Brush Then Bed

Now that Eloise isn't napping our bedtime routine is very different. By the end if the day she is wiped and ready for her bath as soon as we finish dinner. Bath time is quicker too and once Eloise has brushed her teeth, gone pee and put on her jammies, she knows there's just one more step before sleep. 

We have to brush Eloise's hair before she goes to bed or else we end up with mats. And not figurative mats, but literal mats. Hair brushing at bedtime is just another step in our routine but it has always been one of the hardest. It equals resistance and tears, no matter how gentle I try to be, which means it's not a very fun thing for either of us. Until now. Now that Eloise is so utterly exhausted she rushes into the bathroom to bring me her brush so we can complete the only thing keeping her from sleep. Then she leads me to the computer where we sit down to this: 

I have 3:48 to brush Eloise's hair. Once we see baby Simba's feet dangling above the baboon-shaman and the animals bow down I know it's time to get my show on the road. If not, we have to watch Hukana Matata. 

Songs We Sing

Twinkle Twinkle and the ABCs are great, but I'd have to say Eloise likes my made up songs best of all.

It all started with the Bathtime Conga. Since introducing bathtime into Eloise's nightly routine when she was around six months Chris and I have been parading down the hallway in celebration of her bath every night (it's one step closer to our small sliver of nightly freedom). At the time Molly was into Dora, and I often had her stupid "Backpack" song stuck in my head. I made up a bathtime song to the same tune, except ours is danced as a conga:

"Iiiiittts, iiiitttts... (jazz hands)

Bathtime, bathtime! Bathtime, bathtime! Whoo! Na-na-na-na-na, nuh-na-na-na-na, bathtime, bathtime, do the bathtime conga! La-la-la-la-la, luh-la-la-la-la, bathtime, bathtime, do the bathtime, conga!" Imagine lots of clapping, some latin(ish) moves and one very excited child.

I also sing Eloise a song called the "Clean Plate Club". I actually made this song up for Molly when she was three in an effort to get her to eat, brilliantly bribing her with this super fun diddy made just for her, but only if she finished her meal. It worked like a charm and I have developed quite a following among Molly's friends who still ask me to sing the Clean Plate Club and do the dance. It's not very cool now that they're seven and eight.

The clean plate club is sung to loosely the tune of the "Lollipop Guild" from Wizard of Oz and goes like this:

"Oh Eloise is a member of the clean plate club, the clean plate club, the clean plate club. Eloise is a member of the clean plate club, yum, yum, yum. So if you wanna be a member of the clean plate club, the clean plate club, the clean plate club, if you wanna be a member of the clean plate club, you have to eat your dinner, done, done, done."

We also have a new poo song, but I'll leave that for another post.