You silly goose.

Our bedtime routine is in a bit of upheaval these days. I got a little tired of Jonathan hiding behind his crib, planting himself facedown in his pillow when it's time to brush teeth, and thrashing around when I put on his pajamas. So I bought a book on discipline called "1-2-3 Magic." I don't want to rehash the whole thing here, but basically, I needed a book to tell me how to count to three when Jonathan's misbehaving. The book suggests timeouts once you get to three, but obviously that doesn't work well at bedtime. Instead, when I get to three, I take away one of his three bedtime books.

For the first few days, Jonathan lost all three books, and wailed as soon as I turned out the lights for his snuggle. Actually, he switched between wailing and pathetic pleading: "Moon? Moon? MOOOON!" But we got through that and he settled in to sleep. Then, the counting started to click. He would run and hide behind and the crib, and I'd say "Jonathan, that's one." He'd come out and look at me, and carefully put one hand out, then pull it back. He was so clearly trying to see what he could get away with! I kept counting and he finally made it through the routine losing only two books. After that, things were pretty good. He still faceplants when I go to get the toothbrush, and won't flip over when I ask. But now when I say "That's one" he says "Two!" and then sits up and opens his mouth.

One thing he won't lose is the goodnight story, where I tell him about his day. Like everything about bedtime, this has some ritual elements. The nanny always writes down his menu, so I wind up recounting breakfast and lunch in great detail. Our farmshare has been so fantastic that Jonathan knows the names of many many fruits by now. So he usually chimes in when I describe lunch. "Plum! Peach! Soup!" And when I talk about me or Chris coming home, we always say "HEELLLLOOOO Jonathan!" And Jonathan pipes up with "Jon-Jon!" at that part of the story. Finally, just as I'm gearing up for the finish ("So that was a really good day!") Jonathan decides for some stalling tactics. He'll ask to eat, or drink, or for milk, or soup. I've incorporated those into the ritual as well, so he doesn't fuss when they don't work.

He'll say "Eat! Eat!" and I'll tell him "YOU don't need to EAT!" "Drink! Drink!" "YOU don't need to DRINK!" He giggles. Last week though, instead of moving on to milk, the next usual request, he said "Goose!" I was caught a little short and asked him "You want to eat a goose?" It struck me as funny, so I started to laugh, and that in turn delighted Jonathan, who laughed even more. And if "goose" is funny once, it's obviously more funny if you say it a lot more! So Jonathan kept repeating "goose" and I got the giggles, and then he giggled, and around and around we went. He got to bed late that night.

Now "goose" is our private joke. Jonathan always makes sure to say it as we're getting ready for bed, and even offered it once hoping to throw off my counting. He went up to Chris the other night and said it several times, and looked perplexed when Chris didn't laugh. Jonathan came over to me and got the laugh he was looking for, and Chris felt a little left out until I could explain.