bedtime progress

*while i'm rocking in the chair at bedtime
asher: what doing, mama?
me: i'm sitting in my chair, baby.
asher: oh, ok. you do dat. you sit in dat chair.
me: ok, bud.
asher: ok, my mommy.

our new bedtime routine is as follows:
1) we sit in the bed and read 2-3 books together
    -usually his diggers book, chicka chicka boom boom, and brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?
2) i get up and stand bedside the bed to tuck asher in and say prayers
    -i start the prayer and then he makes me thank God for every little thing he can think of. he starts with mama, daddy, and baby nate, but then says things like, "kank kou lights, mommy," "kank kou door, mommy," "kank kou judahbear, mommy." judahbear is his snuggle buddy now that my belly and i don't stay in the bed with him. bry and i made judahbear at build-a-bear when i was pregnant with asher.
3) i give his sweet, chubby cheeks lots of kisses
    -i'm usually instructed to give judahbear lots of kisses too.
4) he says goodnight to mama's belly
   -this consists of him rubbing my belly, poking my belly button, and saying goodnight to it. weird, i know, but it really does help him detach.
5) i turn off the lamp
  -this is pretty self-explanatory, but i just needed you to know that we found an adorable white, ceramic, teardrop-shaped lamp at target for only $10. then we found an adorable square, burlap-looking shade for $10. i'm in love with this lamp because it looks great in the boys' room, but i could also reuse it anywhere in the house later on if i need to. it makes me smile every time i see it. what can i say? little things make me happy.
6) i sit in the rocking chair
  -we moved the rocking chair as close to the door as we could with the back facing the bed. i started off sitting there until he fell asleep, but now i only stay long enough for him to settle down a bit.
7) i kiss him goodnight one last time
  -after my few minutes of chair time, i kiss him and tell him i love him one last time so that he knows i'm leaving and it's time to sleep.
8) i leave and close his door behind me
  -sometimes he yells for me from the bedroom for a few minutes, but most of the time he goes right to sleep.

i love our new bedtime routine. it works much better for both of us, i think.