Resistance

running away from bedtime

As I was sitting down at the computer, from the other room I heard a vehement cry: "It's not time for bed! It's time to go to Steak and Shake!" As Tom continued wrangling Ben into pajamas, I heard him calmly explain that there would be no Steak and Shake tonight.

Like many toddlers, Ben has been resisting bedtime lately. It used to be just bedtime itself that agitated him; now he resists bathtime as well, because he knows it leads to bedtime. He offers us alternatives: "It's not bathtime! It's time to go to school!" Tonight, as he got increasingly desperate, he even offered to help fold laundry. Finally, while I was rocking him and sleep seemed inevitable, he countered with, "It's not time for bed! It's time for nap!" When I left him in his crib, he was still insisting that he was only going to nap.

Ben's arguments are amusing on one level, but on another they make me sad. No longer solely a creature of the present, he is also learning to live in the past and the future. It's part of human consciousness to be able to anticipate things, but I can see how the shadow of bedtime can spoil a perfectly good bath. I wonder: How often do I let worries about the future get in the way of enjoying the present?