Since I've been off, most of our schedule that we had has gone *poof* and we're sort of free-floating through the days. It's nice in a way but bedtime has become a bit of a pain again as I crack the whip.

It's almost amusing in a way how many tricks Hunter has for keeping attention even after he's been placed in bed.

1) The outright crying and whimpering trick to gain my pity.
2) The 5 W's trick where he continually asks "who" "where" "what" type questions to get me to talk to him.
3) The hug/kiss trick where he constantly will ask for more hugs and kisses. Or blow kisses.
4) The blanket/pajama/pillow trick where he'll purposely kick off his blankets or take his pillow out of the case or take off/mess up his pjs so that I'll have to come in and fix things.
5) The "oops I dropped" tricked where he throws things off the bed by 'accident' so I'll have to come and get them and give them to him.

I'm sure there's others.

It's been a slow couple of days here but it was time to have some indoor fun today!



( What's more fun then dirty fingers?! )

I'm throwing in the towel and finally trying to break Hunter's two-week non-sleeping cycle. For the past couple weeks, he's flat out refused to stay in his room at night. I let him sleep with me 1-2 nights like three weeks ago when he was sick and ever since he's wanted back in my bed at all costs. I can return him to his bed 18 times or more and he simply gets out of bed and comes out, usually before I've even had a chance to finish closing the door. There's no lock on his door so I can't keep him in and that doesn't really solve the problem even to hold the door closed. It simply makes him scared and upset and eventually pass out on the floor. I want him back to enjoying his bed and room, not being afraid of it even worse. I've tried all different types of discipline on him and he's willing to bear them all in order to get out, watch some tv and sleep in mama's bed. And he'll continue that until 2 or 3 in the morning. It's incredibly frustrating. I'm too exhausted these days from it, I'm sleeping in until noon some days because of it, I'm lacking a sitter because my mum won't take him passed 10 pm now because she knows she can't put him to bed like she used to, I'm hesistant to let other people sit him because he's just even more of a pain.

*sigh* I thought we were doing alright tonight but it's now midnight and we're still playing "the game" and I've stuck him back in his room at least six times so far, given him a time out, swatted him twice on the ass and taken away his bed toys and nightlight.