No man's land.

It remains my futile goal to get Kiddle to bed by 7:00 (and that means by himself and asleep by 7:00). Last night wasn't too bad. Skipped his bath, as usual (man, he's one dirty kid by now), and had him down about 7:15. He, however, missed the memo that he needs to go to SLEEP at that time. He cried for a few minutes, but quickly gave up tears for rearranging the furniture. He spent a long time rocking in the big red chair in such a way that it was hitting both his closet door that doesn't latch closed AND the gate on the door, so it was like listening to a drum solo up there. BOOM-CLICK-RATTLE. BOOM-CLICK-RATTLE. But we continued to ignore him because usually he'll settle down and go to sleep soon enough.

The rocking eventually stopped and he moved on to counting with gusto and singing the ABCs, with a plainitive "MOM-MEEE" thrown in every now and then. Still, we ignored him.

Finally, at 8:15, he started getting upset, so I gave in and headed up to intervene ... and found him draped over the gate at the top of the stairs. He had used the rocking chair to bypass the gate on his door and was now trapped in the hall. And probably had been for a good half hour.

I thought his counting/singing seemed a little louder than ususal. Whoops.