When I was younger and an event of consequence came on the television (a Michael Jackson video, the PBS series Eyes on the Prize, or Monday Night Football) my mother and father allowed me to stay up late and watch. At the time I felt 100% entitled to watch these things on television, and I didn't even think about how much I was throwing off the rigid schedule my parents had spent time carefully crafting during my formative years. All I knew was that my program(s) was on ,and goddammit I wanted to see it.

Now that I'm an adult with a five year old child, I have much more an appreciation for what my parents did in terms of setting bedtime guidelines and deciding when to take their feet off the gas a bit. My son starts reading at 7:30, is ready for a night time shower/bath around 7:45, and he is usually in bed by 8pm. He used to attempt to put up a bit of a fight during every step of the night process, but he's resigned to his fate, and realizes he cannot change it.

Monday night was a bit different. My son was in bed by 8pm, and afterwards the wife and I prepared to eat dinner so we could watch the Oscars. Two minutes before the Oscars officially began, Robin Roberts--via the ABC broadcast--showed a tweet of Justin Timberlake and she mentioned that he was going to open up the Oscar show. Now at that point I realized that he was going to open the show with his song, "Can't Stop The Feeling" from the movie Trolls, which are Nyles's current favorite song and movie respectively. Since I knew he loved the song, I hit record and I felt good about myself, since I knew he'd watch it the next day with a smile on his face.

Then I felt bad for being such a slave to my bedtime routine, and I decided to travel back to my youth, when my parents took the foot off the gas. I ran into my son's room, I picked him up (something I don't do too much of lately because he's heavy as hell) and I sat his happy ass in front of the television just a Justin Timberlake starting singing. Nyles danced the whole time with a huge Kool-Aid smile on his face, and he was in his own world. After the performance, I carried him back to bed, he said, "Thank you Daddy", then he went to sleep.

Mission Accomplished.

Can't Stop the Feeling is Nyles' jam! AKA the Trolls song. Dad let him stay up to see #oscars opening number.

A post shared by renitapmobley (@renitareally) on Feb 26, 2017 at 5:34pm PST