The Sun has gone to bed…

Two is a difficult age to put to bed.  They’re so wound up all the time, learning so many new things, that they’re just too busy for bed.  It’s hard to believe that each day holds the potential for a toddler to climb new hights (like up the drawer handles in the kitchen to reach the counter — eek!), to say new words (this afternoon, we got sun, mars, saturn, and then later, receipt), and to cuddle each other (we all had a good cuddle when Daddy got back from his trip), when just over two years ago this little guy didn’t even exist!  I often wonder what we did all day back then.  Surely we weren’t this deliriously happy!  Or this deliriously tired … 🙂

Tonight was a difficult bedtime.  We had to go back in and help him settle down. I took it, since Daddy did the first shift.  I sang to him, reassured him, and then I did something new.  He kept pointing to the window and saying “dark!”  He’s been doing this for a few days, now, and I reassure him, and agree that it is dark, and tell him that means it’s bedtime.  Tonight, since he learned “sun” in his books a couple days ago and via a slideshow on Daddy’s screensaver (SOHO pictures!) tonight, I added something.  I agreed with him that the sun was all gone for tonight, but reminded him that the sun will be back in the morning.  In the morning, the sun comes back, and makes it light, and then Mommy will come in and wake Widget up.  We went over it a few times, and since he knows most if not all of the words, I think he got it.  He repeated “sun … all gone.  sun … light … up.”  Not bad.  Actually, more than I expected him to be able to do even two short months ago, when I posted about our three-year-old friend Rhea who knows the planets and can put them (mostly) in order by distance from the sun.  Excellent!

Oh, and the title of this post?  We ended by singing that verse from The Sound of Music.  So long, farewell, auf wiedershen, goodbye … the sun has gone to bed and so must I.”  Corny, perhaps, but it reinforced the lesson.  And he went right to sleep this time.

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