As a wife, my favorite part of the day is bedtime and the reason has nothing to do at all with sleeping… or that other thing.

Photo credits: http://www.universalbedlegs.com

The Captain’s nightly ritual is gym at 10:00 PM, eat at 12 midnight, play video games ’till 1:00 AM. After which he reads the News ’till he exhausts all the revolts, earthquakes, deaths and crisis around the world.

Between 2:00-3:00 AM he’ll announce ”I’m going to bed!” That’s my favorite News of the day.

When he heads to our room, I follow right away. There is a small window of opportunity, I can’t miss, to have him all to myself with 0% distractions – no gunshots, no i-Phone, no Xbox, no News.

So after his head hits the pillow and before his eyes close, I unleash my 1,000 stories. I recount the day and prattle on whatever. Eventually he’ll ask me to stop talking because he’s sleepy and that’s when I drop tiny bombs of interesting updates. Then he’ll poke and prod for me to say more. Soon enough he’ll be the one starting new conversations.

Then we’ll argue about the news, talk serious stuff and laugh about silly things.

An hour or so later he’ll check his watch and blame me for keeping him up. He’ll put his hands over my mouth just to shut me up. I, in my guilty conscience, will remain still. I wait ’till his breathing becomes regular then I’ll quietly slip away and go back to whatever I was doing before his sleeping-time announcement.

I love bedtime because of unguarded moments when I see sides of my husband that amazes me. I love bedtime because of talks about life and faith. I love bedtime because in the choice between sleep and me, my husband chooses me first.

I love bedtime because of stories we create every single night.