What she says....The goose

Tonight we put Meredith to bed with the usual ritual. Bath, brushing teeth, pottying, reading books, singing the goodnight song, prayers, and finally without any more procrastinating bed time. The last couple of nights we have been letting her keep her lamp on to read books in her bed. The child LOVES to read. She has memorized every book we have and if you didn't know better you would think she was reading them and not repeating them from memory.

She also got a Tag from Leapfrog for Christmas. I know it is for ages 4-7, but she loves it and is good at it. And she plays with it for at least an hour everyday and would read all night long with it in her bed until she passed out from sheer exhaustion.

So because she will read in the dark if we turn out the light I decided to give her 15-20 minutes of alone reading time before we say "lights out" and have added that into the night time ritual. She is thrilled with this new privilege and hasn't abused it yet. Here is what happened tonight when Josh tucked her in.

8:15 p.m.
"You can read for a few minutes and then I will turn your light off"

"Okay dad"

tag reading a mile a minute

9:00
tag still reading a mile a minute

"Bug, your light is still on?"

"Daddy said it could stay on"

"Oh well it's time to go to bed, we have to turn it off"

"No mommy, daddy said it could stay on all night."

"I see, well I'm going to go talk to daddy and see what's going on"

I then started walking out the room with the lamp still on and the tag still reading a mile a minute.

"Mommy are you gonna get daddy's goose?"

"Yes, I most definitely am going to get daddy's goose for this"

9:10pm

"Did you tell Meredith she could keep her lamp on all night"

"No, I told her 5 minutes"

"When?"

"Like an hour ago....did you turn it off?"

"No, I told her 5 more minutes, I'm going to let you be the bad guy"

9:25pm

"Honey you have to go up there and be the bad guy now"

"I know, I'm on my way"

9:30m

"So I turned it off"

"uh-hm"

"Yeah she wanted to know if you got my goose and then I told her good nigh and turned off the light"

"Well done sweetheart"