Sleep is like a capricious spirit when you're two years old. Sometimes she comes like a flash flood, overwhelming the senses in an instant. Other times she waits just out of reach, flitting back and forth in front of you like the tease that she is.
And then, of course, there are those times when she decides arbitrarily that 3:00 a.m. is a wonderful time to practice a fire drill and evacuate the premises of your being as quickly as possible. This has an immediate cause and effect relationship on the sleep your parents may be enjoying at the time, as in: they get to enjoy being awake with you! How wonderful!
I love watching Ezra fall asleep. He usually has nothing against going to sleep when he's tired, so the nightly ritual begins with Melissa asking him if he's ready to 'rocky-rock' and go 'nite-nite'. She sits down in the recliner and he readily climbs up into his lap, bringing his beloved 'woof-woof' with him. Usually things get started with a book or two, then Melissa runs through a recap of the day's events and a preview of tomorrow. This seems to work really well to reassure him that tomorrow will bring as much fun as today did -- and that he's not missing out on anything by going to sleep now. Once this is done we're into serious sleep mode and Mel will sing softly to him until his consciousness evaporates. Generally speaking, I'm at least half asleep by the time Mel drops him into his crib -- sometimes I'm fully gone, collapsed on the floor or the couch or wherever I happened to be when we began.
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