My funny little man...

Ok, the bedtime process has now gotten a little more complicated. It used to be bath, milk, storytime and Garrett would curl up with his blankie and off to sleep he would go...apparently now those are the good ole days. For the last few night he has insisted on not going to bed without all of his "babies" (the 5 stuffed animals he owns), a blankie for them, his blankie, and for whatever reason, 1 tractor,1 book and 1 car (doesn't matter which one but one of each). When all of these things are in the bed next to him he would lay down and go to sleep until last night...
I had all of the items assembled and ready for him (some of you might say he's too spoiled here but I choose to pick my battles and its easier to give him what he wants and get him to bed on time than to say "no" and fight with him for an hour).
Anyway we get all snuggled in and he starts to cry...I'm like what's wrong? he goes "Mommy emmo, emmo mommy" and he is crying his heart out..."I am like elbow baby? did you hurt your elbow? " No mommy emmo and its at this point that I realize that one of his babies "Elmo" is missing. "Oh you want Elmo?" at which point he hops up (crying stops immediately) and gets out of bed and runs to the living room to get Elmo, runs back to the room and climbs in bed and lays down. Great I think, now we're good! Not quite. He starts crying again. "What's wrong Garrett?"
"Yook Mommy amere" (look mommy come here) he says as he again gets out of bed. Interested I follow him-he goes to the refrigerator,smacks it with one hand and says "sammich" and I say no Garrett you cannot have a sandwich, you already ate (before you think I starve my child, for dinner he had meatloaf, bread, 3 helpings of corn and some beans and a half hour before bed a whole tub of yogurt so no way was this child hungry.) at this point he starts to cry.
I am starting to get frustrated but trying to be a good mommy I get down at his level and say "Garrett I am very sorry but it is not time to eat it is bedtime so lets be a good boy and go night-night" at which point he looks at me with a tear on his cheek, his lip quivering,seems to think for a minute and says "momma, ice ceam?" and I am like "Garrett I am sorry baby it's too late for ice cream, its bedtime" and then (this is the kicker) he says "peas?" (for please) and signs it at the same time.
Oh my goodness-it broke my heart but I managed to stay firm insisting that it was bedtime and we could have ice cream another time so he trudged down the hall,climbed into bed and cried himself to sleep and I felt like the worst mommy in the world (even though I do feel I did the right thing but was grateful that he was sleepy and fell asleep quickly.) Sometimes its Ok to give in but I do like to keep him on a schedule during the week and I want him to get a good nights sleep so I wasn't budging on this one (but if it had been the weekend it might have been another story.)
Sometimes this parenting thing is hard when you want to do one thing and you need to do another.( I know some of you are laughing at me right now but its hard to say "no".-heck I don't want my child to be one of those little brats screaming at walmart at the top of their lungs so the parent will give in and give them whatever they want -I always blame the parents when kids act like that. All in All thank the good Lord, Garrett is actually extremely well behaved and we are blessed to have such a great little guy but last night I learned you have to draw the line somewhere) .
For us we can have animals,blankies and toys in the bed but we cannot stay up stalling and asking for things all night. I feel if I gave in last night, he would have tried to do the same thing every night and start coming up with reasons to not go to bed and I certainly didn't want to start that! I know there was no way he was hungry but this is the 1st time he has tried to prolong or stall bedtime. I am sure it wasn't the last time! I can't wait to see what he has in store for me tonight :) I love that little guy so much...being a parent is the best even when it's not so fun.