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.

My daughter struggled with sleeping until she finally slept through the night for the first time at about four years old, shortly after we moved into Chateau Travolta. That whole period of zero-sleeping through the night is a giant haze and something I like to avoid thinking about, except to note she was cute and sweet even though she never slept.

Then she turned into this awesome sleeper who could sleep through military helicopters flying over the house and fireworks set off next door and kids opening up their muffler-less cars on our little residential street.

And it was good.

Then, this week: eight-year-old insomnia. WHAT?

Last night I went to bed too late, slept from midnight to three and woke to hear her crying. She explained what she was crying about (nothing big), then I crawled in bed with her, but she was Wide.Awake. Then Petunia wandered in and was all meowy-meowy, then the little angel was REALLY REALLY WIDE AWAKE, and then she tossed and turned until I said, "I'm going to check on you and go back to bed," which means, "I've had it, kid."

I went back to my bed and five minutes later, she was there, too. Then she did fall asleep and started shoving me farther and farther toward Beloved, who may have been suffering from allergies (I wear earplugs, and no, they don't work). Finally, my back felt like it was being stabbed from the bizarre position I was in, so I extricated myself vertically and went into HER bed, leaving her to stick her bony little knees into my husband's back instead. It was about six by then. I finally fell asleep in her bed, and she must've slept in my bed, though I doubt Beloved did.

This morning on the way to school (I had to drive her because I couldn't get my EYEBALLS TO OPEN in time to get everything going to catch the bus), I said, "So what was going on this morning?" And she was all "I don't know. I just couldn't sleep."

RECORD SCRATCH

This can't happen again.

So we talked about relaxing all the different muscle groups. And we talked about counting backwards from 100. And we talked about what works for me, focusing on relaxing the muscle between my ears. And we talked about deep breathing.

And she was all PSHAW.

The bad part is that she woke up at three on Saturday night and couldn't go back to sleep, too.

OH MY GOD WHAT DO I DO?

Does anyone know how to cure insomnia in a kid?