chocolate for breakfast

We've been really, really working on getting Pirate to sleep in his own bed. We bought Thomas "the Tank Eng" sheets and a blanket, and we bought a fish tank -which we put a fake little turtle into for decoration. He loves the fish tank and the turtle, so we decided to use fish as bribery bate. If he could sleep in his own room every night, we'd by him 2 gold fish.

Saturday we went to the pet store and he became the very proud owner of 2 fish. He loves the fish, he talks to them, and is constantly wanting to feed them "a snack." We told him if he could sleep in his own bed again all this week, we'd go buy him 2 more fish. (If I end up with 57 fish in that tank, so be it!)

Anyway, last night I successfully kissed him goodnight while he was still fairly awake, and crawled into my own bed three-quarters expecting him to follow me -and he didn't. Which Hubs and I high-fived each other!

This is serious progress people. Serious. Progress.

"Now, if we could just get him to stay there all night." one of us said before we drifted off into slumber.

At 3:00 this morning, we both woke up. Pirate was not in our bed.
"It's three, and he's still in his own bed!" one of us said, both of us were thinking it.
"I know!"
"He'll probably be in here soon, then."
"Yeah, probably."

I laid back down, and the next time my eyes opened light was streaming in through the windows and Hubs was in the shower and I was all alone in the bed!

Pirate slept all night in his own bed!

As Hubs was getting out of the shower, Pirate toddled into our room.

"Yay! Parate! Yay! Pirate!!" -A boy has never been so cheered for sleeping in his own bed all night, I can almost promise you that!

Then Hubs said, "You get 3 M&Ms for sleeping in your own bed all night!!" and then Pirate was excited too. And if you know me at all, you know how anti-sugar I am, but I'll take that highly addictive power of sugar and use it to advantage in cases such as these.

This is the third (maybe the fourth) time in his entire 2 and one-half-plus years on this earth that he has ever slept an entire night. Which, you might also read as: I have not had a full night's sleep since I gave birth to him. Actually, since I was about half-way through the pregnancy. SO I'm actually on 3 full years on not a single full night's sleep...

The first two times this happened, once around 7 months, another time about a year ago, I was foolish enough to think we'd turned a new leaf! Crossed a bridge! I was on my way to finally getting to sleep all night...

I'm not fooled this time. This might not happen again for another year -but today I'll take it! And be very happy! And I'm  going to go buy him a train or something today. I am. Because if bribery works, I am going to work it!