Rude Awakenings.

As you can tell from my last post, we've been having fun around here. Madeline has all of a sudden become a great fan of temper tantrums. My normally sweet, well-behaved little girl is still sweet and well-behaved- if you don't try to make her do anything she doesn't want to do or punish her for misbehavior. We've been trying to remain sane and remember Madeline is a two year old who isn't intentionally trying to drive us into the nut house. The fun continued this morning, however, when Madeline woke up at 5:45 and came running into our room wide awake. She then proceeded to hop into the middle of the bed and take up more space than should be feasibly possible for two and a half foot munchkin.

Being the great parents we are, Jessie and I tried to ignore her and sleep anyway. But after twenty minutes of getting pummeled and climbed on and getting edged ever closer to the side of the bed, I found I couldn't ignore Madeline anymore when she literally kicked me out of bed. Luckily I landed on a body pillow I keep on the floor next to me. And oddly enough, my first feeling at hitting the floor was relief that I was away from Madeline and now only being kicked by one child. (Madeline is already pretty good at waking up her little sister when I don't want her to. A skill I'm sure she will continue to perfect.) It was actually fairly comfortable on the floor, and I wasn't fighting anyone for space. But my solitude only lasted about two minutes, when Madeline became concerned when I didn't come back up to the bed and jumped down to find me. And I discovered having a twenty-five pound child cannonball onto your stomach is definitely more uncomfortable than being kicked out of bed by said twenty-five pound child. Then the poking and prodding and kicking began again, and I gave up on getting any more sleep.

With that kind of start to the day, I was pleasantly surprised that we managed to make it through the day without any major nervous breakdowns or dissolving into tears. Madeline and I are actually back on good terms and enjoying each other's company. Here's hoping the good times continue. And that tomorrow we get to sleep past 6 am.