Last night the only thing I wanted to do is spend a little time writing a post celebrating Eliana's birthday. My parents had the big kids upstairs and I got Eliana settled down in her bed after a bath. Things seemed to be going along in a normal fashion.
Michaela came in our room (which is where Eliana sleeps, in her own bed) twice and then my mom needed me to get something out of the car. I think this is where things began to head south. I should have told her I could do that once Eliana was asleep. Especially on a night when there had been so much excitement; she had had birthday cake, opened presents, gotten lots of attention. She was not completely hyper, but just a bit more animated than usual.
I left the house and went to get the lamp my mom needed; we bought it for Michaela's room. I tried to get back in the house but the door was locked. I realized that someone must have pushed the little button on the side of the door. I knocked, then I pounded, then I kicked. Nothing seemed loud enough; it is a dense door. I kept that up for a little bit, thinking,"Surely someone is going to come down and open the door." No response, though.
I went around front and rang the doorbell. I used our door knocker, which I'm pretty sure the folks three houses down could hear, but no one inside my home could. I couldn't very well kick and beat on the front door, so I headed to the back to try again there. I beat, I pounded, I kicked. I turned backwards and tried my heel on the door. Someone had to hear all this noise I was making.
I was starting to get mad...I really wanted to get back inside so that Eliana could go on to sleep. (This is a whole other issue. Please don't yell at me about how my 2-year-old ought to be able to go to sleep on her own. I have two other children. I know these things. And yet, here I am in this ridiculous situation. Right now it is easier to take the hard road...I know that for all of us it has to change soon. I WILL WORK ON IT! Thank you.) I went back to the front door and used the knocker again, and rang the doorbell (which must not have been working) and I knocked some more. I waited and waited, I started to worry...what if someone snuck in while I was at the car and killed everyone inside? I thought maybe I should walk to the fire department and have them come bust down the door for me.
I think ten minutes total went by, which seemed like forever. My mom finally came down the steps and saw me looking through the windows at the front door. She opened the door and said something like,"Well, what are you doing?"
My head exploded.
I asked if anyone had heard me knocking, and beating, and kicking on the door. She said,"I wondered what that sound was. I thought,'Who is hammering on something?'" I have to say it took me a little while to settle myself back down. I went back in with Eliana, still awake, and sat on our bed and sent Michaela back up with my mom and dad.
Well, Eliana was so upset about Michaela leaving that she got really worked up and then wanted to say,"Night, night," to everyone. I thought it might be the easiest way to get her to settle back down so we made our rounds and told everyone goodnight one more time.
I'll just make a long story short. She just would not settle down. Or could not, I don't know. I don't know if it was the chocolate cake, or the activity before her bath and bedtime. I don't know if she was picking up on some weird vibe from my mom, who was excited about some things that were getting done in Michaela's room. At any rate, Michaela finally went to bed. My parents started watching TV.
And Eliana was a mess. I got so tired of hearing her cry if I stayed or hearing her cry if I left that I brought her to the computer with me so that I could work on my post. It's all I wanted to do. I hoped she might go to sleep leaning on me. She sat on my lap for a little bit, and then as I tried to upload pictures she got a little wiggly. I want you to know at this point it was about 10:30, maybe a little later. And I discovered our internet was down.
I couldn't upload pictures, I couldn't post. I was so frustrated! I left the computer and took her to try to go to sleep one more time. Now, another long, and weird, story is that I sleep on the couch these days. I think that that will change soon, but since my parents aren't afraid of a little roach crawling on their heads in the middle of the night they are sleeping in our room and I have Eliana on the couch with me during the night. And as far as I know, since they've been here the roaches have not come around. Oh, and in case you wondered, Mike is not sharing a bed with my parents, but rather sleeps up in Christian's bed. Musical beds. Haven't you ever played that fun game?
Where was I? Making a long story short? Right. She refused to go to sleep. She was a total nut. My mom had gone in the kitchen to clean up and then came back out. I was so sick of trying to get Eliana to sleep that I went in the kitchen and set her in a chair and finished the sink, counters, and pots that were left. We had passed midnight at this point. And she had never gone to sleep.
Everyone else got settled, and I lay down on the couch with the crazy child. There were some books on the coffee table that she wanted to see, so I tossed them on the sofa and put my head down. One of them is a little devotional; she asked me to read it and so I flipped through. I stopped, randomly, and saw this little prayer:
Dear Lord, when I'm tired, give me the wisdom to do the smart thing: give me the wisdom to put my head on my pillow and rest! Amen
She ignored that little prayer and instead planted herself in the couch cushions and flapped her arms about as if she were a little hummingbird (Is there any other kind?), swayed back and forth, and then fell over sideways like a toppling tree. She did that over and over, then she flipped herself end to end on the couch, and then all of a sudden she lay down on my legs, got still, and went to sleep. It was 1:30 in the morning.
I have never had an experience like that. I have never seen a child act so out-of-character nutso in my life. I prayed that this was not a taste of Eliana as a two-year-old.
I hope that later today I can have the birthday post up...one day late, but that's how life is sometimes. The plan you make doesn't quite play out the way you wanted it to. But everyone is healthy. My parents are here. There's a baseball game tonight. These are things to be very grateful for.
And there's also leftover cake...which I am not feeding to ANY children. So, more for me! Sorry Mom, I meant "us!"
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 10:20PM 
