Oh, what a night...

Her name is Anne. She is the crusher of dreams.

That may be a bit dramatic, but we had a topsy-turvy night last night and I'm crabby.

Wednesday, 11:00
Anne and I have a brief talk in her bedroom. It goes something like this:
"You are big now. Big girls sleep in a bed. Babies sleep in a crib."
"Let's say 'All done!' to your crib."

Wednesday, 12:20
The child is rubbing her eyes and sucking her thumb, so I lay her down in the bed. I tell her good-night, we pray, and she goes right to sleep. I do a happy dance (silently) as I enjoy her naptime. She slept until 2:40, at which time she came sauntering out to the couch to find me and ask for milk.

Wednesday, 8:45
After a bath, milk, stories, and songs, we lay her down in bed again. She doesn't cry, and after I say "Amen" I am touched when she asks "More Jesus?" Awww...

8:50
Whoop, she's out of bed. Back in she goes. Tears this time.

8:55
One more visit to the living room. Back in bed, a brief snuggle, and a reminder to "Stay in your bed." It works. She stays, she sleeps. There is much rejoicing.

Thursday, 3:15 am
My child is toddling her way to me. I can hear her. I am cursing in my head. I am also already grumpy because it is hot in our house and someone is sleeping too close to me (in my totally-not-crazy prengnant opinion). I take Anne back to her room, rock her for a minute, and then tuck her back in. I return to my bed at 3:25 and sit there until 3:30, making sure she is not getting up again. Confident she is staying put, I lay down but do not sleep (hot! too close! stop snoring!)

3:30 am
She's back! Back we go. No tears, but she's wide awake. Ready to play and be silly. Not good.

3:45 am
She lays in bed just long enough to make you think she's asleep, and then she's pulls the rug out from under you. Dasher of hopes, she is! This time I jab Sam and tell him he's on-duty. He's thrilled, as you can imagine.

4:00 am
Repeat, with Sam doing the dirty work again. Like it matters--I'm still awake.

4:15 am
Craziness sets in and we let Anne into our bed. I don't know why we do this, because she doesn't like our bed. Sleeping with us is not her goal. Regardless, we're both bleary-eyed now and at least if she's between us we can kind of sleep while she rolls around and jabs us in the eyes saying "I wake up!"

5:00 am
Child is finally asleep. I'm on the edge of the mattress and have no blankets. (See, now I want blankets...go figure...)

7:30 am
Child awakes! Sam is up for work, I am begging for a magical nanny to show up at my door so I can sleep. That nanny arrives in the form of Wonder Pets on our TV. Anne was quite happy to sit there watching that while I dozed for a few more minutes.

To summarize: Not a good first night in the bed (repeated first night; we tried this a while back, remember?). Now she knows she can come to our room and watch TV if she doesn't want to sleep. Great. Annie: 1, Parents: 0. I'm starting to wonder if Baby can sleep in the playpen for a year and Anne can sleep in the crib and no one needs to sleep in the toddler bed...or we put her brother right in the bed and bypass the crib all together ;)