We're on Vacation

We went to a wedding in my hometown over Memorial Day weekend. It was the perfect scenario as my parents live there and it was my father's birthday so it was a great chance to see the 'rents, go to the wedding and celebrate dad's big 68. Three birds with one stone - my favorite!

On Friday night we attended the rehearsal dinner and so my parents volunteered for kid duty. I find it hilarious how grandparents do things differently than parents do. As the story was told to me, our 4 1/2 year old daughter did all the regular bedtime things: potty, put on pjs, brush teeth, bedtime story, etc. However, apparently her night did not end there.

The first mistake my parents made was asking her what her bedtime was. To be honest I was beyond surprised she came up with a number that is actually a time. My best guess to her response would have been "twenty eighty" because that is her favorite number, but she confidently told my parents it was at 8:30 since she was on vacation. That is actually an hour later than her real bedtime but not too bad considering she has no idea what time she goes to bed. Lord knows where she got that "on vacation" thing.

A better parent might teach their children their bedtime but I like to keep my options open. On days where my kids are driving me crazy I'm a fan of going with an earlier bedtime (I have been known to put my kids down at 5:15 PM but in my defense it was daylight savings and I got completely confused as to what time it actually was) and on nights when we have friends and their kids over my little monkeys stay up obnoxiously late.

On regular evenings with nothing crazy going on I am kind of a bedtime drill Sargent. In our household the rule is that you have a one-time limit on coming out of your room after bedtime unless there is a true potty emergency (Let me clarify, that is for my children only, my husband is allowed to get out of bed as many times as he wants). I should have relayed that information to my parents because apparently our daughter went over that limit by about 17. The excuses ranged from the mundane of needing water, having to potty again and again and monsters on her ceiling. Up to the more creative, blood on her finger (upon inspection my mother found the smallest of dots that was probably from a marker), sleeping bag was too noisy, shoes were walking around the room by themselves, her eyeballs were itchy and what was the evacuation plan in case of fire?

My parents knew she really needed to get to sleep but they were so impressed with how inventive she was that they anxiously awaited what she would come up with next. About an hour and a half later my father coughed twice to which she softly said, "Poppa, you okay?" and then louder "Poppa are you OKAY?" and after hearing no response she shuffled into their bedroom to ensure that he was in fact not choking. He said "Yes, I am fine honey, thank you" and off she went to bed not to be seen again. That is until she crawled into bed with my husband and me at 5:22 AM to ask why cows are brown. We had gotten home just a few hours before after numerous adult beverages and weren't exactly thrilled to see her sweet face at that early moment. I asked why she didn't wait until the clock had a "7" on it before she came into our room (another one of our rules) and she chuckled and said "Mom, we're on vacation." New rule, next vacation kids aren't invited.