video monitors are priceless

well, the day finally came.  baby girl finally climbed out of her crib.  physically, she's been capable of it for a long time.  and i know that at least for a while, she's mentally known she has that option.  but yet, she's never done it.  she semi climbed out of her pack n play while we were on our utah trip so i knew she knew she had that option... but yet, she happily went to sleep in there and always waited for me to come get her out.  it deserves a whole post of it's own but i'll just summarize things a whole bunch and say that baby girl has turned into a naughty little devil and is insanely rude and extremely disobedient and has been throwing fits about anything and everything.  sooo of course this is an optimal time for the mini shawshank to happen.

it first happened today at naptime.  baby girl has been fighting naptime and bedtime more and more saying stuff like "i don't need to sleep!" "i want to go downstairs!" and "i don't want to nap!"  normally though, with a little explaining, i can get her to lay down just fine with the promise that we'll play when she wakes up.  this afternoon i was trying to get her ready for nap and she was being a terror as usual.  i just picked her up, threw her in her crib, grabbed brady, and closed the door on my way out while she continued the screaming and crying.  i took brady to his room, gave him his medicine, and went right back to abigail's room.  when i opened the door, she was about to put her feet on the floor, having climbed over the railing of her crib.  i just calmly got her and acted like nothing had happened.  "are you ready to be sweet now?  let's pick out a book and we can read it together before nap."  and i told her if she was a good listener and took a good nap, she could watch thomas after she woke up (since she hasn't watched any tv for two weeks since i took her movies away).  so she went right to sleep and all was well.

then tonight when bedtime came around, she was stalling and throwing fits as usual but we were going about it like we do every night.  i was just about to leave the room when she was insisting "daddy say night night good night!" and wasn't having it when i told her he was already asleep and had already told her goodnight.  normally we would just battle this topic for a while and then she'd go to sleep but it wasn't happening and i got so frustrated i just shut the door and left her screaming.  all of that woke up chris who had fallen asleep on the sofa downstairs and he went up while i brushed my teeth.  i semi watched on the monitor and he wasn't having luck and it looked like she was climbing out of her crib again.  so we traded places.  after trying to reason with her and help her want to sleep in her room (she kept saying she wanted to sleep in my bed and go downstairs), i gave up and told her she could go downstairs but i wouldn't help her, she had to do it herself.  she didn't like that.  i went downstairs, made sure all the lights were off and doors were locked and then i went to my room and locked the door because i knew she'd try to come in.

sure enough, watching on the video monitor, i saw her climb out of her crib. then i heard her walking down the stairs (because of course, she's still crying) and try to open the doors to our bedroom while crying "mommy!" in a voice that would have been sad to hear had she not been so absolutely terribly miserably misbehaved today.  chris and i were completely quiet and the lights in our room were off and... after about a minute or two, she stopped shaking the doors and her crying got more distant and until it picked up on the monitor again.  and then i couldn't stop laughing.

because she went back to her room, climbed back in her crib, and went to sleep.