Fact: If you kind of whine about sleep issues, you will kind of have a decent night.

Fact: My life is a game show.

Behind Door #1 is a custom-fitted Toddler Helmet. It comes complete with a blissful night of peace and quiet, but for some reason, the manufacturer forgot to include any actual sleep in there.

Door #2 is hiding a fancy-schmancy Toddler containing gate guaranteed to make her howl and whine and cry and throw things at you. It's much more ergonomically correct than the Toddler Helmet, but it too is missing that vital sleep component.

Door #3 is a wicked rash that itches like crazy all day long.

OK, so maybe Door #3 isn't really one of my choices, but I'm kind of thinking I would like that as an option because Doors #1 and #2 ARE NOT MY FRIENDS.

Two nights ago I played Fighter Jet all night and escorted the Toddler to the approved airspace in her room four times. The fifth time she managed to somehow get past my Momdar and snuck around to Daddy's side of the bed. Guess who let her in the bed? Yes, the man who later complained when he wore a Toddler Helmet for an hour. An hour. I wore it long enough for Elmo to mock Mr. Noodle four times, Baby Bear's lisp to get on my nerves twelve times, and The Count to play his stupid organ sixteen times. If I could get to wear it for only one round of Monsters on Happy Pills? I would be a happy little monster, no pills required.

Last night I went for Door #2. You know what happens when you cage in a toddler? I don't know about the toddler population at large, but my toddler acts like a caged animal. A rabid, starved, caged animal. After a battle royale at bedtime, she turned on the sirens at around midnight. I let her scream for a while, but then I was afraid that I would end up with two humans making me feel crappy, so I went to her doorway. I didn't say a word. I just stood there.

She stopped screaming.

She just stood there.

The standoff went on for at least five minutes with each of us standing silently on our prospective sides of the war zone. She was the first to break the silence with a "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" that I'm pretty sure woke up every person in our zip code. I replied with a "WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" then a, "Alexis, go to bed."

She did.

Silently.

She got back in her bed.

BUT, before I could pick my jaw up off the floor, her siren went off again. "WAAAAAH! WAAAAAAH! WAAAAAAAH! Mother-effin' WAAAAAAH!" (I might be paraphrasing there.) Just in case I couldn't hear her all the way from her bed two feet away, she returned to her station on the other side of the gate and continued on and on and on and on.

I laid down on the floor. Sure, that carpet has been peed on, puked on, pooped on, and that's just last week. I still laid down on it. It was the middle of the night; my germophobia ranks lower than my sleeplove-obia.

Twenty minutes. That's how long I laid there, how long Alexis expressed her dissatisfaction with my customer service skills, how long I tried to prove that I am more stubborn than her. Then I told her if she didn't want to sleep in her bed, I sure as heck would. I stumbled over the gate and poured myself into her itty-bitty toddler head, simultaneously getting my knees stuck in the foot board and banging my noggin on the head board.

No more than a millisecond later, she joined me, cuddled up next to me, and fell asleep. Two seconds after I felt absolutely positive she was asleep, I slammed my head up against a wall. (Not really, I like my head too much to abuse it like that. The thought did, however, cross my mind.)

Fact: It is better to be up once for over half an hour than it is to be up four times for about five minutes.

Fact: It doesn't matter which door I pick. There's only one winner in this game show, and it ain't me.