Written by So maybe we should have expected a little crankiness after such a long day…I mean, Cadence spent most of the afternoon, at least 5 hours, running up the hill, sledding down, making snow angels, running up the hill, sledding down, sneaking bites of snow when she thought Stevie and I weren’t looking, running up the hill, sledding down. By the time she finally gave up, coming to terms with the fact that most of the snow had already melted and she was sledding more on grass than anything, she’d come damn close to running a marathon in short bursts up a very steep hill.
So yeah, we were probably playing with fire not making her go to bed early, but she was having fun, playing a little MarioKart, and Stevie and I were in the middle of our nightly clean-up-the-kitchen-and-relax routine. By the time we finally sent Miss C upstairs to get ready for bed, we could tell she was exhausted. And she and Stevie were just two sentences into reading a chapter before bed when Cadence started flipping her Dad some serious attitude and told him defiantly that she didn’t want to read. So, Stevie told her that was fine, it was time for bed, turned off her light, and came back downstairs.
Not five minutes later, Cadence bursts into the living room like she’s auditioning for Days of Lives–tears streaming, begging for a second chance. So we had a little talk about how sometimes we don’t think straight when we’re tired, and how sometimes we make bad choices and have to deal with the consequences, but that tomorrow is a new day and a new chance to make better choices.
And she understood.
She was in bed and asleep soon after, and woke her usual, good-natured self this morning, giving Stevie and I good morning hugs and bounding down the stairs to see what the elves had in store. And this is what she found…
So, we tried again, and it was a good day. And we’ll chalk last night’s dramatic bedtime meltdown up to too late of a bedtime after a day filled with so much fun.
We live and we learn. And we try to do better tomorrow.
Lori Romano 