My bedtime routine

(Daily prompt from The Creative Notebook)

My evenings are full and fast.  My oldest disembarks from the bus around 4:40 p.m.  We come home, he plays for half an hour and then we wrestle over homework while I try to make dinner and keep the younger two somewhat appeased.  Dinner is generally at 6 p.m.  Kids' bath times start around 7 p.m. - Jeremy handles those when he's home while I clean up the kitchen.  I put Adelaide down between 7:30 and 8, while Jeremy puts the boys down at the same time after bath.  Once Adelaide is down and the boys are in their beds, I sing to Graham while stroking his head, then rub Gideon's back for a few minutes.  Hopefully, all of the dishes have been done by this point, so I can plop myself down on the couch and laugh at a favorite show or two with Jeremy.

I head upstairs around 9:30 for my bath (not shower); I like to read in the bathtub.  I push through brushing teeth and taking vitamins afterwards, then slide into bed and read until my eyes can't stay open anymore, which is about 5 minutes.  I turn out the light and usually slide off into sleep effortlessly - these days, I can't tell you what runs through my mind after the light goes off.  Not much.  The restlessness usually comes later in the night, after a baby feeding, when I worry about the oldest's attention span and social development and curse myself for yelling too much the day before.

The nights are pretty routine and set in stone, even if they are still overfilled with yelling on my part.  The mornings continue to be a challenge.