The Magical Doorway

When we remodeled the house, we must have chosen the wrong room for the nursery.

It's an ideal location for a baby's room.  The rear of the house, away from the sounds of traffic from the street.  But right at the top of the stairs, so I can hear them when I'm downstairs.

The problem is that there is something magical in the doorway that is especially powerful at bedtime.

Usually before bedtime, the kids are exhausted.  They cry when their sibling looks at them the wrong way or breeches the edges of their personal space.  It they drop the favored puppy or blanket or car or phone on the floor at their feet, they wail for help picking it up.  Then when you give up and help them, the screeching continues with 'my do it' and the object is dumped back on the floor.  My daughter will be falling off her feet, tripping and stumbling with weariness. They are exhausted to the point where nothing will ever be right again.

However, once PJ's and nighttime diapers are on and the final cup of milk has been drunk, and the requisite twenty minutes of Cars or Lumpy or Littlefoot have been watched and they head off to bed, dragging their pillows, blankets, puppies, cellphones, match box cars, and maybe their sunglasses (because those are absolutely necessary for sleeping?), they shuffle through their doorway and are magically awake and wildly energetic for the next two hours. Jumping on their beds, racing around the room, climbing the little one's crib (the little one no longer sleeps in this crib for this reason), and dismantling the blinds.

Their bedroom should have been my office.  I can't even imagine how much work I could get done with that kind of energy.  Although I suspect the magic only works if you are under forty-eight inches tall.