Oh, for some good zzzzz's

Our girl.

What you can't see is that she's being held by her daddy. That's the only way she slept for us as a baby. We've always had a hard time with this. We did reach the point, after a few months of exhaustion, where we let her "cry it out".

And CRY IT OUT she did.

She got a little better at falling asleep after only a little crying, but the crying part never really stopped. Now that she's talking and reasoning more, her methods have changed.

Today, for instance, 2:00 pm came around and I gathered up the naptime necessities: Blankie, Monkey, and Minnie Mouse. Tootsie immediately starts saying, "it's not naptime". So I tell her we're going to go read some good stories. She says, "otay...we tan read downtairs. It's not naptime." She continued to tell me this throughout our story time, making it a not-so-peaceful read.

At bedtime, from behind her crib bars, she's resorted to, "Mommy Daddy...where are you?", or "I want to hold your hand". We try to "ignore" her and just let her settle down and fall asleep, knowing that if we go into her room to address her requests, it will just prolong our agony. Recently, however, she cried out, "Daddy...there's monsters in my room!" We couldn't ignore that. She sounded really scared. Daddy took care of the issue, like all super daddies can.

But the kid's clever...

When it's windy, there's "wind in my room". When it rains, there's "rain in my room". It's been an hour since I put her down for her nap, and she's still crying.

I love that little pumpkin...but it's a good thing she was number 3, and not number 1. Scary stuff.