Day One Hundred Eighty-Seven

Thanks to the majesty that is Timehop, I know for a fact that it has been exactly one year ago this week that Mila slept in her bed the entire night for the first time in years. YEARS. As an infant, she often slept through the night in her own bed, but she stopped once she was capable of toddling and that was that. She had no interest in even trying, which was sort of okay since she's the best co-sleeper ever (seriously). But' then she wanted a hamster, I bargained with the devil and made that promise, and now there's a Jojo in our house.

But Mila never again slept in her own bed. Literally she did it for exactly one night to get her hamster and then was completely done with it. As in, she wouldn't even consider trying.

Until I started using her bedroom as an office. While the kid has had zero interest in her bedroom for years, suddenly the fact that I was spending time in there made it interesting. Of course. She likes to play in there whenever I'm in a meeting with people who have the word "President" in their job title because who doesn't suddenly need to play a recorder while their mom is on the phone? When else would you play it?

Basically, the fact that I found another use for Mila's bedroom motivated her to reclaim her territory. She even started trying to sleep in her own bed. That little game started about a month ago and it's SO FUN. LET ME JUST TELL YOU.

Mila's idea of sleeping in her bed all night is to fall asleep in her bed and then wake up every two hours to tell me she wants to sleep in her bed. No joke. She wakes up every two hours, walks to find me regardless of where I am in the house, and then yells at me because she wants to be sleeping in her bed. I escort her back, she yells some more, but then she goes back to sleep. For two hours.

So great. I love being yelled at for doing absolutely nothing to stop a kid from doing what she wants to do, especially at 2:00 am.

I've been just sort of fumbling through the whole disaster because 2020. Not getting sleep is the least of my worries lately.

And then I took the kid to the beach. She is the most energetic of little Energizer bunnies, so basically she spends her every waking minute running, jumping, and playing. When at the beach, she turns it up a notch and literally vibrates with excitement all day long. There is a lot of jumping in the ocean and running to chase seagulls and such, which means she is EXHAUSTED by the end of the day.

She is so exhausted that she has been accidentally sleeping in her own bed all night long. Multiple times, even.

So the whole thing is frustrating as all get out for me because NOW is not the time to suddenly sleep through the night. I'm not bringing the little daybed from the beach house home with us and I can't replicate the exhaustion that comes with jumping in the water. None of it is reproducible, really, so let's just not.

I tried to explain this all to Mila. As in, she should just sleep with me, in part so I can make her go back to sleep when she wakes up too early and wants to go to the beach immediately, and in part because STOP TOYING WITH ME, CHILD. Most of the conversation was around trying to understand if there is any sort of conscious decision going on because a kid who has only slept through the night in her own bed a handful of times in her life must be aware of what she's doing. It's a choice, right?

RIGHT.

Mila full-on admitted that the reason she suddenly knows how to sleep alone ALL. NIGHT. LONG. is that her room is located directly outside of mine. "Momma, I can sleep through the night because I know you can't escape."

WELP.