{"id":813,"date":"2010-10-12T23:48:15","date_gmt":"2010-10-13T03:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=813"},"modified":"2010-10-13T00:02:58","modified_gmt":"2010-10-13T04:02:58","slug":"let-there-be-light-as-long-as-its-quiet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=813","title":{"rendered":"Let There Be Light, As Long As It’s Quiet…"},"content":{"rendered":"

So there I was last night, up at Pee O’clock in the morning, only to find SOBUMD awake at my desk.\u00a0 We talked for a while, then I went upstairs to play one of my favorite games:\u00a0 Guess Who Turned Their Lights Off.\u00a0 Usually, I have to turn off at least 1 or 2 and sometimes all 3 lights, sometimes removing books from sleeping fingers in the process.<\/p>\n

Last night was a full win – every one of them had turned their own light out before crashing.\u00a0 Score!\u00a0<\/p>\n

The days of insisting their lights were out before I went downstairs went away when they learned to read.\u00a0 Nothing teaches personal responsibility like falling asleep in class because you’ve stayed up too late reading a book, and the sooner they learn this – and the Human Tape Recorder gets it already – the better.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Sleeping

Sleeping With Harry<\/p><\/div>\n

The Reigning Queen of Pink, above, is on her way to learning it, I think.\u00a0The flash on the camera didn’t even wake her that morning, and the sound of a camera to the RQoP usually has the same effect that the crack of ice had on\u00a0Joe\u00a0Lewis.\u00a0 She was beat.<\/p>\n

Number One Son, on the other hand, sometimes requires more extreme measures.\u00a0 Yeah, I know, go figure.<\/p>\n

He came downstairs one morning a few weeks ago and mentioned that his light was broken.\u00a0 I told him I’d look at it – oh look, it’s working now!\u00a0 The next morning he told me it broke again.\u00a0 By the third night, he noticed that his light broke at 10:30 every evening, and asked me about that.\u00a0 I told him there must be a problem with the breaker – probably couldn’t be fixed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He didn’t actually notice the timer SOBUMD had plugged into his lamp for a week, by which time he’d gotten a little closer to back on schedule and was getting to sleep before midnight.\u00a0 He wasn’t even mad, which I took for a good sign.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first time I caught the Human Tape Recorder sitting under her blanket reading a book with a flashlight, I told her that she had to stop that Right Now.\u00a0 She was all of 6 years old, and I have no idea anymore what she was reading, but she looked up at me very obviously trying to gauge my mood – she could tell I wasn\u2019t’ really angry, but the *words* were angry, and this threw her for a moment.\u00a0 I was trying to decide just what the hell the right response was.\u00a0 Yell at her for disobeying?\u00a0 Yell at her for falling into a clich\u00e9?\u00a0 Congratulate her on her reading skills?\u00a0 What behavior was I trying to reinforce here, anyhow?<\/p>\n

I decided, all in an instant, to take this lesson from my own childhood, which was (of course) also spent with flashlights and books under sheets.\u00a0 I had done the same thing.\u00a0 My parents had made the standard desultory efforts to curb this behavior.\u00a0 It never worked, and by the time I was maybe 10, they decided the hell with it –\u00a0as long as I was quiet, they were going to bed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, I figure all my kids are genetically pre-programmed to read in bed.\u00a0 But there was a critical difference between me and my daughter.\u00a0 I still don’t wear glasses.\u00a0 She’s had glasses since she was 2 years old.<\/p>\n

“OK kid.\u00a0 Turn your damn lights on if you’re reading, your eyes are bad enough already.\u00a0 Don’t stay up too late, and don’t make any noise.\u00a0 Daddy needs plausible deniability, OK?”<\/p>\n

“OK Daddy!”<\/p>\n

And we just don’t talk about why all my kids could define “plausible deniability” before they could write their names…<\/p>\n

And now, just to check before I post this here at 11:30 at night, let’s play again – shall we?\u00a0 Be right back.<\/p>\n

Still a win – two lights out, one light on, and all three sound asleep!\u00a0 I’ll take it.\u00a0 And so, good night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK kid. Turn your damn lights on if you’re reading, your eyes are bad enough already. Don’t stay up too late, and don’t make any noise. Daddy needs plausible deniability, OK? “OK Daddy!” And we just don’t talk about why all my kids could define “plausible deniability” before they could write their names.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37,61,12,3,5,40,10,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=813"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":817,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions\/817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}