Sleep

Dooce had a post a couple days back about how she got her daughter to start sleeping through the night, which generated a ton of comments and degenerated into a Feber v something else sleep training debacle. It was interesting reading the comments because it appeared that most of the people commenting had children who were in the process of learning to sleep through the night or had just started sleeping through the night.

Why did I find it entertaining? Because my friends, I don't care when or how your kid starts sleeping through the night. They will.... but eventually they will turn 4 and realize that hey! mom and dad are staying up and I am going to bed? WTF is up with that? and then, the fun begins.

"Good night sweetie!" and you think you're home free, ok to go downstairs and clean up from dinner, pay bills, pack lunches, start laundry (feel free to insert whatever chore you start/finish after the kiddo's in bed)...until....."mom? I needa tell you something"....."Yes honey?"...crickets chirping..."ummmmm...." and you can practically see the gears spinning in her head as she frantically tries to come up with something to tell you that necessitated her getting out of bed and stealthily creeping downstairs. "I hurt my finger!" or "I want all my covers on me".....

So you play this game for about a half hour until she finally falls asleep.

And guess what? Short of boarding her door shut - you can't stop her from getting out of her big girl bed and coming downstairs. Until the weekend, when between swimming lessons and running around outside she's so tired she falls asleep the minute her head hits the pillow.

I like weekends.