Bedtime Rituals

My oldest daughter is notoriously late going to bed; it has always been a challenge. One pet peeve of mine is husband not helping the situation. He likes to use the late hours as bonding time. And guess who gets to deal with over-tired gorilla child the next morning?

The other night, I had said good night to the child in question, and husband laid down with her. Half hour later, he is still there, happily chatting away, and the clock is pushing ten o'clock.

I tell them to wrap it up - she needs her sleep. He finally leaves - fifteen minutes later, to prove a point - by which time I am fuming. His come back was something like, "well, you got ANGRY once when I asked you to leave her room so she could sleep," referring, I think, to once last year when I had actually fallen asleep with her. Good grief. "You are missing the point," I tell him, "it's not a fairness issue, the kid needs to sleep, and you are not helping her by chatting with her for 45 minutes."

He then wanted to discuss this matter - which inevitably means drumming up countless other issues, because if we're talking, why not? I chose to hit the guest room, because that is generally the only way of ducking out of the long, drawn out diatribe surely to follow.

Now, I am supposed to be also writing of the good in our relationship, and I may have something here: Curiously, there is nothing he hates more than me sleeping in the guest room, so for two days he has been pulling out the stops in an effort to appease me. He actually took out the garbage, cleaned up dinner, and didn't begrudge me when I read in front of the fire instead of watch a t.v. program with them. Very strange, unusual behaviour for him. Is this code for "I'm sorry"? Furthermore he readily agreed when I maintained my oldest was to have lights out - and no one in her room - after 9:30 the next night.

And could it also be construed as good that I unofficially accepted this strange apology by sleeping in our bedroom last night? An ever so faint glimmer of hope in this stale, dark tunnel?