Sibling rivalry

Last night we had our first spectacular melt down where the kid went on about how we never play with her and we only buy things for the baby and sob sob sob. Here's my account, live as it played out.

The kid started off the bedtime fiasco with a round of first giggling while shining one of her 3 flashlights in my eyes. I took it away, turned it off, and gave it back twice, then told her that if she blinded me again, it was gone for the night. Then, once she'd lost that one, she blinded me once with the second flashlight. At this I left because I was done with shenanigans. And then she gets that flashlight taken away too, then the lantern after kicking it around.

Then the sobbing and trying to turn on lights. Eventually the spouse got her to say she was upset about us not playing with her ever or doing anything nice for her ever or buying anything for her ever and can't she just have the week off from daycare please? To be fair, today she wanted us both to play and I was studying while the spouse cleaned. Yeah, it's no fun, but she opted not to help clean and spent a lot of time whining that she was SO BORED.

There are a few things that make me crazy about the nightly refusal to go to bed. First there's the "I'm afraid of the dark!" thing. It's town. She has a nightlight and a glowing ladybug and a street light just out the window (plus usually the lantern and 2 flashlights). It's never dark. It makes me crazy that she refuses to use any words until she's sobbing and then I can't make out what she's saying so it makes little difference what is said. Then there's the myth that a routine will work. The more we try for a routine, the more creative her "get out of routine" schemes are.

Now the spouse is singing her all the songs from her colic days, when walking her and singing was the only way to stop the howling from 9pm until 2 or 3 or later. Amazing how she remembers and stops her ruckus to listen to those songs.

I am not looking forward to even more of this "you ignore me and pay attention to the baby all the time" blech. Not one bit. Knowing that it's inevitable doesn't make it any less awful when it gets here.

And now she's taking a turn singing. Either we should have thought of singing as a way to (maybe) coax sleep before now, or it's a great stalling technique. I never know how much to assume she understands with a big vocabulary like that, and also night and day behavior when in public and at home. Maybe it's conscious manipulation and maybe it's not.

So maybe the singing silly a Capella songs together is more cute than just about anything else ever. I just really wish we could move this up an hour so that everyone could get to sleep on time.