Nice moments in fatherhood.

Every night when L goes to bed, turn out the lights and then we say prayers and recite "Goodnight Moon." Sometimes, we'll have a story before that, but these two things are immutable parts of the experience. About two months ago, L spontaneously started giving me a kiss after we finished "Goodnight Moon." That's pretty cool.

This quarter, for the first time in a while, derbiser has a weeknight class. For the past few quarters, she's had weekend day classes. That means that on Thursdays, L doesn't get to have his momma at bed time. Last Thursday night (derbiser's first of the quarter), L fought going to sleep. He cried and cried for about 10-15 minutes. Yesterday, as part of the ongoing process of helping L get used to going to sleep on his own, derbiser left before we turned out the lights. L did much better, only crying for about 10 minutes.

Tonight, derbiser is in school again, so L and I had to do bed time by ourselves. Again. We read our new book "How Does a Dinosaur Say Goodnight," and L got up to go find his momma. I had to tell him that she was in school. He started crying. We turned out the lights and talked for a minute about how momma had to be in school and couldn't be there for bedtime, but that she would be there in the morning. Then I started in on prayers and "Goodnight Moon." He stopped crying before we were done with prayers, and had calmed down and snuggled in by the end of moon.

I love my boy, and I'm glad he's at a point where he trusts me to help him get to sleep.

--G