The night wars.

How is it that a three-year-old who can't tell time knows exactly when 8:30 hits? She goes from a relatively calm little person to a whirlwind of energy and mischief right about then. Sure, we do a bedtime routine. We discipline with the Love and Logic method. We try to keep things mellow in the evening. But, as I type, she's been lying (or not) in her bed, one hour post-bedtime-routine, yelling and singing and carrying on. I know she's tired. I know I'm tired.

So once she finally goes to sleep, after stalling in every way she can think of and wearing her self out shouting every song she knows, it's time to get the baby to sleep.

Pretty easy, usually, but she has super radar.

Yes, that radar that tells a baby when Mommy and Daddy are about to have "grown-up" time.

Invariably, when we're absolutely sure that both girls are fast asleep and we fall into each other's arms (more like collapse into eack other's arms in a combination of fatigue and longing for the newlywed years), Super Radar kicks in. It waits until things start getting fun. Then the little grunts start (not from us, from the baby!). The grunts escalate to louder complaints, which, left unanswered, go to full-blown insistance that the grown-up fun stop. Now.

*sigh* Maybe tomorrow night, dear.