Bedtime bonding

When my children were babies, I prided myself on getting them to sleep on their own and teaching them to stay asleep until morning.  Ahhh.  The memories.  I could dish out sleeping advice with the best of them. I spouted out things like " You can't be a good mom if you don't get any sleep," and " the baby needs to teach himself to sleep, not rely upon you for constant reassurance," and " blah-blah-blah". I was so full of myself and my "parenting instincts" that I make my older, more disillusioned self fume.

As I type this, the giant vein in my forehead is bulging.  I want to hurt people.  Little people.  The bed time is gradually moving earlier and earlier to make up for the hour or two of blatant disregard for bedtime.  Hang on...I must run up the stairs and vomit threats...

Ok. I'm back.  They didn't look scared enough.  I can expect another two at a time jaunt up the stairs...

I was right.  They weren't scared enough.

First I told them to cut it out.

The Second time I ran up, I asked them if they were babies and needed to go to bed earlier.  They stared, wordless, so I agreed that seven was tomorrow's bedtime.

The third time I simply pointed out that their Christmas lists were getting crossed off, one at a time. Keep it up.

The fourth time, I asked who wanted a knuckle sandwich?  ( to which someone replied..."I'm kinda hungry...")

The fifth time, the baby asked for another kiss and wanted to know why his big brothers were so noisy.

The sixth time I slammed and stomped and spat out some very horrific things that I cannot write in words (mostly because they were not words).

To those of you who were forced to endure my stupid advice about making babies sleep, I apologize. In fact, I take it all back.  Whatever it is, it backfired, and now I want to set my hair on fire.

Oh great.  Here comes one down the stairs...  I'm gonna blow a gasket...