Bedtime

Bedtime around my house is killing me. I finally got both babies to bed last night and thought the other kids were laying down to sleep. My oldest left the light on in the living room along with the TV. How hard is it to turn these things off when you are done? I turn the TV off and hear 3 of the girls downstairs playing. I go to the top of the stairs and tell them to turn off the light it's bedtime. The response I get "We didn't get to play enough today so we are playing". WHAT??? I tell them "No, playtime is over go to sleep".

A friend of mine told me last week that he hates bedtime that the hours 5-9 are the worst in his house. I completely agree! We both talked about how hard it is to do dinner, baths and bed alone. We are both married, but his wife doesn't do much in the way of helping him. The kids are basically his responsiblity. My husband works nights and isn't home most of the time. He is home about 7 nights a month. (He works two jobs).

I dread once it hits about 5pm. I don't like having to cook dinner while entertaining the kids, clean up the little ones after dinner, and do all the things that must be done at night before going to bed.

I've got some night owl kids who love to give us a hard time about going to bed. It's slowly breaking me down over time. I didn't really notice how bad it was until my mom came to help out when I had my surgery. My 6 year old is staying up sometimes as late as 1am. This is killing me and I don't know how to end it.

It doesn't matter if we get the kids up early they seem to have endless energy and can still stay up late. I'm at a loss! I can't handle late nights and early mornings!

Jess