Hail Mary

As you know, Lyla sleeps in a toddler bed, and we put a baby gate in the frame of her bedroom door to prevent her from sneaking downstairs at night and stealing my beer. It's a pleasant room and a lovely bed, highly conducive to long periods of sleep. At some point about two weeks ago, however, Lyla decided that she would never take another nap there as long as she lived.

It crept up on us. "Oh, she's not feeling well," we said to ourselves two weekends ago when several nap attempts failed. And she spent last weekend with her grandparents where she napped grudgingly in the playpen, so that doesn't count. But now on this normal weekend in her big-girl bed, Julie and I finally sensed the pattern and discovered Lyla's true issue: she's evil.

Evil about naps, anyway, in the way that all two-year-olds are evil about naps. You know that TV show where the British nanny comes to teach manners to the satanic children of hapless American parents? That show says to calmly and wordlessly place the flailing devil-child back in its bed each time it gets out. I am here to tell you that that tactic is bullshit.

So is putting Lyla in the baby crib to show her that she's acting like a baby. Go downstairs, listen to her cry, go back upstairs. "Are you ready for the big-girl bed now?"

"Yeah! Bid-dirl bed!" she says with that cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die look in her eyes.

Pick her up, exit nursery, head goes down, step over the gate, place her in the bed, step back over the gate, shut the door.

The door opens.

"No nap! Ha ha!"

After a good 40 minutes of Julie and I switching off, we were more exhausted than our daughter was acting. Then came a Hail Mary.

"Lyla, we're not coming up here any more. You can either lie down in your big-girl bed and go to sleep, or you can cry. But Mama and I are done. Take a nap or not, it's up to you. We love you."

I walked downstairs and shrugged at Julie. We heard Lyla open her door, and for the next eight minutes she stood at the gate and loudly and comprehensively outlined our parenting deficiencies. Then there was silence.

"Do you think I should--"

"No. Absolutely not."

Two more minutes.

"Now?"

"Shh."

I inched up the stairs. This is what I found.


She slept there on the hardwood floor for an hour and a half. I'm calling it a Christmas miracle.