While You Were Sleeping....

Stages. As children grow they enter new stages. They roll over. They crawl. They take their first steps. They talk. We oooo and ahhhh over these stages. We take pictures to remember those moments. Life is beautiful.

Kara has entered the stage of climbing out of her crib. I'm actually surprised that it's taken her this long because she's such climber. She likes to sit in the middle of the kitchen table, she tries to climb the cupboard and I most certainly will not be surprised one day to find her sitting up there, she climbs the back of the couch and loves to sit in our bay window and then there is the fence....I am grateful she hasn't conquered what to do when she gets to the top. Perhaps we should install security camera's so I know at exactly what point she has become AWOL.

Sometime while I was enjoying my sleep during the dark hours of the night, I hear her chirping in her cute little 'I'm playing house' voice, her new word...stupee. (stupee = stupid) She sleeps in the crib that is in my room so there was no escaping it. No! No, tuck me in...stupee and Aaron...stupee, and puppy...stupee were echoing off the walls. I, in my 'For crying out loud, can't you see it's sleepy time' fog somewhere between sleeping and not, pulled the covers over my head in hopes that she will just go back to sleep.

As she continued her chirping, I began to wonder what time it was. It seemed pretty light in my room. Then, I hear ripping sounds and more chirping. With a sigh and a fine!...I muttered to myself that I guess I would just get up and get my day started. I climbed out of bed. What I found when I came to full consciousness was that my little monkey had climbed out of her bed onto the dresser which was next to the crib and was sitting there happy as can be. The light was coming from the ceiling but it most certainly was not daytime. It was 2:38 AM!

Upon more discovery, I found that she had disassembled one of the baby pictures that I had had framed of Ryan which showed me what exactly the ripping sound was coming from. Crud! There goes $24.95 for custom frame and picture from the Kodak Gallery. Guess I'll be replacing that one. Apparently, I had a pen on my dresser which she also discovered and decided to use....on my wall. Crud! I think I'm out of those magic erasers! Crud! She found my glasses. Thank you, God that they were not broken, bent or destroyed! Note to self: Perhaps one should not ignore chirping from two year old during the night.

I swiftly plopped her back in her bed explaining to this beautiful child that she needed to go back to sleep so that she didn't have a cranky momma in the morning. I kissed her cuteness and tucked her in and amazingly enough, she quieted down. Sleep came again....ah, sweet sleep.