That Dreaded Day

It came.  The day I was dreading.

The day that the two year old started to drop her naps.

To be fair, she still naps most days, but oy, she makes a big, fat, hairy deal about it.  Or she makes a big, fat, hairy deal about bedtime later.  So I'm left treading the precarious balance between getting her to take a nap, but not a long nap, and then, making sure that she runs enough energy off to snuggle down easily for bedtime later.

It doesn't help that she is FULLY her mother's daughter in the lack of sleep = complete crankiness department. So skipping naps, while easier in the short term, is most certainly not easy at 6pm.   (Her sister has my genes in the lack of food = complete crankiness department...  what can I say?  I like to sleep.  And eat).

Sometime around 4 am, she's also been having bad dreams.  So she sounds hysterical, one of us runs to get her, and generally, she snuggles in between us and crashes again.  (I really don't mind... she's VERY warm and VERY still, unlike her spider monkey sister who ends up with her toes in my ears on the rare occasions she ends up in our room).

So yes, the child is a sleeping mystery lately.

Two nights ago, I was trying rather unsuccessfully to convince her that she was NOT coming into my bed at bedtime like she demanded to do and that she was going to lie down under her blankets, snuggle her night-nights, and go. to. sleep.

She wasn't buying it.  There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Shaun and I alternated to see what we could do to get the kid to calm down, (and conversely, quiet down enough to let her sister fall asleep), and finally I started asking questions.  The first one I asked proved to start a rather interesting conversation,

"Caly, honey...  what's the matter?"

"I had a bad dream, Mama...  a bad dream!"   Nevermind that she hadn't actually fallen asleep yet... I was on to her but I figured I'd let her finish...

"Alright kiddo... well, tell me about it.  What was the dream about?"

She sniffled, looked up, and flatly said, "You."

Um, excuse me?!  I know I can get scary when I don't have my dinner, but geez, I'm not THAT scary!

"Um, Caly?  Me?"

"Yup."

WHAT THE HECK DO I SAY TO THAT, PEOPLE!?

I chose complete avoidance.

"Oooook.  So, um, let's talk about some good things to dream about...  What do you think?"

She thought for a second, and then... "I think...  I think that I could maybe dream about... froggies.  And you, and Daddy and Lexi and Sayer."

So there you have it...  I can be scary enough for a fake bad dream...  but I come in as a very close second behind froggies as the top good dream, too.  I'll take it.  I think.

(And it's worth noting?  Right after that, she rolled over and went to sleep without a peep).