Cardboard Box Time

I'm telling myself that I made a deal with my kids, but I basically just gave up in the middle of bedtime and walked out of the room.  Audrey was almost completely on board with going to sleep in her bed.  All I had to do was get through the book we were reading and that would be it, she would be asleep.  Then Sebastian walked in and was playing with the big cardboard boxes that happened to be sitting in their room, and the whole plan just went out the window.  He's the fool who planted the idea and now they are both hanging out in the dark in their respective cardboard boxes, pretending to sleep.

Nah, not even pretending to sleep.  They're talking and exchanging toys and probably sharing more of the Russell Stover Select chocolate heart that they dumped out.  And Audrey is only wearing a diaper because she told me honestly that if she wore pajamas she fully intended to take the shirt off by pulling it down over her belly and stashing it somewhere.  At least she's honest.

They're wearing me down.  Yesterday was Sebastian's birthday and he insisted on "Macka" (-roni and cheese) for lunch and dinner, so I'm trying to talk through that fog, plus birthday cake.  And I'm old.  I'm like 30 and their 7:30 bedtime might as well be midnight.  I stood up and walked out so I wouldn't just lie down on the floor and go to sleep.

This cardboard box idea was a bad one.  Aaron and I are going to keep each other up to monitor the situation as it progresses.  I think Sebastian just threw something in Audrey's box to convince her to keep it down so the experiment won't get shut down completely.  She's jumping and screaming because she's too small to get out.

Aaron's probably going to intervene before I do.  I'm thinking this can only benefit us: they'll either hate the cardboard boxes and never ask again or they'll get used to them and we can convert the kids' bedroom into something else.

I would like to cover the room in gym mats and buy myself a big puffy sumo wrestling suit and jump around because when I can just put my kids to bed in a cardboard box and walk out of the room, I'll have the time and energy to do that sort of thing.