My one-year-old

Technically she's closer to her second birthday than her first, but she's not two yet. Funny thing is that she doesn't realize that she's not as old or as capable as her brother or sister. A few weeks ago she refused to sit in her high chair anymore, apparently because those are for babies, and well, she's not a baby (the other two used the high chair until they were three). So we moved her to a booster chair at the table with the rest of us. But nobody else was sitting in a booster chair. So now she sits flat on the chair, her chin barely above the surface of the table. It leads to quite a mess when she eats Cheerios or lasagna, but what can you do?

She's not really happy about sleeping in a crib, either. She wants to be in a big bed, preferably a top bunk like her brother. But we haven't given in on that one yet. At least not completely.

Saturday night she woke up at about 1:00 a.m., screaming at the top of her lungs. I went in to her room and got her out of her crib to hold her. She let me hold her for about two seconds then squirmed to the ground and went back to her crib. I thought she wanted to get back in, so I lifted her in. She grabbed her entourage (two stuffed pink elephants and a baby doll) and then started screaming again to get out. Again, I got her out. Again, she squirmed out of my arms almost immediately. She walked out of the room, down the hall, and up the stairs where she sat down on the couch in front of the TV. I wasn't about to turn it on for her.

I sat on the couch with her for about two minutes and watched her drift off back to sleep. Then I left her there. I moved the coffee table out of the way and put a couple pillows on the floor, so that when she rolled off, she wouldn't get hurt.

At about 5:00 a.m. I woke up to go to the bathroom. (I'm not that old, but it's still more of an accomplishment for me to make it through the night without having to go then it is for my son, the difference being that I actually wake up and get out of bed.) Since I was up anyway, I went upstairs to check on the baby. She wasn't there.

I panicked for a second but figured she hadn't cried, so she probably wasn't hurt. And she can't open the entry doors yet, so she was somewhere in the house. I went back down to her room. She was asleep on the carpet, her entourage still in her arms. I put a blanket over her and went back to bed.