Claire Helen has never been a particularly easy sleeper, but at least some of her antics are funny. The other night we put her down, but either she wasn't ready or it was past the window or Mercury was in retrograde (whatever that means) because she immediately started calling "Mommy come back! Mommy come back! Mommy come back!" After a few minutes, just to test her tenacity, I went up to check on her. She seemed to be nia very particular mood. As soon as I got up there she got very quiet, and said "Mommy put on pajamas." OK, I thought, it's night time, I love pajamas, why not? So I put on my pajamas and reappeared in her doorway, whereupon I received the next command. "Mommy goes sleep. Mommy goes in Mommy's bed." This was getting weird enough that I kind of wanted to see where it was going. So I went to my bed and laid down, and then called out that I was in my bed. A second later I heard rustling from her room, and pitter pat pitter pat as she crossed the hallway. She climbed into our bed (from the opposite side to the doorway, which she always does) and laid down to chat for a minute. Fairly quickly she said "I'm gonna sleep now."

"OK," I said. "You're going to go to sleep?"

"After mommy leaves. Mommy go."

Funny, eh?