Why my room is messy today

At the moment, my (adorable and powerful voiced) daughter is crying at what she thinks is the top of her lungs. She sounds quite pitiful, really, but her cries would be much more effective if she didn't stop every moment or so to make sure I'm looking. See, it's bedtime.

Emma has developed a very convincing fake cry. If that were the only cry of hers you'd heard, you would think that there was something wrong besides the fact that she would like to stay up some more. But I've heard the real thing. This is no "I am in so much pain and I don't know how it happened," nor is it "I had a really bad dream and I'm scared." It's not even "I called and called and nobody could hear me!" It's just a tantrum.

These temper tantrums started the very same week she turned 1 year old. (Emma has forgotten that she was throwing a tantrum, and is experimenting with vowels and soft consonants in a low voice. It's sounds like this: "Woooooooooooooooowwwwwoooooowwwwooooo.... Muuuuuuuuuuuuummmmummmmuuuuuuuuummmm.... Wuuuuummmmnnnnuuuuunnnn....") So far we are pretty effective in diffusing them with distraction or ignoring her during the day, but at bed time we are having a difficult time weathering out the storm. This is because we are still sharing a room with her, and we would like to sleep once in a while.

So we are moving our bed out to the family room, and Emma gets the bedroom all to herself. And that is why, if you were to walk into our apartment tonight, you would think that hurricane Irene had visited.