The Ice Pack

Picture bedtime with a five (soon to be six) year old - What do you see on your mind's eye?

One might think of warm blankets and footie PJ's and a few stuffed animals and maybe some nursery rhymes in the background while the dog lies at the end of the bed, yes? Of course this is in a perfectly clean and organized bedroom with a slight smell of rose petals to help her drift off to sleep. Of course her hair is combed and she's fresh out of the tub.

At our house things are a bit different.

Tonight we had a race to see if she could get her PJ's on and teeth brushed before I was done cleaning up. She "won". (Dad really won because now he has a child prepped for bed)

I thought we had a thing going tonight - it was relatively early and due to the holiday excitement and a few errands with mommy today she was pretty much begging for bed at the dinner table. An early bedtime I had hoped.

We horsed around upstairs for a bit and settled down and read a story (guinness world book of records is popular here right now) and then I thought I had won the lottery and she was going to go to bed without issue. Not quite the rose petal dream sequence above - but close.

But then, it happened:

She asked for an ice pack.

Yes. An Ice Pack. Like what you would toss in your lunchbox to keep your sandwich cool until lunchtime. We have many different shapes and sizes - some for kids and some for adults and it doesn't really matter what she gets as long as she can go to bed with an ice pack.

It's the strangest thing.

"My face is hot", she tells me.

So, I go downstairs for what seems like the umpteenth time and get her an ice pack for her face.

Then she's happy and ready for bed, clutching an ice cold hunk of frozen plastic while she dozes off to sleep.

Tonight though there was no dozing. I got the ice pack. I held up my end of the bargain. She wanted me to rub her back to get her to doze off. Okay, No Problem. She still didn't want to sleep. She was scared of the dark - she was thirsty - you name it. She did not want to stop.

I finally got her to settle down. Bedtime took 2 hours tonight.

It took me 3 trips for blankets, one entire household search for her favorite stuffie, an entire discussion on what side of the bed she would sleep on and god knows how many back rubs to get her to la-la land tonight. Oh - also a few discussions of your favorite ride at the amusement park.

As I tried to quietly sneak out of her room I stepped on something cold and/or wet.

Oh right. It was the ice pack.