fiction.

    Most of the things we watch, I want to see first. Advertisers want my kids’ eyeballs? They’ve got to go through mine first.

  3. Bravo for you on the advertiser monitoring. That’s a major reason we watch our TV shows on DVD.

    I’ve seen Torchwood season one. I won’t be letting my kids see it anytime soon and I probably won’t watch season 2. It has grown-up themes and conflicts which were interesting to watch, but it wasn’t fun in the way that Dr. Who is. I want my escapism to make me happy.

  4. When we moved up here last year we “neglected” to get cable TV. It took the middle child 6 months to realize that. She whined about wanting to watch something or other on Discovery Kids then went and found something else to do and didn’t bring it up again.

    Then we discovered http://www.hulu.com and their Sesame Street channel and Veggie Tales. Did you know there’s a live action Mrs Piggle-Wiggle?! That got the 6 year-old’s attention for about two weeks.

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