Bedtime Cuteness

Our bedtime routine has been pretty much the same since I stopped breastfeeding Brendan. So we've done the same stuff for about 9 months now (wow, that's really hard to believe!). I change Brendan's diaper, put on his pajamas, we go upstairs and brush his teeth, we go in his room, he flips through his books while I set up his room (turn off light/turn on lamp and closet light, turn on fan for noise, and plug in vaporizer), we read his books, and then I sing/rock him to sleep.

When I put on his pajamas, he almost always runs over to the stairs. I always have to tell him to go tell Daddy goodnight and give him a kiss. Usually I end up having to take him to Daddy. I let him crawl up the stairs which usually takes forever cause he pauses to wave at Daddy a few times. Now he goes straight to his bathroom when I say let's brush your teeth. I used to have to brush his teeth for him (which is quite a challenge!) but now he does it himself. And he hands the toothbrush to me to rinse off when he's done. It's funny because he really chews on the brush more than actual brushing.

He also now goes straight to his room when I say let's go read your books. This is where the cuteness is adorable. We have about 12 books up there that we rotate through 4 at a time. 4 is a good length and we're talking mostly short board books. I've discovered that when I get bored of a group, Brendan usually is too. I also recently started being a little more interactive when I read his books. There's one book that talks about taking a bath when getting ready for bed and it says "with soap all over, scrub, scrub, scrub" and I'll rub Brendan's belly when I read that part. In the last month or so, Brendan has started doing the motions with me! It's adorable. I think one of my favorites to read to him is a book called In the Jungle. It's a book Brent bought at a book fair they had up at the hospital. There's a different animal on each page and it either tells the sound they make or an action that they do. On one of the pages there is a Rhinocerous and it says "it charges fast with it's strong horn, thuddery thud" and I always make a motion with my arm like I'm running. Brendan started doing that the other night! He really loves that book. Not sure which is his favorite though. Here are the books (that I can remember) that we rotate through:
Goodnight Moon
A book about Thumper... can't remember the name
The Going to Bed Book
Moo, Baa, La La La! (This one and the bedtime one are both by Sandra Boynton whom I highly recommend! We also have her Fifteen Animals book which reminds me very much of Dr. Seuss's Too Many Daves.)
My Dog Clifford (I think that's the name)
The Hungry Catepillar
The Busy Spider (Brendan really hasn't seemed interested in these Eric Carle books.)
In the Jungle
Eight Silly Monkeys (He loves this one too!)
We have another bedtime book that has animals with fur to touch, can't remember the name.
Guess How Much I Love You (Again, not interested at all)
Hey Diddle Diddle (He loves this one, probably cause I sing the song when we get to the last page)

That's all I can remember for now! The Fifteen Animals book I mentioned resides downstairs for daytime reading along with Eating (a free board book we got from the pedi's office), a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse book that's just like the episodes (it has a wheel to turn to choose a Mouseketool), Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do You Hear (another Eric Carle book, but he likes this one), and I'm pretty sure there's one more but I can't remember what it is.

I think Brendan has gotten bored of my lullabies though :-( Last week when I didn't have a voice from being sick, I couldn't sing to him. He seemed to go to sleep much easier when I didn't sing. I don't know why I do everything in fours but I sing 4 lullabies too. Maybe I'm overdoing things?! Lol. I sing All the Pretty Horses, Edelweiss (this was my lullaby, need to do a separate blog post about this song cause I think it really has some neat parent/child symbolism), Down in the Valley (my Daddy used to sing this to us), and Stay Awake (from Mary Poppins). I like to sing Christmas carols instead around this time of year. Songs like Silent Night and Away in a Manger.

I'm starting to think about scaling back the lullabies and books to 2 each. Brendan is really squirmy these days rocking to sleep. I used to be able to put him in his crib after reading to him and he'd fall asleep on his own while I was singing. After starting Mother's Day Out though, that stopped working. Now I have to rock him to sleep. Which they tell you not to do. Oh well. I have also felt really guilty lately. It started out as a forgetful thing but now it's turned into a habit. I've stopped turning on the monitor right after I've put Brendan in bed. Now I usually don't turn it on until right before we go to bed which is usually 3 to 4 hours later... oops!

So I was re-reading this before I posted it to check for grammar or spelling errors. I looked up mouseketool real quick to see if I had spelled it correctly and came across something hilarious. According to Urban Dictionary, the definition of mouseketool is: A musical act that became popular by selling their souls to the Disney music label. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!