Bedtime routine

Were you all bombarded with my comments for your posts yesterday? Let me tell you a kutti story (No, I didn’t watch Master movie yet!) I told MTW that the story behind commenting at that unearthly hour is the fodder for my today’s post!

I made a self promise around new year to regulate LHB’s bedtime routine. All our bedtime has gone for a big toss during pandemic time. LHB is the first to sleep at 10:30pm, followed by me around 11pm and Adi’s was the worst. She comes to sleep past midnight. You might be wondering about the 4th person in the house. He hides himself past 8pm. We have no idea when he sleeps but we know that he wakes up to office calls at 5 or 5:30am while we are in deep sleep! In old normal life, LHB’s bedtime was 9pm, followed by Adi and me anytime between 9:30-10pm.

Coming back to the self promise, I wanted to keep it realistic so fixed on 10pm as the cutoff time. We start bedtime routine at 9pm. The boy takes one hour to do all of below

• eat my brain, make me scream to read for 15 minutes (school allocated time for everyday bedtime reading and enter in reading log). But, we do enjoy the read along in between all screams. I think he has developed selective hearing to ignore my screams and continue to talk to me sweetly. Sigghhh!!!
• brush his teeth (without my prompt. it comes naturally for him and makes me proud)
• change to PJs (again eat my brain by bringing down all PJs from the shelf to pick one pair) Shabbhaaa!!!
• play with his remote car
• play his lego blocks (what does he do all afternoon and evening after school? can’t he play at those times?)
• arrange all his plush dolls on either side of the bed as fake Amma and fake Akka to give him company until we actually go to bed!
• And then happens the grand finale! I tuck him to bed! Tucking in involves giving 7 kisses on his cheek/forehead as he is 7 year old and 1 kiss to each of his plush doll and say good night, sleep tight. He will wrap it up with “don’t let the bed bugs bite” and close his eyes…

I secretly love and look forward to this routine as much as I roll my eyes 😀 This is how I unwind my busy day and I prefer to keep it this way as long as it lasts!

My bedtime routine starts after this, that includes

• Go to Kitchen, check if leftovers have made their way to the refrigerator, clean up rest of the kitchen
• Start dish washer if needed for the day
• Come back to bedroom
• Take shower
• Settle down on my rolling bed on the floor in criss cross apple sauce posture with fluffy pillows around.
• Check WhatsApp, make sure all messages are read, replied.
• Plan for next day
  • fix mind on what to cook
  • mental note of important meeting timings
  • do any prep work needed for next day meeting
  • check personal calendar to make note of kid’s classes/specials or any other appointments
• Wrap up volunteering follow ups, initiatives, updates
• Write my blog post for the day
• Catch up on other bloggers post, like, comment
• Do my 10 minute meditation if the time is not 11:30pm by now.
• Replace the fake Amma in bed with my body and try to go to sleep.
• Somedays are lucky as I sleep right away but somedays are not when I toss around for hours!!!

Back to my kutti long story, yesterday night was obviously not the luckiest day. I managed to wrap up all work early and go to bed at 10pm along with LHB. At 11pm, I had a sudden realization in my dream and woke up as I forgot to start the dish washer. I was in double mind for some time and then decided to take care of it. Dragged myself to kitchen, loaded remaining dishes, rearranged the plates, started dish washer and came back to bed at 12am! Lost all my sleep so started catching up on blog reader as I was few days behind! Spent the next one hour in happily commenting on all my favorite bloggers post making sure I caught up on all posts!!! I tried to swipe down reader a few times but no new posts so I had to force shut my eyes and start the routine of twist and turn at 2am!!!

– The End

That’s the little fella with fake Amma and fake Akka on either side!

P.S: Its 11:30pm now and I have to wake up at 6am tomorrow and I didn’t have a proper sleep last night. Life is fun!!!

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