Twice today I began to write here and twice I stopped. Twice I was distracted by stupid, mundane things such as washing the stickers off our patio window or eating bacon...
and then I look up my webpage and see that blurry photo and my admission to inedible meals my child will actually ingest (if distracted by the right object) and feel compelled to leave something more presentable.

So here goes...

The journey from after dinner play up to the bathroom and into the bath is getting rough. D and I have devised such a production now that most people, if present for such theatrics, would quietly put their shoes back on and slip out the door.

Back when Franklin was "learning how to sleep" we found out about the marvels of a consistent bedtime ritual and have been successful ever since. The regularity of a bath, three stories and milk before bed helped us help Franklin. We had the routine down pat, Franklin knew the cues, bedtime was easy.

Now however, bedtime ritual means.... bedtime.
Why go to bed when you can do everything/anything else? As a result, to get Franklin to venture upstairs has become something we can't tell him to do. Instead, we convince him that going upstairs will be the MOST FUN THING IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD.

At present, the MOST FUN THING TO DO IN THE WORLD consists of a parade complete with paper towel roll horn, cake plate drum and whatever the third person can gather to wave around while singing. When we do this little pageant up the stairs, Franklin comes joyfully along singing,

"IIIIII love a parade, the tramping of feet,
I love every beat I hear of a drum.
I love a parade, when I hear a band
I just want to stand and cheer as they come.
That rat-a tat-tat, the blare of a horn.
That rat-a tat-tat, a bright uniform....

We're usually up the stairs by a rat-a tat-tat so we don't really go much further than this. I'll spare you the rest of the lyrics. Actually, I didn't even know the real lyrics until I looked them up tonight. D and I usually ad-lib certain stereotypical gay voice inflections with our own immature sexual innuendoes - because we're good parents that way.

To tell you the truth, getting upstairs isn't so hard. Getting his pajamas on (even in solid colours) isn't so bad either. It's the getting him naked and into the bath which has been the most difficult. He loves the bath, he's even better about water on his face now, but getting in the damn thing...

Last night, D was playing squash and I knew I was going to have to approach the subject on my own. We got upstairs (rat-a tat-tat...) and I started to run the water.

Franklin squeals, and runs screaming in the other direction. Argh.

So what does any mature and reasonable mother do?
I take off all my clothes and do a naked dance. He's laughing, he's watching, he starts dancing (because look how much fun Mum is having!) and lets me take off most of his clothes. However, it's the shirt that's the trouble - especially if it's striped.

So I bribe him.
I tell him he can wear my bra if he takes off his shirt.

The shirt is off in an instant. The bra is on, we prance, he gets bored.
But he's naked!
All of a sudden we're in the tub, we're washed, we're out of the tub, pjs are on, milk drank, stories are read, everyone is kissed, hugged and said goodnight, I love you too! to.
It's bedtime by 7:30pm.

Task accomplished and all it took was a parade, a naked dance and a bit of cross-dressing. Who says I can't do this parenting thing?