Bedtime Letters

She will do nearly anything to avoid succumbing to sleep. Since she was only a few months old, our daughter would fight sleep. Tossing, turning, distracting herself with newly found limbs, and vocalizing were her go to tactics. Eventually she always surrenders and falls asleep. But, man, she puts up a good fight.

Vocalizing turned to words and words into sentences. Long stories are normal. Repeated questions about anything and everything are routine. We usually answer and smile and wait. Just wait, until she wears herself out.

Then, there was this one night. It was recently. Maybe a month or two ago. She was refusing to sleep. Wanted us both to lay down with her. We all snuggled into our bed. It was warm and cozy. The epitome of comfortable. My husband and I closed our eyes, hoping she would follow suit.

Then she popped up. And started to sing.

“ABCDEFG....”

For the first time in her short life she sang the entire alphabet song from beginning to the very end. We were shocked.

Suddenly it did not matter if morning was rapidly approaching. We encouraged her to sing it over and over. The excitement and pride was visible on her little round face. Eventually we all settled back down and she drifted off to sleep.

As I tucked her in she seemed a little bigger. I decided to start really appreciating those unplanned extra minutes of sleep fighting. Who knew what great developments may happen in the moments before sleep?