Lay your head on my shoulder, baby.

I ran across a toddler bed while out yardsaling yesterday! It's blue, one of those kind of beds that are made out of hollow metal pipe, very light, but very tough. Perfect, in other words, for a little girl who likes to jump on her bed. To top it all off, it was only $10!

So, Gabrielle now has a big girl bed.

Last night we had dinner with friends, a cookout over at their house. We didn't get home until late, so Gabrielle was pretty exhausted and fell asleep very quickly once she was in bed. I was excited, which was a mistake. You would think by now I would have learned never to think that a child's first reaction will be their second reaction.

Gabrielle fell asleep/went to bed only 20 minutes ago. And since it's 11:30, well, you can imagine how tired I am. She kept slipping out of bed to play with toys, get into her big sister's drawers and play with Arielle's (contraband) gravel collection, and beg Mommy to let her come out and play in the living room with the big family members.

Every "No," and order to go back to bed, was met with tears and a scrunched-up face, of course.

As I recall, I had to put up a gate to keep Arielle in her room, but never did manage to get her to stay in bed reliably. Which is probably why Arielle keeps popping up and down for the first hour or two after she goes to bed, still.

I wound up sitting by Gabrielle's bed, holding her on my lap and singing lullabies to her. Once I got her relaxed I coaxed her into bed, stayed sitting by her, and sang her more lullabies. We had to go through the whole routine twice, but the second time she let me get up and walk out of the room, closing the door behind me. She is finally asleep.

And I plan to follow.

It was nice to have her head on my shoulder again, though. It was like having my tiny baby back for a few minutes.