Don't Be a Fighter

of sleep, that is. This post's picture of Riley was taken yesterday afternoon.

Little Riley Grace has decided in the past few weeks that she doesn't like to take naps. Mommy & Daddy both know that she needs them. Her little eyes droop and right when everyone thinks she's finally asleep, they pop open. Wide open. It's hysterical because she has to use all her energy to keep her eyes from closing. Her little forehead gets wrinkled because she's using it to hold them open. We've tried explaining to her that her day would be much more enjoyable if she'd just let sleep come, but she won't listen :).

When she's fighting sleep, there's one thing that does the trick ninety percent of the time: the hairdryer. As weird as it sounds, she can be screaming bloody murder and as soon as we turn it on, she calms down enough to sleep.

You might ask why I only use the dryer as a last resort. I'm afraid if I use it every time, she won't be able to sleep without it. Her future husband probably wouldn't appreciate having to hold the blow dryer by her ear every night so his wife can fall asleep.

There's one other noise that calms Riley down when she's fussy. The first 30 seconds or so of the third song on the fifth CD in my Jeep (it's some CD put out by the Wilds). I'm not joking. She quiets down at the exact same spot in that piece almost every time she's crying. Thankfully, she usually calms down after one or two runs through that section. If not, I would go crazy listening to that over and over again!

Apparently, we have a quirky little girl. I don't think anyone is too surprised, though... David and I are, after all, her mom and dad.

ETA: We have purchased an MP3 of a hairdryer... we play it on our MP3 speaker sometimes. She really likes the real thing better, though. The little stinker!