Bedtime = Bedlam

So, in spite of having spent hours and hours exhausting her body in dance intensive camp – Rissa was still wired at bedtime.  I made her chew a mental calmness stress-relax tab as soon as she got into bed.  Before she read for 10 minutes.  I was trying to forestall the onslaught that is Rissa.  But to no avail.

How many does it take to tire out a 12 year old?

I figured if we got into bed at 8:30 and read for a bit, that she would get sleepy, the way normal people do when they read in bed.  I try to read beside her, thinking that maybe my calm presence might soothe her, encourage her to fall asleep before the 10:00 p.m. mark.  School starts next week.  She has to get back on schedule.  Rissa abandons her book and begins to sigh dramatically.

“Go to sleep.”

(Eyes peering up at me from the top of her green polka-dotted sheets.) “I just need attention.  Is that so much to ask?”

“You danced ALL day!  How can you STILL be awake?”

“I don’t know.”  She bats her eyelashes at me.

I sigh and put down my book.  “What do you want to do?”

“An impromptu musical number.”

“Okay, go for it.”  Sometimes you’ve just got to let the crazy happen.

“Really?” she asks in delight.

“Really.  Hit me with your best shot.”

She then goes into a medley of Phoebe’s songs from Friends, followed by some Fosse moves at the end of the bed, a grand jete to the door, some jazz hands and then flops down on her stomach onto the bed.

“You done?”

“Not yet.”  She fakes an epileptic fit, giggling maniacally.

“Now?”

“I think so.”

Rissa then pretends to be a velociraptor doing a chemistry experiment that ends in a small explosion.

from HistoricLOLS.com

later… after I’ve turned the bedside lamp off, thinking that the extra light was the problem…

“In this light,  on your dress here, (she indicates my left breast) it kind of looks like a storm trooper.   ‘These aren’t the droids we’re looking for.’ “

“Un-huh.”  I reach into the beside table and grab the bottle Mental Calmness chewable tabs.  “Stop talking.  Chew this.”

She chews, takes a breath as if to launch into another torrent of tangents when I shoot her my deadly laser eyes.

“I know.  Go to sleep.”

“Yes.”

“Or you’ll smother me.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, but just this one last thing before you smother me?”

This is when I reach for the Mental Calmness chewable tablets and take one myself.  Perhaps if I fall asleep first, my steady breathing will lull her.

“My underwear is eating my butt.”

It’s wrong to shoot your daughter with an elephant dart, right?