Sleep Out

When we went to Tennessee in September, Beatrice had a sleepover with her cousin at my mother in law's house. It was a big deal for all of us. Beatrice has never had a sleepover with a friend (or cousin) before and she's only been away from me overnight when Penelope got sick. She was so excited. I was excited for her.

She took her best Cinderella baby and packed jammies, extra undies, and her toothbrush. 

I was nervous that she may be scared once it was bedtime, but she proved to be a really big girl. Grammy reported that the girls stayed up late giggling and telling stories in bed without any tears or requests for mom. Beatrice still talks about her "sleep out" and tells me about how much fun she had.

JD just got back from a work trip. He was gone for 27 days. Since I was a single mama for the month and had an empty side of the bed, I thought I'd have a mommy/daughter sleep out with Beatrice. Our month without daddy ending up being really busy (and hard) so I waited until the night before JD returned to tell Beatrice about our sleep out. It was late when I decided to even do it. I already put her to bed in her room, but around 10 pm when I came to check on her and found her still awake I thought, why not? I asked her, "do you want to have a sleep out with mommy?" She squealed. "Oh yes, mama, I do!"

I brought her in my bed, she laid on JD's side. She brought her pillow, blanket, and 2 of her babies. First, the giggles began. She giggled for a good 10 minutes before we started talking about anything. Then we talked. Oh boy, did we ever talk. We talked about daddy and sissy and Ariel and mermaids and Isaac and Ella and sleep outs and toys and Christmas and swoopy hair (like Ariel's) and, phew, we talked about a lot. Then we played peekaboo under the covers for oh, an hour and a half.

I was SO TIRED and just wanted to go to sleep, but we were making memories so I stayed up and made silly noises under the covers with my 3 year old until after midnight. Finally, she settled down enough for me to suggest going to sleep. I'm pretty sure she would have gone all night playing and talking though, silly girl.

I fell asleep first (I woke up to her making choo choo sounds and playing with my eyebrows) and barely slept all night because every time I moved, she woke up asking if it was morning time yet. Penelope woke up early and as I was inching out of the bed to get her before she woke Beatrice, I heard "good morning! That was a wonderful sleep out! I'm still tired." We were up for the day by 7. Yawn. All she could talk about was our "so fun sleep out."

Of course now that we have had our mommy/daughter sleep out, all she wants to do is have another one. I'm glad we did it, it was definitely a sweet memory we will both remember for a long time.