Steve left this evening for another week out of town. I debated going to my mom's, then decided against it. Ems and I are just going to stay here and relax this week.

Lately it's been a struggle to get Emma to sleep and it often stresses me out at night, especially when Steve is gone. Some nights I feel like my whole evening is wasted laying in bed with Emma trying to get her to fall asleep. Last night, after struggling to get her to sleep for well over an hour, I realized something. Emma has always gone to bed fairly late, which worked well because Steve and I generally stay up late as well. Suddenly, for a few weeks, she was falling asleep every night between 9:00 and 10:00. It was nice for Steve and I to have some time to ourselves and I rather enjoyed Emma's going to bed earlier. My problem was that she is now trying to move back to her regular bedtime, and I've been trying to force her to keep going to bed early. I have no idea why she was going to bed earlier for awhile. Maybe she was going through a growth spurt and needed extra sleep? Either way, she has been very clearly telling me what she needs and I've been ignoring it. So, starting tonight, I'm back to letting her decide when to go to bed. And guess what...we had a great evening together. We listened to music and danced, did puzzles, read about a hundred books, and baked cookies. At 11:30, she brought me the pillow on which she sleeps on my lap, letting me know it was bed time. We sat down to nurse and she was asleep in less than five minutes. She is now peacefully curled up on my lap, her chest and legs covered in smiley face stickers. I have never seen anything more precious.