Night Night, Sleep Tight

Dear LittleDude,

I love how excited you are when it's time for your bed- and nap-time routine.

First, when I tell you it's time for bed, you start gathering all your favorite trains. Thomas, Toby, Percy, Rocky, Molly, the musical caboose, and the musical train that runs on the rolling track all have to come to bed. (And if one is missing, you either fetch it yourself or insist that I fetch it before you will be tucked in.)

Then, you practically run down the hall to your bedroom where you choose orange stars on your Twilight Turtle. (I think you like the orange because you can see the difference between Turtle's stars and the green glow-in-the-dark stars Daddy arranged in constellations on your ceiling.)

After you choose your stars, you have to turn on your ocean and your fish (two buttons on a sound machine that also has a projector that happens to have the fish disk loaded so that you see fishies on your ceiling at night).

Then you run over to the door, slam it shut, jump up into the rocking chair, and turn off your light.

At that moment, you get the biggest grin I've ever seen because you know it's time to cuddle in my lap while I rock you and sing to you and tickle you until I "toss" you into bed and tuck you.

It's one of my favorite parts of every day, and I'm glad it's one of your favorites too.

I love you.
Love, Mommy