No Sleep 'Till...

Back in the olden days, Kathy and I used to be quite smug about how easily our girls went to sleep. It used to be a simple two-step process:

1. Put daughters in crib.
2. Leave the room.
   

And they would sleep. Not immediately, but eventually, after maybe 15 to 30 minutes of giggling and/or singing. Most importantly, it would happen without any additional intervention by us parental people. In other words, Mommy and daddy did not have to re-enter the room. Which was freaking awesome.

And so it was for one oh-so-glorious year, until around the time they turned two. Somewhere around that time, Riley started getting a little displeased with the whole simplicity of this process. And so, the two-step process became a five-step process:

1. Put daughters in crib.
2. Leave the room.
3. After about 10 minutes of giggling and/or singing, Riley screams for mommy or daddy or both.
4. Go back into the room and adjust Riley’s blanket to her strict specifications.
5. Leave the room.
   

Then somewhere along the way -- I’m not quite sure when – we totally lost control, and the heretofore simple process started expanding at an exponential rate. One day we turned around and found that our little two-step process had morphed into a 25-step extravaganza:

1. Put daughters in crib.
2. Make sure that each daughter has exactly the correct number of stuffed monkeys of the correct colors next to them, plus one Winnie-the-Pooh, one brown bear, and a couple miscellaneous animals (duckie or froggy or piglet). Each stuffed animal must be aligned according to child’s personal preferences, which change daily.
3. Tuck both girls into their blankets.
4. Sing “Great Big Stars”
5. Sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”
6. Girls have been jumping up and down in their cribs during the songs, so tuck both girls into their blankets again.
7. Try to leave the room, unsuccessfully.
8. Fluff Riley’s pillow.
9. Try to leave the room, unsuccessfully.
10. Bring Riley and Leah a cup of water.
11. Leave the room.
12. Listen to girls sing and giggle for 10 minutes.
13. Riley screams for mommy, daddy, or both.
14. Go back into room and adjust blanket to Riley’s strict specifications.
15. Leave the room.
16. Listen to girls sing and giggle for 10 minutes.
17. Riley screams for mommy, daddy, or both.
18. Go back into room and adjust blanket to Riley’s strict specifications. Tell Riley “this is the last time we’re coming in.”
19. Leave the room.
20. Listen to girls sing and giggle for 10 minutes.
21. Hear Riley screaming bloody murder like she’s being stabbed or something.
22. Rush into the room. Crying immediately stops. Riley, says, in a sing-songy mocking voice, “this is the LAST TIME!” then giggles.
23. Adjust blanket to Riley’s strict specifications.
24. Leave the room.
25. Riley alternately screams for mommy and daddy for about 15 minutes.
26. Girls fall asleep out of pure exhaustion, about 45 to 60 minutes after we put them to bed.
    

This was pretty much the situation until this summer, when we converted Riley and Leah’s crib into “big girl beds”. I had been dreading this for months and putting it off because as bad as the whole sleep situation had become with Riley, at least she was contained and was not openly inciting riots throughout the house. But then the girls started noticing that all their friends had big boy/girl beds and they didn’t, and what’s up with that? And hey, looky here, this bar that’s confining me to the crib isn’t actually all that high.

So we gave in, converted the cribs into toddler beds, and held our breaths waiting for the fallout. The first couple nights were pretty successful, and Kathy and I briefly and foolishly started breathing a sigh of relief. But then I guess it clicked in Leah and Riley’s heads (well, probably Riley’s head first) that this whole “big girl bed” thing meant that they were free to roam around the room, including to the bed of a certain twin sister. And this has added a whole new dimension to the post-bedtime play hour. And by “play hour”, I mean PLAY HOUR, with all caps and a few exclamation points thrown in for good measure. And by “hour”, I mean about two hours. Sometimes three.

I wish I were exaggerating, but I’m not. Oh, indeed, as Kathy will testify, I am not.

To give you an idea, here was the scene the other day when I checked in on them about two hours after we put them “to bed”:

• Approximately 20 books off the shelves on the floor.
• Blankets from their beds laid on the floor, like a picnic.
• Clothes drawers open with various clothing items randomly strewn about the room.
• About 30 stuffed animals gathered on top of the picnic blanket.
• Riley gleefully jumping on Leah’s bed like it’s a trampoline.
• Leah preparing to take a flying leap off of her bed on to the picnic blanket.
  

I walk in. Riley and Leah freeze. Brief sheepish looks on Riley and Leah’s faces, which melt into ear-to-ear grins. Proud grins. A little defiant.

Then on cue, Riley looks up at me and asks “Can I have a popsicle?”

And so it goes.