The filibuster
Our friend Jim has a posting in his blog about his son that I think is really funny. It describes Henry's bedtime routine and includes items like the following:
small sippy cup of milk
read two books
talk "about our days" (otherwise known as "the filibuster")
etc.
I love this idea of the child pre-bedtime filibuster. I certainly have fond memories of my own childhood filibusters, which for me mainly included sneaking a flashlight into my room so I could read with the covers over my head. I think this is something that Devon is cottoning on to, although not in nearly as sophisticated a way as Henry. The last two nights, though, she's deviated from the bedtime routine in a way that makes me think she's trying to extend the ritual as long as possible. Usually we have a bottle of milk (which we very quickly need to transition to a cup, but she's quite fanatic about the bottle at night; we tried for a couple of nights to break her of it, but her will was stronger than ours), read some books, sing the bedtime song (which in her case is Rock a Bye Baby), get in crib. The last couple of evenings she's wanted to get on our bed and then read an additional story or two (effectively doubling her story capacity) and then engage in a little bed play -- crawling around on our bed with me in pursuit, etc. It's all added up to an extension of her bedtime to 8pm, when less than a couple of months ago we were trying to hold the line at 7pm. The advantage to us, however, is that when she goes to sleep around 8 she generally wakes up around 6am, which oftentimes allows us to get a real night's sleep. I'm willing to trade the filibuster for sleeping until 6!
I had the unexpected delight of working at home today, since I realized that I had an entire day of no meetings (a truly rare occurrance at Intuit). Right before I went to pick Devon up from Elaine's daycare, I stopped off at a little store in our neighborhood called One Half. This place is just what it says -- it sells items at half MSRP and usually has nice stashes of books, toys, decorative items (baskets, vases, etc.) and the like. Today was the first day of their 50% off sale, meaning that items are now 1/4 of MSRP. And for a bargain hound like me, it's darn near irrestible. Walt would be horrified to know how much I spent on fancy lotions and hippie cleaning items (they had a stash of Caldera, which is a fancy-pants natural cleaning line carried by Williams-Sonoma, so of couse I had to grab it), so in the name of family peace, I won't say any more on this topic. I did, however, get some great-looking kids books (which honestly are way too old for Devon now, but I am a total sucker for kids' books and just can't resist them -- I keep justifying it by claiming I'm "building her library") and splurged for a rug for her eventual new room. I had to eyeball the rug, but I'm pretty sure it will fit fine -- and the price was great for an all-wool rug (if you missed my first reference to "irrestible" bargains, note the comment a few lines above).
I also picked up 3 very cool hand puppets. Manhattan Toy makes a really wide range of hand puppets with all sorts of characters; today I got a dinosaur, a unicorn and a frog. Walt and I are kind of obsessed with puppets; I think Devon must have about 8 or 10 of them now. I don't honestly know if she likes them at all, but we love them. Maybe it's all of the times I saw The Sound of Music as a child, but I just love the idea of having family puppet shows. She's much too young now to find that interesting, but I'm nurturing ideas of puppet shows a few years down the road...
small sippy cup of milk
read two books
talk "about our days" (otherwise known as "the filibuster")
etc.
I love this idea of the child pre-bedtime filibuster. I certainly have fond memories of my own childhood filibusters, which for me mainly included sneaking a flashlight into my room so I could read with the covers over my head. I think this is something that Devon is cottoning on to, although not in nearly as sophisticated a way as Henry. The last two nights, though, she's deviated from the bedtime routine in a way that makes me think she's trying to extend the ritual as long as possible. Usually we have a bottle of milk (which we very quickly need to transition to a cup, but she's quite fanatic about the bottle at night; we tried for a couple of nights to break her of it, but her will was stronger than ours), read some books, sing the bedtime song (which in her case is Rock a Bye Baby), get in crib. The last couple of evenings she's wanted to get on our bed and then read an additional story or two (effectively doubling her story capacity) and then engage in a little bed play -- crawling around on our bed with me in pursuit, etc. It's all added up to an extension of her bedtime to 8pm, when less than a couple of months ago we were trying to hold the line at 7pm. The advantage to us, however, is that when she goes to sleep around 8 she generally wakes up around 6am, which oftentimes allows us to get a real night's sleep. I'm willing to trade the filibuster for sleeping until 6!
I had the unexpected delight of working at home today, since I realized that I had an entire day of no meetings (a truly rare occurrance at Intuit). Right before I went to pick Devon up from Elaine's daycare, I stopped off at a little store in our neighborhood called One Half. This place is just what it says -- it sells items at half MSRP and usually has nice stashes of books, toys, decorative items (baskets, vases, etc.) and the like. Today was the first day of their 50% off sale, meaning that items are now 1/4 of MSRP. And for a bargain hound like me, it's darn near irrestible. Walt would be horrified to know how much I spent on fancy lotions and hippie cleaning items (they had a stash of Caldera, which is a fancy-pants natural cleaning line carried by Williams-Sonoma, so of couse I had to grab it), so in the name of family peace, I won't say any more on this topic. I did, however, get some great-looking kids books (which honestly are way too old for Devon now, but I am a total sucker for kids' books and just can't resist them -- I keep justifying it by claiming I'm "building her library") and splurged for a rug for her eventual new room. I had to eyeball the rug, but I'm pretty sure it will fit fine -- and the price was great for an all-wool rug (if you missed my first reference to "irrestible" bargains, note the comment a few lines above).
I also picked up 3 very cool hand puppets. Manhattan Toy makes a really wide range of hand puppets with all sorts of characters; today I got a dinosaur, a unicorn and a frog. Walt and I are kind of obsessed with puppets; I think Devon must have about 8 or 10 of them now. I don't honestly know if she likes them at all, but we love them. Maybe it's all of the times I saw The Sound of Music as a child, but I just love the idea of having family puppet shows. She's much too young now to find that interesting, but I'm nurturing ideas of puppet shows a few years down the road...
posted by Devon Szalva at
8:14 PM
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