The Time Being Silly Came Back to Lick Me

The boys have been licking my face lately, and I only have one person to blame…. Me. It’s amazing how many “good ideas” can backfire on a person!

The kids are all supposed to be in bed at 7:30pm. Most nights Lily is in bed a few minutes before that (because she’s being destructive and un-doing all of the boys’ hard clean-up work, and the crib is the only place she can’t be super destructive in) and the boys generally don’t have their lights turned off until more like 7:40.

Oftentimes, by the end of the day, Nick and I (but especially me) have lost our tolerance for any and all bedtime shenanigans. We’re just not in the mood for tantrums and foolishness! Most nights, I let Nick handle bedtime duties for the kids. Because he’s working during the day, morning and evening are his only chance to hang with the kiddos, so it seems only fair he have the privilege of wrestling kids into jammies and beds. Right? 😉

Now 80% of the time, the boys go to bed fairly easily. There might be a little silliness, and it might be somewhat irritating to two parents who are ready to be off the clock, but it’s nothing a stern “get back in bed” doesn’t remedy. The other 20% of the time can be filled with either boys giggling hysterically and egging each other on, or someone having an epic meltdown. On the night I made my licking error, it was a meltdown night.

Ty was flipping out about something. Who knows what – it’s usually something ridiculous like suddenly being unable to pull a blanket on top of himself, or a brother has touched him, or he can’t find one of his stuffed animals, or any other random things that he’s perfectly capable of handling himself. Whatever the issue was, we were now well past 8pm and our patience was really wearing thin.

As he came running down the hallway, completely hysterical, I told him he needed to go back to bed or I would turn into a bear, and he didn’t want to see that. He ran crying back into their bedroom and I stood quietly in the hallway to see if he’d come back.

As I stood there, I thought to myself “You just said you were going to turn into a bear, Helen. That probably wasn’t wise. Now what kind of bear will you be? Should you go the mean bear route, or should you roar and run after him and be silly? Being silly might diffuse the situation…. I’ll go with silly.”

Guess what? He started to come out the door again.

I said “That’s it! I’m now a bear!” and went roaring down the hallway at him.

He ran into his bedroom, part terrified, part laughing.

I grabbed him and roared “I’m a bear now! Get into your bed!”

He laugh/cried that he just wanted a hug and a kiss, so I said….

“Here’s a big bear hug (tight squeeze) and a big bear kiss (and I licked his face).”

Yep. I did.

By now he was laughing hysterically, which was a huge improvement over the crying hysterically, and his brothers now wanted big bear hugs and bear kisses. So I obliged.

Do you see where this is headed?

I now keep getting bear kisses from the boys. So gross!

And that, my friends, is how being silly came back to lick me.