"Go, go, go, touchdown!!!!" and other horrible bedtime ideas

About a year ago Taylor got really big into cheering "Go, go, go, go, TOUCHDOWN!!!" She picked this up while watching a football game with Jenn and myself. She's since really moved away from it, and without football on television throughout the spring and summer months she's had little reason to revisit it.This past Monday we were watching the Chargers and Packers game, due in large part to the fact that Phillip Rivers and Jericho Cotchery are on my fantasy football team, Ruck Fice(2-1 looking to go 3-1 today, Super Bowl here I come).

Anyway, so Jenn tries to get Taylor to do the cheer again, and she goes for it wholeheartedly. Taylor's jumping up and down, pumping her fists, and shouting at the top of her lungs. Travis, of course, finds this contagious and follows suit. Instantly both twins are enthralled in the game with Travis cheering "He made it!" when a pass is completed and Taylor excitedly declaring every play a "Touchdown!!!"

I think that the funniest part of the whole scenario came at a moment in between plays, while the players were just huddling up on camera to discuss the next down. Taylor was already shouting "Go, go, go," and Travis turned to her and gently explained, "They're not going yet, Taylor, they're not going yet." Maybe you had to be there for it, but Jenn and I almost fell off the bed laughing.

Since this occured during Monday Night Football, you can surmise that it was after 8:00 pm that all the shenanigans began. If you know anything about the scheduling at the DeVries house, you know that 8:00 pm is typically the time we like to have the kids in bed so that they will hopefully fall asleep at a decent hour. Needless to say, a rough bedtime and grumpy morning were soon to follow.

Flash forward to Saturday night, I made it home from work at right about the kids' 8:00 bedtime. Everyone was wrapping up baths and getting diapers and jammies for the night, and as we made it into the bedroom Grandma Paula, who had dropped in to see the kids, commented on Taylor's new found infatuation with dribbling my regulation-size basketball on the tile. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to show her how well Taylor can throw and catch that same basketball as well. Travis wanted to get in on the act too, and soon we had a 4-way game of catch going with the basketball between Travis, Taylor, Jenn, and myself. The kids were REALLY into it.

As some of you already know, our normally durable and coordinated children become increasingly whiny and clumsy as they get tired. How this factors into this particular story is that, while Travis throws underhand like a granny shot in basketball, Taylor throws over her head like a soccer throw-in. Neither of them throw a particularly great distance, so they stand pretty close to each other. The result of all these factors is that when Taylor throws the ball, there's a pretty good chance that it's going to bash Travis right in the nose if he's not ready for it, and we've already discussed the tired factor that led to Travis being less than 100% on the coordination front. As a result we ended up with about three instances of a crying Travis, one of which also including a bloody lip.

The main idea of these two anecdotes is that we apparently suck at getting the kids calmed down for bedtime. I think we're just finding it too tempting to engage them in play because they're really getting into a fun age to play and interact with.