Mother's Day came early

My Mother's Day present arrived a few days early: Sleep, sweet sleep. You see, no one woke me up last night.

No one under the age of 30, anyway. Josh came in twice before midnight to update me on the Indiana Democratic Primary returns, but 3-year-old Z went to bed without whining, crying or stalling and 9-month-old A slept from 7pm to 5:30am in spite of her runny nose and goopy eye. My inspired parenting skills were partially responsible for Z's bedtime bliss. I explained to her that we were changing the night-night rules so that after two book stories and one made-up story I would be leaving her room and not coming back except to turn off the light and tuck her in. She could read books and sip water as much as she'd like, but she had to get them herself. Furthermore, there were two additional (whine-preemptive) rules so important that I'd written them on a piece of paper and stuck them to her door: "Everyone sleeps in their own bed" and "No monsters allowed."

Z agreed, and when she finally called me upstairs to tuck her in, the pile of books on the floor by her bed was a foot tall. She gave me a kiss and a hug and rolled onto her side, hugging her sleep cloud.

Her sweetness spilled over into the morning, as she ate all her Grape-Nuts, re-read the foot-tall stack of books and stuffed, addressed and stamped some utility bill envelopes I'd saved for her. If this lasts all week, I might be able to stay awake past 10pm on Mother's Day. And that's a gift!

But I still want to be taken out to brunch, okay?

I wrote this post as part of Parent Bloggers Network's Mother's Day Blog Blast, which is sponsored by Johnson's Global Charity Program.