My Drunk Little Baby

We have a great bedtime routine, Ryder and I. If there is one thing that I am absolutely proud of, and believe me- it really might be only one thing- besides the fact that he's cute- is the fact that he goes to bed always between 9 and 10pm. No ifs, ands, or butts about it. Not only that, he's been sleeping in his crib since he turned 6 months, alone- in his own room, in his own crib. That's a HUGE deal. And it sucked transitioning him, but we did it. And he's such a good bed time boy.

Our routine is as follows:

1. We sing the song that Izzy taught us while cleaning the family room of his mess. It goes something like this: "Clean up, clean up, everybody do their share", for about 200 times. He runs around the room, picks up his cars, his books, his blocks, his teddy bears, his balls, his puzzle pieces, his animals from the animal farm, his pots and pans, his flash cards, and trains.

2. I get a bottle ready. He looks for his magic blanket with his hands in the "where is" position.

3. Bottle is ready, magic blanket is found, and he runs to my husband to give him a hug and kiss good night. He runs to me, pointing to his bottle.

4. I scoop him up with one arm. We waves good bye to daddy, the ceiling fan, Blue, the couch, the door, the mirror, the hall lights, the palm tree in our living room, the teddy bear on the floor beside it. He turns off the hall light.

5. We go into the room, he shuts the door, turns off the light, and we sit in the rocker, and he gulps his bottle. He then reaches for the crib, I put him down, he looks up, and then puts his head down, and I sneak out saying "good night".

Step 5 was what was funny tonight. He was DRUNK. He was milk drunk, play ground drunk, happy bath drunk, you-didn't-use-the-bulb-syringe-on-me-tonight drunk (he's had a runny nose over the last week). He finished his bottle, and looked at me with half closed eyes...put his head down on my shoulder and decided he wasn't comfortable.

He slid off of me onto the floor, and seriously tried to shake himself out of his drunken state. But that didn't happen. He literally stumbled all the way over to the door- all off balanced, eyes half closed, magic blanket dragging, knees bent, and tried to open it!! He realized that he couldn't open the door, and at this point I'm laughing my ass off..and I'm saying, "Ryder, it's time for bed!". He looks again at me with his eyes half closed, and bends his knees, falls to the floor with his butt up in the air, and is trying to make himself comfortable on the hardwood floor. Like he just couldn't even handle how high he was from this fun day....he wasn't even cranky tired, he was just drunk happy. And sleepy.

I picked him up, placed him in his crib, gave him a kiss, and he sank right into his crib.

The books that I've read on raising toddlers have mentioned that from 18 months on- they begin to test your patience and limits to the point where you want to go running and screaming from the house. But then they do one thing...just one thing that makes toddlers what they are..and you're in love...

I'm just going to try and enjoy this time with my little toddler- because he'll never be a toddler again. And he's really just getting into it...I've thought that he was a toddler 8 months ago when he started walking.

But no, NOW he is.