ISO... sleep

It's 10:15. I'm greedily consuming my last few minutes of alone time much like my daughter eats ice cream. I should be in bed considering that I've been blurry eyed and sleep deprived for so long that... well... for so long that I can't even find a clever phrase to compare it to. In case you don't believe me, allow me to demonstrate. This morning I dropped off a book that I had borrowed from my professor. He wasn't in his office so I left it on his desk. A few hours later I received an e-mail...

"thanks for returning the book... I was surprised to find a rather large sum of money tucked into the book when I picked it up to return it to the shelf. I can't imagine anyone would want to give me a tip (ha, ha), and even if one did so wish, I could not, in good conscience, accept."

I seriously think he thought I was trying to pay him off (though I don't know why... I swear I got a good grade!). I must have tucked the money for our bills inside the cover on my way out the door. The sad thing is that I didn't even notice it... mostly because things got so hectic this morning that I never got around to paying them... for yet another day...

But onto my reason for this reoccurrence in the battle over sleep. After a year and a half of no sleep by my very strong-willed darling, I had finally achieved the unimaginable. She began sleeping through the night... in her own bed. After several months of her wonderful new sleeping habits, I began thinking she was big enough for her big girl bed. So about a month ago, I turned her crib into a toddler bed. BIG MISTAKE. For instance, the other night, around this same time I hear this muffled choking sort of sound and peak into the hall to see my bewildered daughter blinking in the light... in her arms are her blanket, pillow, cuppa, baby eliza, one dress-up shoe, and a pacifier that she has never used but insists on keeping in bed with her. Her cry is one of confusion- not completely formed and a little spastic- most likely because she is still trying to figure out what is going on. She had fallen asleep in my bed... I had sneaked her back into her own... she HATES that. She drops her cup and as she bends to pick it up loses eliza. It all goes down hill from there. I usher her back into her room which results in a full on foot stomping tantrum. So we go through the whole bedtime routine (short version) and I leave the room. Approximately 30 min later I return to shut off her music, assuming by the silence that my daughter is sleeping peacefully in her bed... which I quickly realize is completely empty. I glance around the room... almost panicked... has my 2 year old resorted to running away already? I peak into the hall... empty. And then it occurs to me... yep... there she is... sleeping peacefully in MY bed (surrounded by blankie, pillow, cuppa, shoe, eliza, and pacie of course). I sneak her back to her bed again. Hhmmm.... a few hours later... I'm finally sleeping... deeply... when I here that same chokey sort of cry. She's stumbling into my room. I can hear objects thudding to the ground as she progresses. I can't think at this hour, better yet go through the whole deal again so I do what every determined mother would do... I drag her into my bed and immediately fall back asleep. Of course, when she's in my bed she wakes up almost hourly for misc causes. Sometimes it's to beg a nurse, sometimes she needs MY pillow (her's no longer being good enough), or cheerios (is she really hungry?) and sometimes simply to have a detailed conversation about her friend Lilly moving to CO or the peas that the real baby Eliza ate for lunch. Sometimes she is simply convinced that it is morning and time for me to "getoutbed mama"... at which point I do have to get out of bed and take her to the window to prove it is still night though it still takes another 1/2 hr to get her back to sleep.

It's quite hard to tell if this is due to the pain in her body or her mere two-ness. But she's certainly learned quite rapidly how to use this disease to her advantage. This morning when I informed her that she could not have fudge bars and licorice for breakfast she let out this perfect Audrey Hepburn wail, grabbed her right leg and squealed "ow ow ow". Absolutely convincing ... except that the disease is in her left leg. Ooops.

I honestly think that the real cause is the simple fact that MY DAUGHTER IS A MANIAC!!! Can I just sum it up to her insatiable love of life... at ALL hours? We are both suffering the effects so horridly that come late afternoon we can be found huddled in a heap on the living room floor sobbing out our miseries amid the mess that becomes my house when I am too exhausted to tidy it up. Which tells me that I am going to have to stick this out and get her back in her bed sometime soon if I want to have any hope of returning to normalcy.