Project 52 - Your are my Sunshine - Week 26

26/52

We get Riley in bed at about 7:30. She then reads until she falls asleep, and she knows she has to have lights out by 9:00. I would say she most often falls asleep between 8:00 and 8:30 and is up at 6:00 am. I'm sure she's often up before that, but she knows she can't come out of her room until 6:00 am and most of the time when I look at my clock it's 6:01 so I'm sure she's sitting in bed just watching and waiting for her clock to say the magic time.

Jesse is pretty strict about sticking to the schedule we have and I get it. If we don't, there's the possibility of a break down later on. We've tried keeping her up later a few times, but it seems she always wakes up at the same time.Sometimes it's just easier to stick with what works most of the time.

I see kids out all the time after Riley's gone to bed and it makes me wonder if we really should be keeping her up later. I mean, would it really hurt to take her down to the park at 7:30 if she's probably not going to fall asleep until 8:30 that night anyway?

But then she has those nights where I can tell she's absolutely exhausted. She might even tell me she's sad, she'll get whiny and all squirmy and I KNOW she's going to crash hard. She's had enough of those nights since starting kindergarten that I feel our schedule is probably best.

Don't get me wrong, I like my alone time after she goes to bed, but there is so much to do in the summer that I sometimes feel like once I put her to bed, it's the end of my night too. I want us to go to the park, on a walk or do something even more crazy like see some music at the Wolfe Park Amphitheater or go watch the River Rats on the Mississippi.

I'm sure those times will come. In the meantime, I still enjoy the time we do get outdoors after dinner, and our time reading together before she has her own quiet time to read - something that she loves to do.

And maybe I'll break our rules from time to time.