Well.

Twenty minutes. She fell asleep in twenty minutes. Thank you, Jesus! Not only that, but I had her asleep by 8:59. Hallelujah! This is one of the few times I've gotten her to fall asleep before 9. No matter how early I put her in bed, she doesn't fall asleep until sometime between 9:10 and 9:40. Not tonight though. 8:59. SaaaaWEEET!

And while we're on the topic of her bedtime....

Sometime last week (I think) I asked an old friend of mine (who is the mother of 2....and her oldest is about 2 weeks younger than munchkin) if she had any tips for bedtime.....and getting them to sleep when they're fighting it.

Here's what she said:
"Don't say anything about going to bed at night.. Just make it a routine time.... Like after supper comes her bath.. Then brushing teeth, and combing hair, cuddle with a book, and with the light off, tuck her in, say a prayer and a kiss goodnight.. In about 4-5 days, this will be her routine, and she will know what is coming and not try to fight it.. And if she is really upset, crying etc... Stay in there and say a reallllly LOOOOONNNNNG prayer out loud.. By the time you are finished, she will prolly have either fallen asleep, or is about to.. And then you have accomplished 3 things, you have had your time with God.. And shown munchkin she can talk to him, and 3, hopefully bored her to sleep!! = )"

Here's what I said back:
"*GRIN* That was TOOO funny. I don't know if it would work for munchkin, simply b/c if the prayer gets too long, she decides she wants to start talking again. haha. But that was hilarious though."

Kay. So. I totally didn't see that working. We always pray with her when we tuck her in, but if it's more than a few minutes, she starts trying to talk to us. Well.

Last night I didn't feel up to going to church, so it was me and munchkin here at the house. (and it was a good thing cuz she was in one of those moods....and cried over nothing in particular from 8:15 until I tucked her in bed at 8:50....there is no way I could have dealt with that at church on top of not feeling good.) Anywhoooo....she cried forever...and nothing worked. Not holding her, not distracting her, she wasn't hungry, the only thing that hurt was her scraped knee, and it wasn't that bad....but......she just kept whining and crying. All the way through picking up her toys. All the way through her bath. All the way up to me getting her in her pjs. And none of those things typically generate such a meltdown. So. As you can imagine, by the time I sat down to cuddle her for bed....I was pretty close to the end of my rope. And like we so often do when we get to the end of the rope.....it seems like a really good time to pray.

Now of course, you have kind of informal prayers going up fairly regularly in your head....or at least I do. Mine usually consist of...."HELP. ME. PLEASE!" But you know what I'm saying.

So by the time we're sitting there in the dark cuddling, and I'm getting ready to pray with her for bed, (just me and her.....KC was at church) I'm like....okay. Pray. Sounds like a great idea. So I say a little prayer in the kind of language she can understand....ya know...."please help munchkin to have a good night and a good day at school tomorrow and yada yada" and I get ready to finish and she still hasn't said anything. So I'm thinking...this would be a good time to just keep going since it's just me, her, and God and she hasn't interrupted yet. So I continue....just praying softly and trying to think of everyone I can think of that might possibly need prayer......next thing I know she's out. Now when I laid her down, she woke back up, but I was able to sit next to her for another few minutes and she fell back asleep in her own bed. So that was a thirty minute get to sleep episode. *grin*

Fast forward to tonight. KC and I have prayer with her and KC hugs her goodnight and goes back to fixing the closet (another big relief!!) and I hold her a few minutes and then she wants to go lay in her bed. SO I put her in bed, tuck her in and then sit next to the bed with her. A few seconds later she rolls over and says "pray, momma!?" I'm like uh, we already did that.....but okay. So I go into it again. Softly praying for anybody and everybody that comes to mind....finally I finished and she's not quite gone but almost. Within five minutes. So total of twenty minutes of bedtime routine. WOOOHOOO! That's like one part of the prayer already answered.

Just thought I'd share that lovely little story. Yes. When she said that, it made me want to just squeeze her to death. It wasn't a whine, it was just so sweet the way she said it.

Okay. Later!