Diva In Training

Used to be when I would check on Ainsley in the night I would think, "Awww. She looks like an angel when she sleeps." Now I think, "Awww. She looks like a little diva when she sleeps."

One of my holiday gifts was a pair of pajamas with an attached satin sleep mask. No sooner had this little goody been snipped off the pajamas than it was snatched out of my grasp by my five-year-old, who said she loved it and wanted it. I have another sleep mask that I use when I have a migraine, so I let her have it, not knowing that it was going to become attached to her face every night.

When she first asked to sleep in it over our Christmas break, I humored her and helped her slip it over her eyes. I fully expected to find it tossed on the floor in the middle of the night. But the next morning, when she slept past 10, I worried that she had gotten it wrapped around her neck, so I rushed in the room, convinced I had doomed her by letting her sleep in something constrictive on her head (I read waaaaay too many parenting magazines, and have strangulation paranoia). Instead, I found her sound asleep, eye mask still in place, oblivious to the fact that the sun had risen.

For the rest of the break, she insisted on sleeping with the eye mask. It was nice for us; with her little pink satin mask, she could be counted on to sleep late. But as her first day back approached, I set a ground rule: no sleep mask on a school night. It's hard enough waking that kid up in the morning without one; I have to flip every light in her room on and hold the alarm clock 3 inches from her ear to convince her that it's time to get out of bed.

Last night I tucked her in as usual, and reminded her why I wasn't giving her the sleep mask. A few hours later, when hubby when to check on her before we called it a night, he came out of her room with an amused look on his face.

"Did you put her sleep mask on her when you put her in bed?" he asked.

"No. Why?"

"She has it on."

Apparently, the little diva got out of bed and snatched the mask. We had left her aquarium light on, and I guess that was just too much light for her.

It was still on her face this morning, and as I went in to turn her lights on and make sure her alarm was going to go off, I was struck by how grown-up she looked. And by how high-maintenance she is.

I hope she isn't going to be one of those people who has to put Reynold's Wrap on the windows and masking tape over the LED display on her alarm clock. I've known people like that, people who have to have complete darkness and utter silence when they're trying to sleep. They make the people they live with nuts. I don't get it; I had to sleep with a night-light until I was thirty.

I'm grateful that she's not afraid of the dark. But on the other hand...I am raising a prima donna.