Wow, thank you to everyone for your helpful ideas about getting to sleep. Isn't it funny how something so basic should be so difficult for so many of us to attain?

Ironically, since I wrote this post, she has slept through the night, though she still wakes up really early, in my opinion, for how late she goes to sleep. My husband only sleeps about five hours a night, though, so it's possible her natural needs are lower than those of other kids.

We have a routine, though it's been  pushed back a lot these past few weeks as we try to suck the marrow out of summer/early fall while the weather is still good and the light is still here after dinner. Third grade strangely has produced less homework than second grade, though more reading. She gets home from school at 4:30 on the bus and either does her homework or entertains herself in some other manner until I finish work around 6. Then we make dinner. We've been eating outside as much as possible. The last few days she's wanted to play outside with neighborhood friends, climbing trees and swinging. I'm fairly sure climbing trees and swinging are part of what combats global warming, so of course I let her do those things whenever she wants.

I'm not sure if the physical activity has tired her out more or if she's just getting back into the rhythm of life again and thus sleeping better. After she comes in, we have dessert and talk a little, then she showers and then there's about a half-hour of stalling and procrastination, then she climbs in bed and a parent reads to or with her for a half-hour or 45 minutes, then we lie next to her while she falls asleep. When it's me, I count backwards in my head to keep MYSELF awake, because I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat. She also has an air cleaner that makes noise, a lit fish tank with pleasant bubble sounds and a fish light that throws dappled blue light on the ceiling. The kid is practically living in a spa of sleep aids.

I got a sleep aid machine breathing monitor in the mail yesterday for review, but we haven't had a chance to test it out on getting her back to sleep yet. I'll let you know how that goes. It's a great concept. I used it for exactly three seconds last night because I require no help falling alseep.

We did have both the little angel and Ski Bear take an oath on Monday night that they solemnly swore to try to stay in bed and lie quietly instead of coming to get us for at least ten minutes to see if they could fall back asleep on their own. They held their right hands up and repeated after me. Ski Bear is known to break his oaths, but the little angel is usually pretty good.

So, thus far, during the work week she is sleeping okay.

And, since this post was sorta boring, here's a post about The Light Bulb Conundrum of the Easy Bake Oven that I wrote on BlogHer yesterday.