And don't let the bedbugs bite...

Miss Suzannah has never been the greatest sleeper, and lately we've been having some challenges a.) getting her to nap and b.) going to bed at night. She goes through these phases every now and then, and I'm always sure it will kill me. Then, right as I reach my breaking point, she chills out a bit and things return to whatever we consider normal at the time. (For instance, right now "normal" means she's in bed asleep by ten o'clock. We have a party if she's asleep any earlier. And "normal" means she actually falls asleep during her afternoon nap. The napping issues have been particularly difficult for me to deal with, because even when she hasn't been interested in sleeping at night, she's always been a pretty good napper.)

When Suzannah and I were in Bozeman a few weeks ago, she slept in my old bed while I slept in the guest room (which is really Aaron's old room, as evidenced by the airplanes hanging all over the ceiling). At least she did some of the time. The first night, she slept in bed with me -- pressed right up against my back and snoring in my ear, of course -- and the last night, she called for me at four o'clock in the morning and made me crawl into bed with her and stay there. Where she pressed her feet against me and snored in my ear for the next couple of hours.

I greatly enjoyed sleeping with her when she was a baby. It's not quite as peaceful now.

Suzannah did actually sleep on her own to some extent, though. Our first full day there, she took a nice long nap all by herself in my old bed, tucked in with about eighty-five of my stuffed animals. (That's only a small exaggeration.) Then, she developed a strange fixation with towels. As in, bath towels. Hand towels. Washcloths. Beach towels. She started by snatching the towels in the bathroom and dragging them up in bed with her, while she snuggled with them like they were beloved old blankies. Then she moved on to the towels we used after playing in the backyard sprinkler. And then, well, it was every towel she could get her hands on. On the long drive back home, she refused to nap unless she could hold one of the spare towels we'd brought along for Blondie.

She seemed to more or less forget about her towels after we'd settled back into our routine at home, until we returned from a trip to Ocean Shores on the Fourth of July. We packed towels galore, and when we unpacked them, she marched them straight into her room and piled them into her bed.

I should also mention that she discovered a large toy chest in the corner of her room, one that is filled only with blankets and stuffed animals. It has gone unnoticed by her for her entire life, but last week, during a particularly unsuccessful attempt to get her to nap, she dragged out all the teddy bears and stuffed doggies and puppets and other fuzzy friends and piled them in her bed as well. Then she found an old blanket that was originally part of her crib set. Then she found my Snoogle, which I would actually REALLY LIKE TO SLEEP WITH MYSELF right about now, since my hips are starting to ache. (I took it away and the screaming continued for about three days. Either she stopped or I went deaf. The Snoogle is currently hidden in our closet, and I'm a little scared to get it out, lest she see it and remember that she NEEDS IT.) Then she found my boppy nursing pillow. If you think that there must be no room in the bed for a little girl to sleep, well, you'd be right.

For a few naps and a few nights, when I peered in to check on my sleeping child, I had a hard time actually locating her. Then she decided that a better option would be to create a nest on the floor and sleep there. Her nest consisted almost entirely of towels (she discovered the linen closet, and she cleaned out the entire bottom shelf) and occasionally a pillow, along with a smattering of stuffed animals. (For the first time in her life, we've had issues with picking up her room!)

This is "normal" these days: