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I was about 1,200 words into writing a post about my family’s sleeping habits when I realized that I can pretty much sum up the whole thing in nine words: I am sleepy because I have a newborn baby.

So why don’t you pretend you just read a long and hilarious post detailing the miseries of waking up multiple times every night to be screamed at by a tiny little person who doesn’t even have the decency to turn his head away from your shirt before he throws up.

Done?  Ok.  Let’s concentrate on this post now.

I have recently learned that I’ve been underestimating my daughter.  I keep thinking she’s incapable of remembering anything that happened more than a week or two ago, because nobody remembers the shit that happened when they were two, right?  In short, I still think of her as a baby, even though she’s constantly reminding me that she’s not a baby, she’s a BIG SISTER.  And apparently, BIG SISTERS have exceptional long-term memories.

We’ve been trying to get Kaylee to start falling asleep by herself in her room at night, rather than our old system, which involved one of us sitting at her bedside until she was asleep.  That process could take upwards of an hour every night, and I can think of about 900 other ways I’d rather spend my time than waiting for a toddler to stop talking about her princess flashlight and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CLOSE HER EYES.  So this week we started leaving her room after a couple of minutes of sitting with her.  Rob was in charge of getting her to bed the first night, so of course she was a total angel.  I took the second night, so of course she had a minor breakdown.

I steeled myself against her sobby little toddler wiles and comforted her without letting her have her way, telling her she was doing a great job and she had to stay in her room.  A few minutes later, I heard her over the monitor, sobbing something that sounded like, “I want the bear with a pink light on it!”  She has no such bear.  I went to her room and asked her to repeat herself, and ultimately I was able to translate: “I want a bed with a pink ladder on it.”

Ah.

More than a month ago, we all went couch shopping at American Furniture Warehouse, and shockingly Kaylee was not interested in sitting on a hundred different sofas and discussing the merits of microfiber versus imitation leather. So Grandma, Uncle Tim and Nonie took her to the juvenile furniture, where Kaylee fell deeply in love.  She found a bunk bed that sported a pink ladder, and she climbed on it over and over and overandoverandover.  Then she talked about it all day long.

But it didn’t really come up again after that, so I thought she’d forgotten about it.  Which was a bit of a relief, because I didn’t want to get suckered into spending hundreds of dollars on a new bed for her, just so she could continue climbing into my bed in the middle of the night and looking for new and creative ways to wedge her elbow into my spine.

Then, out of the blue, while playing with Play-Doh the other day, she announced to me that she wants a bed with a pink ladder on it. She mentioned it casually, the way a child might casually suggest that a Red Rider BB Gun could make a nice Christmas gift.  Then she dropped it, only to casually say the same thing a couple of days later.  But I guess the trauma of being left to sleep on her own brought her true desires to the fore, because suddenly she was letting it slip that this bed was the one thing that could make her happy in all the world.

So we had a little talk about how maybe she could have the bed with the pink ladder if she starts sleeping in her own bed all the time, because I can’t get her such an wonderful bed if she’s not going to sleep in it.  She reluctantly agreed.

I mentally patted myself on the back for my awesome parenting skills.  I had defused a touchy situation, and gained a bargaining chip for getting my kid to sleep in her own room.  Go me.

The next night, as I tucked Kaylee in, kissed her good night and reminded her that she was going to stay in her room and go to sleep by herself like a BIG SISTER, she turned to me with a grin on her face. “I’m going to say, ‘I want a bed with a pink ladder on it!’” she said, and then giggled.

Wait, what?

This thing that had been her heart’s desire the night before was going to be a punchline tonight?  Could it be that she was just trying to get sympathy the previous night?  My precious baby had been trying to manipulate me?

Sure enough, a few seconds after I left her room, I heard Kaylee over the monitor yelling, “I want a bed with a pink ladder on it!  I want a bed with a pink ladder on it!  I want a bed with a pink ladder on it!”  I guessed that my role was to come in and discuss it with her again – I often find myself guessing at my role in Kaylee’s plans, and often incorrectly – so I gave her the same spiel about needing to show us that she can sleep in her own bed first.

I went downstairs to relax and watch the Olympics for a while, and I listened over the monitor as Kaylee carried on a conversation with herself.  After a couple of minutes, I noticed that her voice was getting faint, possibly because she was leaving her room. As I rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs to check on her, I saw her about three steps down from the top, turning tail and sprinting back up and into her room.  By the time I caught up with her – which took a little longer than strictly necessary because I had to pause and compose myself so she wouldn’t see I’d been laughing at her antics – she was lying in bed, pretending to be asleep.

“Kaylee, you have to stay in your room,” I told her.

“I was in my room,” she said. “I’m sleeping.”

So now she lies, too.

Now that I’m coming to realize all some of the ways my daughter manipulates me every day, I’m trying to avoid giving in as often as I had been. No longer will she be able to guilt me into letting her have a fourth popsicle.  No longer will I agree to multiple episodes of Blue’s Clues before naptime.  No longer will I –

…sorry, I have to go.  Kaylee needs me to bring her another toy.