Ramblings: Hilarious Misbehaving

So last night bedtime was difficult.  

I'm not sure what it was, but Ellie was just not interested in staying in bed.  I was trying really hard to stick with our "silently walk her back to bed" routine, but I was losing patience.  Nick was working late, so I was fighting this bedtime battle on my own.  

I needed a mommy break, so I put the baby gate up.  She could still open her door, but she couldn't leave her room.  I explained to her that big girls stay in bed at bedtime.  Until she learned to be a big girl and stay in bed, the baby gate was going to have to stay up.

 (For the record, I took it down after she fell asleep.)

When Nick got home at 11:00pm, Ellie was still awake.

  Still.  

I was doing my best to ignore her constant requests for 

a snack, or a drink, or a different book, or a new toy.  She had eaten a good dinner, she had a drink before bed (at 8:30pm).  She was fine, just trying her hardest to stay awake.  

She also has a new tactic where she says she pooped and she needs a new diaper.  This is usually not true, but every now and then she has in fact pooped.  

Around 11:45pm she kept saying, 

"Need diaper.  Need diaper.  Need diaper."  

Unrelenting.  I figured if she is this insistent it must be true, so I went to check.  

Remember, it's dark.  She's standing in the doorway.  I go to pick her up and put her in bed.  

She's naked.

She's not dirty, or wet, or anything, just naked.  

I was so confused, I turn the lamp on and look around. 

She has stripped, thrown her clothes and diaper over the gate and into the hallway.  It took everything I had to not laugh at that moment.  I held it in, got her dressed and told her to go to sleep (which she finally did about ten minutes later!).  Then I go back to the den to tell Nick what happened.  

I have never laughed so hard in my life.