We have our date night tonight. Despite the fact that I'm sick and slept in until 11 this morning as a result, I'm still going on date night. The three of us (Mom, D & I) are going to see Undefeated, a documentary about inner-city football. I'm sure it has much more depth than that description, but I don't know like to know too much about movies before I see them.
Last night's babysitting with Avery, Elise, Nolan and Henry went very well. Mom helped me get dinner onto the plates and get that cleaned up, as well as helped with various other things, so that was very helpful. Fortunately the kids fell into line fairly easily. Once I had them all in bed there was minimal getting up. Henry let a few minor protests fly, but they were nothing out of the ordinary for a 4yo boy. Avery was the last to get to sleep, but this is typical on date nights. Plus, because we have the routine that she can play in her room as long as she wants, as long as she stays in her room, that tends to make her bedtime later on nights when we have E & N (and/or Henry) over.
It hit me the other day that I basically treat A's sleep like I do food. I provide her the opportunity and atmosphere to get plenty of regular, good sleep; however, whether she takes advantage of that is up to her. That's what we've done with food. We give her a variety of healthy foods (plus some non-healthy ones), then let her eat what she will. Occasionally we make comments on her eating more x or y and on her getting to sleep earlier or being quiet, but for the most part we leave it up to her. So far this has worked well for us. It is, however, one of those things that I know probably wouldn't work if we had two kids. The odds of getting two kids with temperaments to not (regularly) fight sleep or that don't (regularly) fight healthy (or is healthful?) foods are slim.
I find I think about what kind of parent I'd be with > 1 kid often. I think it's for two reasons:
1. I'm grateful I realized that I am (speculatively) a better parent to one kid than I would be to > 1 kid. That's not to say I'd be terrible with > 1 kid, but I think my natural strike zone is = 1.
2. I fairly regularly watch 2 kids, plus Avery. We have had to implement rules in the house simply to accomodate when the G kids come over. They're really good kids, but once you're at more than 1, things get really messy, really fast.
Airplay
One great thing about our new receiver (bought for the new surround sound system* in the living room) is that is has AirPlay compatibility. We didn't seek out this function. It's just a happy coincidence that the receiver picked out for us by our installer had it. It means we can wirelessly stream music from any computer or iPhone or iPod on our network to the stereo system in the living room. And it's easy to do.
Case in point: this morning Elise and Avery went downstairs to play. D and I were still in bed. Avery came in to tell D that she and Elise were going to have a celebration in the living room, but they needed music and she couldn't get daddy's numbers to work. D unlocked his phone for her and she and Elise scooted back downstairs to play while D and I drifted quickly back to sleep. About a minute later we hear blasting music coming from the living room. And this is to show that 4yo can easily figure out how to use the AirPlay functionality, but have not yet mastered turning the volume down.
*We didn't know anything about what we wanted in surround sound since our entire goal was to better hear the dialoge on TV shows, not to experience car chances and action scenes with true surround sound.
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