Jonny informed me today that he doesn’t need me to tuck him into bed and do our bedtime routine with him anymore.

He can do it himself.

I’ve been doing it with him for almost 17 years.

Since Jonny was 3, he hasn’t been able go to bed until we at least did bedtime prayers together.

And early-on, Jonny needed to be rocked to sleep for HOURS. He was so colicky as a baby, sometimes he would cry nearly 8 hours straight through the night.

My wife and I would get into late night arguments about “who had gotten less sleep” and “whose turn it was” to get up with Jonny.

He would just scream.

Like, it was bad. One night, in-laws drove 4 hours with an infant of their own just to take a night shift with Jonny so we could get a hotel and just sleep for a whole night before having to go to work.

Man. We tried everything. I once watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy while rocking Jonny at night.

In the end, it was a consistent bed-time routine that finally helped us solidify getting Jonny to sleep through the night.

Night after night, month after month. Year after year.

And so we’ve been consistently just “doing our routine.”

I was starting to think we would just do our “bedtime routine” every night together forever.

“Forever” turns out to be 16 years, 9 months, and 8 days until today.

Considering how many hours of sleep I have sacrificed, you would think I wouldn’t miss doing it… but man…

This one’s got me right in the feels.

The days are long, but the years are short.

…

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got about 2 hours until 1am, when Jonah will come barging into our room, climb into our bed, and start rolling and flailing his elbows and knees around until I have to get up and sleep on the couch…

One child down, one to go, I guess..

…(but at least he’s not following me down to sleep on the couch in the middle of the night with me anymore).

This parenting thing man…

#myRareTreasure #KabukiSyndrome #Ausome

Original Facebook Post.