Emma.....Please go to sleep!!

So I am planning on updating the blog with pictures and things we have been up to in the last couple of months but I needed to use the blog as a forum for some mommy advice from all you mom’s out there…

Emma has transitioned to her big girl bed and was doing really well. She didn’t figure out that she could get out of bed herself until the week before we left to visit the family in Washington. She really struggled to get to sleep while we were out visiting. I figured it was the time change and the new environment so would lay in the room with her until she fell asleep. By night two of staring at the ceiling for an hour I figured I could read the last Twilight book instead (which I have finished…..this deserves a post in of itself….I am now obsessed) and was not quite as frustrated but it was a long week sleep wise.

We got home and I figured that it would take a couple of days to adjust back to our time but it has been over a week now and she is still up until 11pm. We used the super nanny technique (yes I watch it every once and a while and used to think…..how do parents have kids so out of control…..now I know better). Everytime she came out of the room John would put her straight back in bed. The first night of this lasted an hour and a half of her screaming, running across the room, slamming into the door and John putting her back into bed. Since that night, she has been much quieter but still won’t go to sleep until about three hours after we attempt to put her down. She lays in her bed and every 15-30 minutes comes out with a new excuse…..mommy tummy ache, mommy wawa, mommy owie, mommy baby juice (this means a toy she sleeps with has fallen into the crack between her bed and wall), mommy peepee, mommy poopoo. We respond to the peepee and poopoo which so far has not been in vain and try to ignore all of the other pleas. Last night she was screaming owie in her bed and finally John went in and she had her arm stuck in the rails of the bed. Ahhhh, so do we respond when she is yelling or not? We just can’t win. We can’t understand how she can lay in bed for hours at a time and not fall asleep. If anyone has any recommendations other than straight shots of whiskey it would be much appreciated. I hope that this is a short lived habit and not one of those we will be dealing with for the next year…..Ahhhh the life of a parent….

Update: I wrote the above yesterday and didn't get to posting it till tonight. It is 8:25 and all is quite at the Pell house as of now. We started the night at 7:30 with a bath, then bandaids on both feet with "magic socks", then tylonol or "nummy medicine" (she has a cold and slight fever, I wasn't going to risk it without it tonight), then two books and bed. Within one minute of me closing the door she was up to go pee (I asked her like 10 times before this), then back to bed. One minute later she had to poo. She managed to squeeze out what she called a baby poo poo then back to bed. One minute later out complaining about a bug bite on the back of her neck. I told her it was fine but she wasn't having it. I then proceeded to put butt cream on her bug bite and told her it would make it better. Yes, I put butt cream on my daughters neck to get her to go to sleep. Whatever works at this point. Still quiet and I don't hear any pitter patter of feet. Gotta go enjoy the rest of my evening....maybe....we will see.