I’m sure most of you have sappy memories of loving bedtime rituals with your precious little angel-like children. That’s not how bedtime plays out, or ever played out in my household…at least not when dad was in charge of bedtime. I’m sure the wife tucked the little monsters in snug, prayed with them, and put sweet, little kisses on their foreheads. (At least I imagine some such syrupiness taking place.)
For my part, each child had his own bedtime threat ritual. You see, bedtime is when I’m at my least patient. After everyone is in bed, I get to rule the roost. My time is between 10pm and midnight. That’s when I get to watch the Simpsons, eat popcorn, and drink wine. That’s when I can choose to stand on the front porch and imagine which neighbors are tending their secret marijuana patches, and which ones are plotting my ouster from the neighborhood. Bedtime is the worst possible time for a kid to realize their insecurities and demand parently comfort for them.
So my oldest son was met with the nightly choice between “Mr. Happy Hand” and “Mr. Slappy Hand.” The left hand was the hero, interceding on the behalf of sweet, obedient children. The right hand played the villain, ready to slap naughty children to sleep. After a quick tuck in, typically Mr. Happy Hand would prevail over Mr. Slappy Hand after only a mild tickle-slapping. But the threat of Mr. Slappy Hand’s revival was typically enough to keep said child tucked in and pretending to sleep.
The younger son got a threat routine of his own. I had to take a bit more passive approach with the more empathetic child of the two. So he got a bedtime song that went like this: “It’s time to go to sleep, you must close your eyes. And if you try to peep, I’ll make you pay the price…by putting your head in the ceiling fan and it’ll go blup-blup-blup.” The key element to the threat-song was the violent tousling of the hair during the “blup, blup, blup” part of the song.
The tousling attack would be all the more severe if the child was untucked our attempting to escape the bed. Thus, this routine served to settle the child directly under the covers in a minimal amount of time. And I’m sure neither of them have any scarring from these bedtime tactics. They worked to get everyone in bed and to get me closer to my glass of wine. And, I’ll admit that there was an element of fun involved. Occasionally, my teenage boys will still ask to be tucked in. Of course they don’t use that language. And I don’t use the old routines. But I can still get a good bone-cracking grizzly hug or some other such torturous affection from them. Good times indeed.
(Sure, maybe things would have been different if I had had daughters. Maybe. But that’s not something I have to consider at this point.) With the weather turning cold out there, I hope you have someone to tuck you in. Merry Christmas to y’all, and to y’all a good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let Mr. Slappy Hand bite.
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