The Bible Told Me So!

We have a new evening ritual. We used to put Ashley down for bed around 9 or 9:30pm, put on her favorite song, and played a relaxing fish aquarium video on her TV. The reason we put her down so late was because we only see our daughter a tiny bit during the week since we work full time, and we wanted to stretch out the evening as late as we could to cram in the most time with Ashley. Over the last several weeks Ashley's attitude was really getting, well, bratty. And it was driving Paul and I mad! So during her 3 year wellness checkup at the doctor's last week, Paul asked what could be making her act up so much. The doctor suggested that we put her to bed NO LATER than 8pm (assuring she gets between 11 or 12 hours of sleep) and no stimulation like the music or video. Just one book, prayers, kisses and lights out. We started it the first time last Thursday (9/24) and I can honestly say that we have a better behaved child in just one week! Actually it really only took 1 or 2 days to notice the change. It's amazing!! Poor thing was just overtired and we had no idea. We realized that we might have less time with her each night, but it is quality time instead of that 8-9 hour filled mostly with repremands and time outs. It's been great!

So one night during our new ritual, I decided to read Ashley a portion of her children's Bible. It was given to her from her Aunt Melisa and Uncle Johnny for her christening and I thought that now was a good time to introduce her to some Bible stories. I started off with Adam and Eve and the Noah's Ark story. She was very interested...so interested that she wanted to read the whole book! Of course, trying to keep with our new bedtime of 8:00pm, I knew that we would be pushing it, as it was already 8pm. This book is not nearly as long as the real Bible, but it definitely was pretty thick and I told her, "I'm sorry Ashley, but we'll have to read some more of the book tomorrow" She was mostly paging through it to see the pictures at this point, and I reminded her that it was bedtime. She kept protesting and asking me if she could finish it. And before I could remind her one more time that it was time to go to bed, she said, quoting the famous Christian song, "Because the Bible told me so!" Well, what could say to that!! So, I couldn't help but let her finish it. Of all books, this was an important one and maybe the good, sweet Lord was speaking to my daughter, or maybe Ashley was just trying hold on to those last few moments before having to go to sleep. I'll never know...