Resisting A Rest

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's not Monday yet.  It's called "I'm the Mommy so I make the rules".  Or, you know, poetic license.

Seph is entering a stage where Bedtime has become The Unspeakable Evil, to be avoided at all costs. Her first line of defense is rather benign and consists of her running away from her otherwise beloved princess pajamas, yelling, "Noooo!  I go dwessed!!!"  Then she breaks out the big guns with "I hungwy!!".  It doesn't matter how much she's had to eat for dinner, either.  She turns into a nocturnal Hobbitt and demands "second dinner". This is very distressing to a good Italian mamma like myself, because what if she really is hungry?  The one time I let her "cry it out" on and off for two hours after her bedtime?  She really was hungry.  She plowed through two hard-boiled eggs like a bodybuilder and was out like a light. 

Once I've called her bluff on dinner, she switches tactics and turns to bargaining. All I can think is, her uncle is an attorney, and this is in the genes.  She  must have picked up on my love of reading, because her last line of defense is to lug her giant pink Disney Princess book (a birthday present from the aforementioned uncle) over to me and beg, "A tewwy?  Peeese, a tewwy??"  ("A story, please?  A story?"  Also, I think my spellcheck is going to explode.)

Chef's salad at bedtime, no.  A story?  Very reasonable, so why not?  Why not, indeed.  The stories in the book are a little advanced for her attention span at the moment, but she's a Disney fanatic so I tell her about the characters and the plot, anyway.  Guess which story is in the book?  Sleeping Beauty.  Here's me trying to explain: "This is Princess Aurora.  Her other name is Briar Rose. She's called "Sleeping Beauty because somebody gave her some bad..oh crap, can't say "medicine"...stuff, and it made her go to sleep! Ohh, double crap...I mean, sleeping is good, but not for her, and...hey, let's read Snow White and the Seven Dwarves!  You moron...your child loves apples...you wanna scar her for life??  Oh wait, here's Cinderella instead, let's read that one! 

Seph: (pointing to Evil Stepmother) "Who eez dat?"  Mommy:  That's her evil stepmother, who's mean to her...like you, putting her to bed without eggs...it's not her real mommy, though...oh great, teach her a nice rigid definition of "family"...

Seph: (pointing to Cinderella sweeping the floor) "What doing??" Mommy: She's sweeping the floor, because her stepmother and stepsisters are mean and make her do all the work...oh man, this is so coming back to haunt me the first time I assign her chores...

Luckily, after tonight's storytime fiasco, she decided to be Sleepy instead of Grumpy and went down without a fuss.  Now I'm the one who won't go to bed.  I'm finished writing my "tewwy", so maybe I'll go fix myself a snack. I hungwy.

Now go hug your mommies!