The Daily Grind, and Our Crazy Bedtime Routine
I’ll start of this post by that great saying ‘The days are long but the years short.” – that pretty much sums up my life as a parent to a preschooler and a toddler! Luckily, i spent most of my time at work, and not with my children. Wait, did i just say that? LOL. That could be construed the wrong way. But anyway, lets face it, i’m just being real. Parenting is tough and a full-time job you need to be fully committed to with no monetary pay. (though hugs, kisses, and ‘i love you’s’ are priceless of course!)
So – the Daily Grind … wake up, dress yourself, dress your kids, pack my lunch, back the kids’ bags, make a morning snack, drive to daycare, drop kids off, drive to work (i.e. practice choreography), work 8 hours (eat lunch at my desk), drive back to daycare, go home, cook dinner for adults, cook dinner for children (sometimes separate dinners for melanie and vincent, even), bathe the kids, do the bedtime routine, and on some nights i have to teach at the gym, so then i’m there until late in the night. PHEW! Repeat. The bedtime routine! It is always an evolving beast. So i wanted to catalog what it is at this point in time. I think the children really enjoy it, but it really is probably way too long of a routine.
First after dinner, on most nights we will do a “dance party” where we put on  youtube on the tv and watch silly videos like stuff from Pancake Manor (Shake Break, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Happy and You Know it), Crazy Frog dance video, Happy by Pharell, … well here i’ll just link to our playlist!
Then it is bath time. Up until recently, this was father’s job. But as the routine got longer and longer, and i had to jet out of the house by 7:45 on work nights, i tasked Jeff to finish bedtime routine and i’d sneak out of the house at bath time. WELL my daughter is just way to smart and she figured this out, and didn’t like it one bit. So she started INSISTING that i give her a bath every night or total meltdown. So, now it’s my job to … basically do everything the house! SIGH! LOL, anyway i digress, Jeff helps out a lot of course 🙂 Back to the routine… so i wash both kids, dry off both kids, put on PJs, brush teeth, read books, play ring around the rosie, jump on mommy and daddy’s king size bed (we just bought a few months ago!), play horse race on mommy’s legs, play hide-and-go-seek, gather all the stuffed animals and sing a lullaby, say good night to daddy/vinny, turn out the lights, sing another song – now usually hoky-poky or thumb kin, tuck in all Melanie’s friends in her crib, get her all her blankies, her pacifier (yep still into that), and say GOODNIGHT.
At this time, Vincent’s probably playing 10 minutes of iPad and sometimes he will get read to… Pretty much Vinny gets tucked in by Jeff every night, so i’m not certain on the routine for him, but its pretty much just a battle of if he plays his iPad or which books he gets to read (if its his pick or daddy’s pick when he takes too long), and then, getting his piggy ice and cold water, and saying his “prayers” to all the people who love him.
That’s it! That’s the bedtime routine.
*EDIT Feb 27, 2016* Funny thing is it always evolves. When I originally drafted this post a month ago, and re-read it today, it’s changed. We now do a “shoulder ride” – i put Melanie on my shoulders, and then Dad puts Vinny on his shoulders and we go around the house. We also play “lion/dinosaur” with the themed towels and the kids go “peep” and eat worms. LOL. So weird. But the kids just love it.