Bedtime shenanigans

Nana's visit came to an end today. Ella certainly enjoyed having her here, but her 7:30 pm flight departure time meant a break with our normal nightly schedule. Ultimately, after some prevarication, it was decided that Nat would take Katy to the airport to wave goodbye to Nana, while I would take care of Ella's dinner-bathtime-milk-play-reading-bedtime routine.

We find a stringent bedtime routine generally helps with enforcement of bedtime -- Ella knows exactly what is about to happen, so doesn't complain so much when it occurs. And tonight we sailed along pretty well, and I had her bundled her into bed to start reading stories at about the right time.

And that was when we departed from the routine. Firstly, Ella decided that she would read the book, not me. Fine, I thought. She hadn't read this one before, so she made it all up (just happened to be in tune to "two little ducks went out one day", which I thought was pretty cute). Then she started climbing off the bed, and turned around to say "Last story, go to bed NOW" pointing violently at me to accentuate her point. Hmm, perhaps she learnt that one off someone. At this point Ella stormed out of the room, and left me sitting on her bed as she shouted "see you in the morning".

Now, I'm sure a clever parent would have had a great management strategy to cope with this, but I was laughing too hard to think properly. In the end, my plan was to wait in her bedroom for her to come back. After 5 minutes, I gave up and went to look for her in the lounge-room. But she wasn't there. Wasn't in the kitchen either. Then I realised she had completed the role reversal, and was lying in my bed, pretending to be me. She continued the charade -- "back in bed, NOW" she told me, in no uncertain terms.

At this point I had no option; enforced bedtime was all that remained, and in the face of enforcement Ella wilted. We read another book (I read it this time) and the routine was complete. Fingers crossed, she appears to be asleep now ....