Maybe I’m showing my age some here but I used to love watching Gilligan’s Island. I loved Mary Ann and Ginger and Skipper and Gilligan were my favorites. I don’t remember a ton of details about the show but I do remember they always thought they were going home…that they were almost done being stranded. I also remember when they finally did make it home they felt out of place and missed the Island. Tonight, I referred to bedtime in our house as my own personal Gilligan’s Island. It was a joke of course but it also holds a lot of truth. Bedtime for 4 kids shouldn’t take that long right? WRONG! Bedtime in our house takes at least, at LEAST, an hour. I always have big plans. 30 minutes tops. It’s all worked out, laid out in my head. Inevitably it goes just like tonight did. I say “okay, time for bed. Go get your pjs on.” The girls head upstairs to get pajamas (miraculously this happened quickly and without drama tonight) and I carry Trevor into his room, change his diaper, start his shaky vest (this particular machine goes for 20 minutes and has to be done before I can do any of the others), and pull Netflix up on the Kindle. I then move on to make drinks for all the kids. This started when we transitioned from bottles, I’d let them take a cup of milk to bed and it grew into a monster from there. Now one gets chocolate milk, one strawberry, one doesn’t like milk but still wants a drink, and Trevor isn’t allowed milk at night to try to prevent mucus. Of course, Lauretta is in the stage of wanting to be a “big helper” so she wants to hand deliver all the drinks so as I wait for her to do that I proceed to get Trevor’s nighttime dose of elderberry and Luci is currently on medication for an ear infection so I get that as well. Then on to putting poor, teething, grouchy Lauretta to bed. Once she’s all changed and laying down, its upstairs to the girls room. After hugging and kissing their 8 stuffed animals each (another ritual that was done innocently and took on a life of it’s own) I give them each a hug and kiss and proceed to the drama. There is always drama. They may only be 7 and 5 but they are girls. All the while Lauretta is screaming in her room and Trevor is yelling for me because his vest is already done and I’m way behind schedule. 40 minutes after I started the whole mess I finally get back to Trevor’s room to do more machines, check his pulse ox, get him all hooked up with his overnight sleep mask, and make sure he’s turned and situated correctly. It was about this point …around the hour mark….that I sent my husband the text about Gilligan. I was doing the dishes when he got home 5 minutes later and after going to check on kids in each room reported back that they were all sleeping and “were so precious when they’re asleep all snuggled in their bed”. The more I think on it, the more I think I was spot on with my analogy. Bedtime may seem like a 3 hour tour to me and during those times of craziness I feel like I’m stranded on a deserted island all alone just trying to survive but someday, someday I’ll be “rescued” and my kids will be all grown and they won’t need me anymore and I know when that happens I’m going to miss that island. That isolated place of motherhood where I felt all alone and like their was no hope of rescue on the horizon. And I’m going to look back on it and think, you know I really didn’t have it so bad there. It was kinda nice. I miss that. So enjoy your time on your personal Gilligan’s Island today. Someday you’ll be “rescued” and you just might miss that place and wish you could go back on that 3 hour tour.
Hysteria and Heroics 