Free Range Chicken 4...Silence of the Lamb

Bedtime stories over by 8:35...Cuddle time lasts for 10 minutes...Minimal protestation on getting in the toddler bed.

By 9:15, Gregg's already asleep and I'm downstairs alone in the darkened family room enjoying a glass of Malbec and hard Bavarian pretzels while watching the season premiere of Dexter (again) on DVR.  Ah, pretzels, quiet, wine, and a serial killer.  Who could ask for anything more?

**And she slept all night, but I did find her on the futon again this morning.  Works for me.

Free Range Chicken 3...The Toddler Strikes Back

OK so here's the thing.  There's something about that toddler bed she doesn't like.  I think it's the feeling of being more exposed.  She's OK laying in there as long as we're near her but if we attempt to leave the room, she jumps off and runs over to us.  Last night, after a story on my lap, we tried it again.  She'd lay down and look like she was drifting off, but as soon as I got up to leave, bam, here she comes.  At one point she got up and went to the futon on the other side of the room and I thought OK, I'll leave her there and see what happens.  A minute after I left the room, she started crying.  We went back and forth on this for about an hour and a half, after which Gregg took over.  Eventually, he took her in bed with him trying to just get her to fall asleep.  By 11 PM he came downstairs with her, saying "Not only is she not going to sleep but now she's bouncing off the walls.  She needs some activity time to drain the battery".  Was she ever.  For an hour, she was buzzing around the living room, climbing, jumping, and chatting non stop.  Does she have an espresso machine hidden up there someplace?  Eventually we snuggled up on the couch and by midnight she fell asleep hard.  I put her back in the toddler bed and there she stayed until 5:30 when Gregg checked on her before leaving for work.  When I peeked in at about 6:30, she had moved to the futon and was sleeping there.

We'll try it again tonight.  We talked about putting the crib back together, but it's just too dangerous having her climb out of it.  We don't want to push her, but we think she's ready, and she'll get it soon enough.  She'd better; I'm running out of pithy titles for these posts.

Free Range Chicken 2...Return of the Toddler

Forget all the happy talk in last night's post about getting her to sleep at 10:30.  At about 3 AM, Gregg woke because he heard a noise and looking at the video monitor, noticed she was not in the bed.  Apparently, she was on the futon that is in her room "la-la-ing" into a toy microphone.  Yes, not only does she wake up but announces it to the world.

She ended up back in bed with us, which means of course it's time for gymnastics class.  Bed jumping, tumbling, kung fu grip neck hugs, all the best moves until sometime around 5.  I'm not sure he even got back to sleep, because that's about when he gets up for work.  I on the other hand happily hit snooze until I was late for work.  Miss Thing?  Woke up chipper and happy.  I'll put a stop to that tonight.