"Night Night Daddy!"

For all of us, this post is H*U*G*E!

Daddy has been putting Ally to bed each night for about the last 9 months. If you remember, when we first got home from China, I slept in her room on a twin mattress on her floor. For quite a few months she had a hard time going to sleep and would wake up nightly screaming a kind of scream that pierced my heart - as if she was terrified. I just couldn't let her scream like that, so I would go get her or lay down by her bed (still in a crib).

We began working on that last spring and got her to a point where most nights she would sleep all night in her bed without waking up. That was great, but Daddy was still staying in her room until she fell asleep (sometimes taking over an hour). She would lay in her bed and he would sit in the rocker playing his Gameboy!

Well, a few weeks ago, we began the next phase - putting her in her crib and walking out of the room. For the first few nights she cried (but not that same scream of terror) for almost an hour. Yes, it was hard, but we stayed strong and let her cry. It has FINALLY paid off. For the last few nights, Daddy has taken her into her room, said prayers, and laid her down, and left the room.

Tonight, as she lay down, she said "night, night daddy" as he left the room. No tears, no screams, no calling him (or me) back into the room. I even got a kiss and a wave and a "night, night mommy" before she went to bed! WONDERFUL!!!

Before she went to bed, Sara and Ally had a "popcorn" fight in the family room. It started with Sara tossing popcorn into Ally's mouth. She laughed SO HARD when she missed, that Sara started throwing popcorn over her head. Ally's laughting continued as she began to toss the popcorn! It continued until there was a good bit of popcorn on the floor - Dash came in to help clean up!!!