Stinker

BB's bedtime is getting more and more challenging, I'm sorry to say. She goes down for nap as easy as kiss my hand: just crawls into bed, snuggles up, and settles in for her snooze. But at night she rarely goes to bed without some sort of shenanigans. Combine this with her recent night-waking issues, and it can get pretty frustrating -- thank heavens two of the four final molars are through and the cold has cleared up, so for the past several days she's either slept through the night or woken only once.


I feel like she's this close to surrendering to the whole idea of sleep. BJ is an excellent sleeper now, almost always falling asleep quickly and staying asleep through the night. He's been that way for quite some time, thank goodness; he has issues when he's sick or when his vasomotor rhinitis is acting up, as one would expect, but most of the time he's great. If we can get BB to a similar place, we will be very happy indeed.


Lately, she has figured out that it's fun to try to be funny at bedtime. Either S or I will usually sit quietly next to her bed for a little while. Most of the time, I end up doing so at her request. This is primarily to keep her in the "big girl" bed instead of wandering the house, as well as to keep her somewhat quiet and settled so that BJ can get to sleep. It was working pretty well for a while, but now she's officially caught on to our attempts to keep it boring. I sit there, mostly silent; as she chatters away in her bed, she will periodically pause, look at me, and say, "Don't say anything, Mommy!"


The other night, when S was sitting with her, he came out laughing to report that she had gotten out from under the covers, turned upside down with her butt straight in the air, looked up at him and told him in a nearly taunting voice, "Don't say anything, Daddy! Don't say anything!"


Two nights ago, she really went into the song and dance routine at bedtime. I was sitting next to her, trying to be patient with her litany of requests: find her sippy cup, tuck in the blankets, get her a tissue.... When she asked for a hair pretty, I drew the line: "It is bedtime. Hair pretties are for daytime. Time for bed!"


She plopped down on her pillow and announced, "I going to sing a Hair Pretty Song!"


And she did. It went like this: "Oh, Hair Pretty! Oh Hair Pretty! It too tight! Oh Hair Pretty!!!"


Quite loud and rather to the tune of "Oh Tannenbaum."


I had to leave the room to contain myself. This little girl has a sense of humor, and she knows it. The stinker!