Bedtime, shmedtime...

So I read an online article from "Today's Parent", a Canadian parenting magazine that I stopped reading somewhere around the time the first kid was six months old, because I found it to be filled with idiotic suggestions on how to raise children. It also made me feel somewhat inadequate, since I was quite obviously not parenting the way the magazine and its panel of experts thought I should.

However, once in a while, I would pick up a copy (usually the free one from the doctor's office), open it up to peruse its pages, only to fling it back down again in disgust.

This morning I thought I'd try again.

And once again, I find myself wanting to hurl the magazine through a window (I didn't, what with it being the online version I was reading and not really wanting to damage the laptop).

"Today's Parent" offered up ideas on how to have a calm bedtime routine for families with crazy schedules. The suggestions were things like play for an hour after dinner, bath time, reading with each child for at least half an hour to an hour before turning out the lights and letting the little darlings drift gently into dreamland.

The problem I have with this? They interviewed two families. That's right, two. Deux. Dos. One family had two children, the other? One. Two families witha grand total of three children. The first family's complaint was that it sometimes took two hours to get the children to bed after dinner. The second family was a single mom (whose ex also follows the bedtime routine) of a four year old who doesn't go to sleep until 8:30 or 9 pm.

There are a few things here that make my blood boil. First of all, this article is designed to help make bedtime simple for families where the maximum number of children is two. I have four children. If I was to follow this hare-brained scheme, my children wouldn't be turning the lights out until 10 pm. And what four year old still needs to be awake at 9 pm? I wasn't allowed to stay up that late until I was 16 years old.

The parents of the two children in the article have different parenting styles (so who doesn't?)...the mother likes to have a fashion show with the kids, the dad likes to jump on a trampoline with them to "burn off energy after dinner". Huh? Any exercise expert will tell you that getting your heart rate up doesn't calm you down, it revs you up. And does so for hours afterwards, and that you should not exercise within three hours of going to bed. How on earth does jumping around help calm this guy's kids?

We call after - dinner time around here the "crazy hour". It does not matter whether or not we play calm games with the children (and with four of them between the ages of 4 and 8, no game is ever quiet and gentle), dance 'til our buns fall off or read for two solid hours, after dinner is when the children go nuts.

We accept this. We do not look for solutions to try and change our children. We just look at the clock, mutter a slow countdown under our breath (only 45 more minutes, only 30 more minutes, only...), close their bedroom doors and by 7:30 pm, breathe a giant sigh of relief that we have made it through another day without eating our young.

I blame the children...

So in trying to find my brand new blog this morning, I discovered to my shock that someone else had "stolen" my website! Someone by the name of Melissa (which coincidentally is the name of one of my sisters) had somehow managed to get my "watermelon" name and created her very own blog.

I sat on the couch, blinded with fury. The beginnings of a major temper tantrum began to manifest itself. "How dare she?" I fumed. "It's MY name! She can't just take it!" A few other choice names began to percolate in my brain (I didn't actually spew any of them out, what with a four year old boy sitting peacefully on the couch with me, I do have some semblance of parental judgement).

And then my husband came downstairs and calmly removed the computer from my lap. He stared at the screen for about thirty seconds, then handed the thing back to me and told me to look very carefully at the domain bar (or whatever you call that thing-y)...

It would seem that no one had stolen the "watermelon" site from me. I spelled it wrong when I registered the website.

I have heard many times that women lose brain cells from the moment of conception and continue to do so for two full years (yep, that means until the kid is past his or her first birthday)...since I had four kids in less than four years, I make the claim that I am only now starting to recover a few of those lost cells.

So first, I apologize to this poor girl "Melissa" for accusing her of heinous crimes, and for my inability to type in a simple word correctly, I'm going to blame the children...

The Reason For The Name
"Don't stand on the watermelon."

"I'm not your friend, I'm your mother."

"Tell your therapist when you're older."

"If you wake up dead in the morning, you'll know it was no good."

"You can shoot me later; right now, make your bed."

All things that I have said to my four children at one time or another (although I will admit to the waking up dead thing as having originated from my mother, and completely stealing it for my own purposes).

Yes, I said four. As in double the average number of children per North American family. As in constant chaos and noise. As in being asked whether or not I run a daycare. As in bugged out eyes when I answer that they are all mine. As in having eight arms wrapped around my neck to give me hugs. Four separate little beings who seem to love me no matter what sort of craziness comes from their mother's mouth, or how she strives to maintain some sense of tidiness and order in a house where she is vastly outnumbered by people who don't really care whether or not the floor is clean enough to eat off or if the towels in the bathroom are hanging perfectly on the rack.

Four small humans to whom I have actually had to say, "Don't stand on the watermelon."