It's 10:39pm...

My beautiful baby girl has decided that her bedtime is 11pm and nothing I do will change this. I have diligently followed the advice of the experts - we have a bedtime routine which begins at exactly 8pm every night. We read, take a bath, listen to soft music, and nurse - and it works...for about 10 minutes. Then she is up and ready to go until 11. At this exact moment, she is trying to catch my eye so that she can flash me one of her soul melting smiles - its hard to be annoyed by someone so charming and adorable. Her new trick of the evening is pivoting in a circle around her butt. It reminds me of those people who lay on their backs and move by using their feet to push them in a circle. Its like that, only she doesn't use her feet - she arches her back and gyrates with her entire body until she manages to move. You might think this would tire her out. You might think that this sort of super-human gymnastic routine might be just a bit draining - but no! She is having a ball. I guess I should go spend this non-sleeping time reading more "expert" advice, but I just keep thinking about my middle school students. They would sleep something like 20 hours a day if they could, so eventually Alice will grow out of this. Nothing is permanent - I just have to survive until this phase ends. The unfortunate part about his phase is that it also comes with 7 night wakings. She is starting to get grumpy - this is my cue that she might be ready for sleep....