Godless Mom in the Bible Belt

Liz is at an age where she hates bedtime. Every evening when the clock hits 7:00 we let her know that bedtime is imminent and every evening she lets us know that she REALLY doesn't want to go to bed. This exchange has become so predictable that we actually factor the time it consumes into the whole bedtime routine.

Now Liz is a really good kid, she is has a very sweet temper and is actually quite reasonable for a four year old. So last week when she tried to use logic rather than whining to persuade us to let her stay up late we decided to let her have a taste of no-bedtime freedom. Scott told her that we would have a slumber party and she could stay up until she fell asleep on her own. Little did we know how her mind would take the idea and run with it!

We scheduled our slumber party for Saturday night. She had the entire thing planned in her head, we would eat her favorite foods, play her favorite games, watch birds and bake a cake. After dark we would take the telescope outside and look at the moon and the stars then it would be time for Xbox, movies and popcorn.

She was determined to spend the night in the living room and I was determined to sleep comfortably. I pulled the mattress off the guest bed and put it on the living room floor next to the sofa. We played Hi Ho Cherry-O and chess, we baked a cake and spent time playing Harry Potter on the Xbox. Finally, as 9:00 approached her eyes started getting heavy and her yawns came more frequently we all put on our pajamas and sat down on the mattress to watch The Incredibles. By 9:45 she was asleep on the sofa.

Scott and I continued to quietly putter around until about 11:00 then we both crashed on the mattress on the living room floor.

A couple of hours later I awoke to Liz climbing over me. I told her to climb back up on the sofa and go back to sleep. She immediately started protesting, saying that she had been told she could stay up as late as she possible and that she wanted to watch Barbie Fairytopia. It took me at least 15 minutes to get her back to sleep, she then proceeded to wake up every hour or two and ask if it was time to watch Fairytopia.

On top of the four-year-old with the Fairytopia obsession I also had to deal with a cat who couldn't quite figure out why the whole family was on the floor in the living room. He decided that I was his personal scratching post and spent the better part of the night digging his claws into my thighs.

Finally at 6AM I decided that it just wasn't worth the effort. I put the Fairytopia DVD in the player, made myself a pot of coffee and took the geriatric dog outside to pee.

The next time my husband plans a slumber party with our four year old I think I'll go have a slumber party of my own at the local Hilton.