Complete and utter writers' block/brain failue. Mostly the result of sleep deprivation, which is in turn the result of the extension of Project Night Wean. I feel good about my discipline, though. As I've been, in my day, a bit of a fuckup, and a bit of a mess, I'm a little hung up on providing structure and routine. Also, I'm rebelling against the irreproachably loving and supportive but chaotically bohemian way I was brung up. So I have a bedtime schedule, dammit, and I stick to it, dammit. Anyway, after a couple of nights in a row of Chas falling to sleep sans sucking, I knew we could do it this way from now on.

He lets me know pretty clearly that he's done for the day. Often he'll put his baby doll, Carew*, in the dolly cradle, rocking it back and forth, saying "Seeepy. Seeeeepy." I have to catch him in this stage, not let him get overtired and antsy. We brush our teeth in the bathroom, me holding him up to the mirror, doing our routine:

"Brush the teeth in the front!
Brush the teeth in the back!
Brush the bottom teeth!
Brush the top teeth!
Brush the teeth on the left!
Brush the teeth on the right!
Brush the teeth on the outside!
Brush the teeth on the inside!

Now freestyle! DO WHATEVER YOU WANT!"

Then I change his diaper and we round up the bedtime animals: Little Baabaa, Kitteh, and Koala. Upstairs and into his little blue bed, with still some protests and gesturing at Mummy's big bed. Into pyjamas, and no, we're NOT getting into the big bed, sweetie. We might read a book two or ninety times, Goodnight Moon or The Going to Bed Book.He lies down, cuddles Baabaa with one hand, and I lean over the bed so he can cop a reassuring feel with the other, and I sing him to sleep. His current favourite (Read: only acceptable) bedtime song has both an explicit drug reference AND a questionable racial appelation. Hope he finds a new one before I end up singing it in front of Other Mums.

The whole process can take thirty minutes, or two hours. In some ways, it is a lovely, fleeting, wonderful chapter in my child's life. In other ways, though, it is tiring and tedious and a complete drain.




*Named, by my father, after the baseball player.