It was my turn to put young Frankie to bed tonight. This might seem like a straightforward exercise but in fact there is an intricate ritual involved. What is more, Frankie like most toddlers is a devout creature of habit, so any slight deviation from the established routine may cause a split-second transformation from calm pyjama-clad infant to inconsolable screaming wreck.
This is to be avoided. So just in case by some quirk of fate the Crinklybee readership is left jointly and severally in charge of our three-year-old for the night I think it is best we get the routine sorted. This is how a typical evening proceeds:
6:45PM... Domestic bliss reigns. I've been home from work for an hour and we are sitting with a cup of tea in front of the telly, which has the sound turned down to minimum but is showing either the local news or a DVD episode of Underground Ernie (it's like Thomas the Tank Engine except with London tube trains and is by some distance Frankie's favourite).
A random selection of toys and other household flotsam is strewn across the floor. Somewhere in the middle Frankie is busying himself with a fire engine, the stethoscope from his medical set, two actually-quite-posh wooden skittles dressed as international rugby players and a scrunched up copy of last weekend's Guardian Review section. Occasionally he will break off from this concentrated activity to address an urgent instruction to 'Dodder' (the boy's imaginary friend, who deserves a post on his own and will one day get one). From these comments it is possible to discern that some kind of tea party is in progress, and that the wooden Rugby players are the guests.
6:50PM... Anarchy has broken out. With delicacy and practiced nonchalance Charlotte has revealed that 'it's daddy's turn to do milk and stories tonight'. Three times out of four this news is taken perfectly calmly. Tonight is the exception. Frankie becomes immediately inconsolable and attempts to bury himself head-first in the sofa. From in between the cushions and the sobs we can just make out the reason for this trauma:
'No mammy! Daddy can't put me to bed- his beard is too prickly!'
6:55PM... Calmness again. Frankie has remembered (or perhaps been reminded by Dodder, who knows about these things) that he doesn't really mind my beard too much. We've made it upstairs to Frankie's room. or as it is known in operation bedtime, Base Camp One.
7:00PM... Now then, have we got everything? Plastic bottle full of soya milk- check. Toothbrush with some toothpaste on- check. Pyjamas- now where the hell are the boy's pyjamas? Why can I never find the bottoms? Oh I don't know, why is nothing ever fucking straightforward, I ask you, if we could just keep things in one place, God knows there's supposed to be some kind of system with all these baskets, CHARLOTTE! CHARLOTTE! WHERE HIS PYJAMA oh hold on a minute I'm sitting on them.
7:05PM... Start to take Frankie's clothes off in preparation for putting the pyjamas on. This goes well for the first ten seconds until Frankie decides he's not a baby anymore and so really doesn't need any help.
7:25PM... He's determined, I'll say that for him.
'Frankie, I think that might be still inside out love. Do you want daddy to help a little bit?'
'No, daddy, NO!'
7:30PM... Flushed with elation at getting pyjamas on very nearly single-handedly, Frankie bounds on to the bed- I radio down to operation HQ. Base Camp Two has been reached, gentlemen.
7:31PM.... Delicate negotiations commence as to the amount of stories that have been earned today:
'So have you been a good boy Frankie?'
'Yes!'
'Right- well I think you can have two stories'
'Three stories!'
'All right, fair enough, three stories. Then an open eyes story and a closed eyes story'.
'OK, daddy'.
7:32PM... Further, more complicated negotiations are underway as to which three stories we are going to have. The offer on the table is a short 'Kipper the dog' story, the brilliant Charlie and Lola one where Lola (and her imaginary friend Soren Lorenson) are starting school so they are a bit nervous, and a cloth-paged picture book in the shape of a horse's head from when he was a baby. Frankie is holding out for a long 'Kipper the dog' story, a forty-page Pirate Adventure from the Big Boys storybook he inherited from his twelve-year old Geordie cousin but shouldn't really have yet, and the Saturday Interview with Martin Amis out of last week's Guardian weekend.
7:35PM... Tears.
7:38PM... After full and frank talks a compromise has been reached to the satisfaction of all parties. Stories are underway.
8:00PM... Stories complete (I managed to get away with abridging some of the more meandering sections of the Amis interview, without, if I may say so, losing the essential pith of the piece).
'Now then, Frankie, time to lie down. What would you like your open-eyes story to be about tonight?
'About Frankie going to nursery school'.
'OK. One day mammy and Frankie went out in the morning and crossed over Stockport Road..'
8:05PM '... and then it was time for mammy to come and collect Frankie and take him home. And that's the end of the open-eyes story. Now what would you like your closed-eyes story to be about?
'About Frankie going to nursery school again!'
'OK. Lie down then. Close your eyes. No, they're not closed, I can see them. That's better. Now then, one day...
8:20PM Frankie is fast asleep. This should mean I can make a swift exit and get on with my evening. Only thing is, as usual the temptation of just shutting my own eyes for a quick two minutes has been too much, and I'm fast asleep next to him.
8:50PM I awake with a start, wondering where I am and what day it is. Stumble out of tiny bed, narrowly avoiding being impaled by patent anti-fall-out-of-bed toddler railings. Make my way grouchily downstairs. 'Oh it's not that time already is it? I think I might have just dropped off for ten minutes there'....
...
After that of course, I can't get back to sleep when my bedtime arrives, and by two-oclock the following afternoon I'm liable to fall fast asleep at my desk. Still, the impromptu seven o clock siesta does allow me this short precious window of undisturbed lucidity from eleven-thirty PM till one-thirty AM, which I can spend in front of the computer. Hell, occasionally I even manage to bang out a post before sleep catches up.
On recent form I may not be back before Christmas, mind you. We will be spending it at Frankie's Liverpool Granny''s house and I for one am looking forward to handing the toddler over to his adoring grandparent for the occasional stint of Operation Bedtime duty, while, who knows, me and Charlotte and some other intrepid grown-ups might manage to nip out to the pub round the corner for a snatched drink or two.
That's the idea anyway. Whatever you're up to, may I, on behalf of all of us here at Crinklybee Towers, thank you for reading during 2007. We extend to you our warmest compliments of the season, and our best wishes for your endeavours during 2008.
Seriously. Have a good one and take care folks. See you all the other side of the New Year now.
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