Whoever sent the memo to my 22 month old, inviting her to pardeh all night is on my list.

You would think that such a young child would require more than 45 minutes sleep in a 18 hour period. When my darling children finally dropped off to sleep at 9 PM, I allowed myself a little victory dance.

Heed my warning, oh smug parents. The parenting gods do not like victory dances. Not one teeny-tiny bit.

I was awakened at 1:30 AM by the sounds of minor crib rail rattling and my girl, talking to herself quietly. I ignored this, and as soon as I drifted back to sleep:

"Ma-maaaaaaa!" She's kind of got a sore throat right now, so she sounds kind of gravelly. In fact, she sounded just like a heavy metal singer. "Ma-MAAAAAAAA!" Too much of Daddy's big hair bands while in utero.

I gave her a minute to see if she could work it out and settle herself. (Bwahahahahahaha! As if THAT was going to happen.) I think it was at this point where she ripped the TV out of the wall and pitched it out the hotel window, followed by the armchair.

Nope, I was going to have to fetch her. I scooped her out of her crib, where she was looking very Pat Benetar, and brought her to my bed. We snuggled in for 3.25 seconds before she inserted both her pointer fingers into my nostrils.

"Yow! Ma-maaaaa! Wake UP! Wake UP!" She crowed as she slapped my cheeks rythmically. "Baby, it's the middle of the night."

"Yow! Seer-yall! Naw, Mama. Up! Get UP! Seer-yall!"

Okay, I know all about the 2 AM munchies, so I thought, maybe cereal WILL settle her down. Evil carbs. Hah! I spent 15 minutes watching her pick every raisin out of the bowl of Quaker 100% Natural and line them up on the table next to the bowl. Then she ate one bite of the granola and dumped the rest onto the floor.

Recharged by watching me crawl around on the floor cleaning up milk and cereal, she applauded and cheered. "Yea! Mommy!" I tried not to snarl too much.

I changed her pajamas. I changed her diaper. I sang lullabies and rocked her squirmy, not-even-a-little-sleepy body. I changed her diaper again. I got her sippy cups of warm milk. WARM. That was so over and above.

"Dag-tails. Ma-maaaaaaaa! Now! Ma-maaaaaaaa!" Screw it. It's 3 freaking 30 in the morning, if Dragon Tails on TiVo will net me some horizontal time, I'm game. So I got to lie on the couch while my daughter watched recorded shows until 5:30 when my husband gets up for the day. I didn't actually get to sleep on the couch. Everytime I would close my eyes, the child would kick me in the kidney, or slap my face.

So, there you have it. I'm cranky, I've had 2 hours of sleep in 24, and I'm blogging instead of cleaning. And the baby? She's still rockin' and rollin'. Un-freaking-believable.