It used to be that every night, all four of my kids would call to me after having gotten in bed, “Mom, will you come lay with me?” (Yeah, it should be lie with me, but who cares?) And this became a real problem because lying with all four of them for a period of time every night meant that I got no time to myself, which I desperately needed and wanted at the end of each day. So at some point, I came up with a solution that was probably inspired by a tradition Sarah has with her kids. I assigned each kid one night of the week. Now, on his/her night, each kid gets to have me lie with them and do whatever it is they want to do while we lie together in bed.
At the beginning, Danin always wanted me to sing to her. During my time with her on “her nights” I sang to and taught her that old country song called Johnny’s Daddy (Is that what it’s called?) She loved it and learned it quickly. Then she and I started watching videos from Les Mis (the movie and the play) on YouTube and she started learning the songs from watching them so many times. That was how I introduced her to Les Mis. Usually, now, she just likes to read to me or have me read to her.
Most of the time on her night, Janey reads to me, too. She’s a great reader, that girl. And now, she has me rub her back with her little purple back-rubbing tool while she reads. It’s fun to get little snippets of the books she’s reading.
Camp ALWAYS takes advantage of his night by asking me to rub his back. He knows I cannot say no when it is his night. And he is picky. He tells me exactly where to put my hands and where and how to push and apply pressure. He looooovvvveeess to have his back rubbed, popped and stood on. Sometimes I wonder if something did happen to his back that day when he fell out of our second story 12th street window. Hmm. And he talks, too. He’s a talker like me and I love it. During our time together on his nights, I have often asked him if he likes a girl yet and if he has any more hair in his armpits. 🙂
And Skip. My baby. On his nights, we snuggle up close and give each other butterfly kisses. I read to him a lot. Many times I ask him if he wants me to sing to him and he usually says no. He asks a lot of questions about what things mean and what is real. (Isn’t it interesting how kids always go through a phase of trying to figure out what is “real”?) Tonight he asked me why Jesus is in Heaven and how he died and why the guys killed him. He told me that he never hears God talk and I told him that Heavenly Father and Jesus speak to us through the Holy Ghost. I told him that when I yell at the kids and am mean, Heavenly Father tells the Holy Ghost to whisper to me, Stop yelling. He asked what the Holy Ghost is and I told him the Holy Ghost is a spirit–a person without a body. Tonight I also reminded Skip that on Saturday he will get to go to Noah’s birthday party. I asked him if he plays with Noah at school and he said he does. I then reminded him that every time I have previously asked him who he plays with at school, he has told me, nobody. He laughed and told me he likes to tell lies.