every day is an optimistic round of promises I make to myself about the mountains of accomplishments I will ascend when the bambino has finally spun herself into the sleeplike trance of the whirling dervish.

but do you know what happens to me? every damn night. that little she-devil sucks the energy out of me with her bedtime routine. i leave her room feeling as a civil war general stepping off the field, uncertain if this battle has been a victory or a defeat. i stumble into my bedroom and look at the opened email inbox and the list of phone calls to be made and i just give everyone the virtual finger by trolling shopping websites and deleting my babygap.com emails. sorry y’all but that’s why you haven’t heard back from me.

Um, i can still shop in the Juniors’ section, right? hmm……

before you get up on your judgment horse, cowboy, let me state that; YES, i do love my daughter and YES, i did just call her a she-devil but NO, i didn’t actually mean it. it’s wit i am using to boost my readership or something. i just want to remind everyone that I do 100% of the parenting while mike is gone for 3 months and i get a little frazzled. i mean, she’s been sleeping for like 2 1/2 years now so it’s not like it should still be a big SHOCK to her that she has to go to bed at the same time every night. Ugh.

here’s what I tell myself to get through it: 1 – The parts of her personality that make bedtime so difficult will be such good character traits when she is older. just get through it now without squashing those traits. 2 – some of our best connections have been at bedtime. It seems to be another one of those *magical* times of the day and I have to try to make the most out of them even when i’m basically brain dead.

well i have to go now and get back to ignoring all of yins. in summation i quoth myself & cousin in conversation last night: “There are only two forces in life that cannot be reckoned with – Time and J. Crews’ ridiculously discounted sales emails.”