Bedtime antics

[Necessary setup for today's blog: We have three phones (one on each floor) and a base station. We have a designated phone in the boys' room so we can use the system's monitoring feature to listen in on them wherever we are in the house. It also has an intercom feature that pulses the desired phone with loud, high-pitched alarm sounds which we've rarely ever used until now.]

When the boys go to bed in the same room together, "sleeping" becomes a very loose term. It seems we've tried everything (punishments, separations, music, exhaustion, what am I missing???). For Joel, it's too tempting to respond to Jamie's unrelenting invitations to jump on the bed, make up nonsense words, and dork around all through the night. Except when the "Dillydally Monster" is coming.

Tonight, I rang the intercom whenever the noise turned particularly chaotic. I did it 3 times. They didn't know what that sound was that was interrupting their fun, and they stopped to listen, then started up again, each time.

Finally, I called Joel out, as if, like other nights, I was informing him that his chance to sleep with Jamie was over, and he would have to go sleep in the closet crib, again. But instead, I asked if he heard the dillydally monster alarm go off. It dawned on him that he did, indeed, hear the alarm. And with recognition came panic. [Fortunately] He remembered that the Dillydally monster doesn't come if you're in bed asleep, so he made a bee-line for bed. Then he turned to me and said he had to go tell Jamie what was about to happen. He sounded so urgent and pleading...that he had to protect Jamie and convince him that they needed to go to bed right away! In 15 seconds, all was quiet. Joel was even too afraid to get up and help Jamie get his pillow and bears that he had thrown out of his crib. And there hasn't been a peep out of them since.

I'm sure I will regret this one day, but for tonight, the Dillydally monster equals peace and harmony.