Seriously.

Easter pictures soon! For now, I saw this on a friends blog and HAD to re post it. I am a BIG believer of tough love when it comes to bed time for emma...no negotiations.

Put Your Dang Kids to Bed

Source: Brant's Blog of Awesomeness
Put Your Dang Kids to Bed

Seriously. You can do it.

If you want to have a marriage with some zing, put your dang kids to bed. Put them to bed EARLY. Put them to bed on time, the same time, every night, and make them stay there.

Then, go goof off with your wife. Laugh and talk and unwind and watch "Walker, Texas Ranger" until you can't laugh anymore. Be unproductive. Smooch. Do this every night.

Your kids need to sleep, and they can sleep. They actually don't have to get up every ten minutes. They're just doing that to get attention and delay bedtime. Don't allow it, or you're a pansy.

This gives you -- and, more importantly, your wife -- some peaceful time, every day, to look forward to. Moreover, it lets you stay happily married. She's under less stress, you have time to connect, life is good, your marriage means something, and you remember you're not just roomies with junior-size roomies running around.

Don't just "help" with bedtime. Supervise it, entirely. Let your wife use that time as wind-down time, or to take care of last-minute things. Kids will want to make bedtime an endless parade of traditions, too, in order to stave it off. Don't let this happen. Make it as simple a process as possible. If you want to read a story, awesome! Just start early enough that the lights go off at the appointed time. Your kids will start to complain. Too bad. Lights off. Sweet dreams. Buh-bye.

Let them know that your time with your wife trumps all other considerations, and, after their bedtime, they are "other considerations." Kids resist this, but -- deep down -- positively love it.

7 p.m. is not too early for young children. Give yourself a couple hours together, not one or two nights a week, but five or six.

If she's stressed out every night, because of her job, let her quit her job. If you can't afford it, afford it. Sell stuff. Move. Rent. Forget the college fund. Don't buy dumb cars and houses and stuff to make yourself feel cool, and miss out on a joyous, stress-limited marriage. She can take care of herself. It'll give her time, and energy, to love her children, her neighbors, and you.

So you bought her a nice car? Who gives a rip? She'd rather drive an old mini-van and have you around, living life together at a sweet, beautiful pace. Even if she doesn't think she wants this, she does.

Quit buying garbage and live in a trailer if you have to. And put your trailer-kids to bed, for crying out loud. Don't let them get up unless it's an emergency. Smooch your wife.

There. Sheesh.