I dim the lights, and try to steal a few minutes for myself.

Around my house, it’s a daily…process?  struggle?  battle?  game?…to get the kids into go-to-sleep mode.  Tonight is a little better — as a steal a few minutes to write this piece, just after 9:00pm, everyone is ready for bed (already).  Lot’s of times that’s not the case around this time.

I dimmed the lights, settled in for a five minute blog post, and in the back-ground, my four-year-old is dancing and singing, a made-up song in a made-up language.  Shortly, the other two kids come down the hall to see what’s going on.   They don’t really just “come down the hall…”, they sprint down the way, bare feet thumping on the hardwood.

It’s time for bed, but in these few seconds, the energy level is swiftly rising well beyond where it should be.  The dimmed lights are losing their effect.  Or maybe, like my wife says, dimming the lights doesn’t make a difference.  It does for me, but maybe not so much for the kids.

Ok, time for the kids’ dance party to end.  Time to parade down the hall to bed.

Time to turn the lights down, dim lights to…OFF.

GOOD NIGHT.