Let Sleeping Toddlers Lie

Before I became a mommy I had all these visions in my head of how mommyhood would be.  My children would be helpful and pick up toys to the "Clean Up Song" from Barney.  They would behave swimmingly in restaurants and bedtime would be a sweet routine of bedtime stories and goodnight kisses.

Well, I get kisses and occasionally we get a story read, but beyond that bedtime goes nothing like what I envisioned for so many childless years.

First, I have yet to get my children to go into their rooms, lie in their beds and go to sleep.  I can't even get them to go lie in their bedrooms with me laying down with them.  I say, "Let's go get in your bed and snuggle."  The typical response to this is "Uh uh, in there."  There would be the living room.  Home of Mommy's Chair.  Where most falling asleep happens and the lift off point for 30 some pounds of toddler getting carried to their beds night after night.  

Or, occasionally, we have the "Let'em sleep where they drop" night.  After snuggling on the couch for awhile one wandered across the room 

while the other eventually pushed me off the couch with his feet and toppled over with exhaustion.

I still end up carrying them both to bed.  

At some point we all end up back in the living room anyway.  Even at 2 1/2 years old, sleeping through the night is the exception, not the rule.  And of course when they wander into our room looking for mama, they don't want to get in my bed or lay in their beds, we have to "Get up.  Go in there."