FOR SALE . . . SOLD AS IS

Tino has a favorite t-shirt he got last year. He wears it ALL THE TIME. It says : "Sister for Sale. Sold as is. No refunds." I just did a quick little search on the internet to see if I could get one of those t-shirts as well. Except it would say "Daughter for Sale." My parents sold my sister Heather to the gypsies when she was younger (according to Heather). To this day, I wonder how we ended up getting her back. Oops . . . I digress. Unfortunately, the gypsies only hit Florida when it gets colder up north. I don't expect to see any gypsies until at least around October or November. And that's a very long time to wait. Any takers?????

A couple weeks ago Sarah learned how to get the child proof locks off the inside of her bedroom door. This means she comes to visit us multiple times throughout the night. According to her behavior therapist, we need to: A. Continue to return her to her bed/room each time she comes in to sleep with us. B. Let her cry it out as we are holding her bedroom door closed.. C. Put a gate at her door so she can't get out of her room. (But how long will it be until she climbs over the gate OR falls and cracks her head open on the tile floor as she is trying to escape???) We've tried options #A and #B.

Last night Sarah DID. NOT. SLEEP. O.K. so I guess she took a little nap from 10:30 p.m. until 12:15 a.m. I then heard the pitter patter of little feet walking through the house to get to our bedroom. I took her to the bathroom, walked her back to her room, put her in bed, etc. 2:00 a.m. I heard the pitter patter of little feet again. I was so tired that I drifted back to sleep and figured I would ignore her . . . that lasted until 2:15 a.m. (She was complaining because she wanted me to hold her and because she wanted to go watch Disney Channel NOW. PEASE. (Anybody catching anything wrong with this picture other than the fact that A. It's 2:15 in the stinkin' morning and B. We haven't had cable or satellite with Disney Channel for 2 years . . .) This little pattern repeated itself at 3:00 a.m., 4:00 a.m., 5:15 a.m. Finally at 5:30 a.m. I stumbled into the family room to find a Dora video, make chocolate milk, and told her DO. NOT. COME. INTO. MY. ROOM. ONE. MORE. TIME. She came in at 6:15 a.m. and said "Mommy, wake up. Time to get up. Open your eyes. Get outta bed. NOW. . . . PEASE."

I've tried to sleep in her room with her. But she is such a noisy sleeper. She has MULTIPLE night awakenings and each awakening is VERY LOUD. If she's not screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs, she tosses and turns and shouts out who knows what. Maybe more speech therapy will help with her articulation so I will at least know and understand what it is she is shouting out while she is having these awakenings.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. At least if I had a newborn there would be an excuse for my sleepless nights, BUT this is OUT. OF. CONTROL. I am very tired, very cranky, very crabby, which turns me into an out of control mother the following day.