Sleeping Beauty

Lizzy used to be such a good sleeper. I remember when she was a baby, she'd take four hour naps. The first few weeks I took her to daycare, she slept the four of the four and a half hours she was there. Those days seem like ancient history, because these days, it seems like she never sleeps.

Case in point, these pictures. She's been going to bed between 9:00 and 10:00 lately, which is later than I'd like, but not worth fighting about. On this particular night, she was fast asleep in her big girl bed by 9:30. I was sitting in the living room reading a book, Lexi was watching a movie in my bedroom, and the boys were watching a movie downstairs. After she'd been sleeping for about 20 minutes, Lizzy stumbled out of her room and into the living room. She looked at me, then headed downstairs. I knew the boys were sleeping.. I could hear Brad snoring, and Jake wasn't yelling at him to stop, so I knew he's dozed off too. I figured Lizzy would either wake them up, or come back upstairs. When I hadn't heard anything for about ten minutes, I went downstairs to investigate. This is what I found.

We have a spring-loaded gate that we put at the bottom of the stairs, to keep Lizzy from wandering. When we aren't using the gate, we prop it beside the stairs, against the wall. Apparently, the little space between the gate and the wall is the perfect sleeping place. No kidding..this is exactly how I found her! I promise I did not stage it! I made Lexi come a look, so I had a witness, then I snapped some pictures, before putting her safely back in her bed. I truly think she would have slept there all night though if I would have let her.

Lizzy is not my first child to sleep in such a weird place though. When Lexi was about the same age as Lizzy is now, I found her under the coffee table in the living room. And Jake still crawls into a small shelf space on his bunk bed from time to time.

I haven't found Lizzy in any other unusal places since this incident, but I've also been sleeping with one eye open, just in case. And don't worry.. if she does end up in another strange place, I'll make sure and take pictures!