Bedtime Malarkeys

“Mama! Mama!” Havana called from the girls’ room. Its 8 O’clock. Bedtime stories are done and its essentially mummy and daddy time. That’s the theory. It is also fairly routine for us to pop back and hear some badly-constructed reason that is preventing the descent into sleep. This time Havana tells her mom: “I don’t know where Ily is!”
Ilyana sleeps in a beautiful white crib with long bars on all sides, somewhat like an ornate cage with no lid. Since she was 3-months old this has been her place of rest. In recent days Havana has been climbing in and Ilyana's crib has become another venue for “showtime.” “Shows” in our house invariably involve what could loosely be called acrobatics, dance and/or dress-up, or some combination thereof, where the grown-ups are compelled to watch. Ilyana has consequently now learnt to climb into her crib from the head of her sister’s bed which is beside the crib.
So when Karen is informed that Havana does not know where her sister is, she looks at the crib and for the first time in Ilyana’s entire long life, our 2-year old is not in her crib. Next to Havana is a large lump of gathered bedclothes and some life form evidently squirming underneath. Like a jack in the box, Ilyana’s head comes to the surface yelling, “I’m here!”
So the girls get to sleep in the same bed. Havana likes goofing off as much as any of us and two in a bed almost too small for one, is a recipe for such malarkeyness. However, unlike her sib, Havana likes her sleep. And so an hour later when we visit the girls, to cover them up, on our own way to bed, we see a quiet, subdued but wide awake younger sister. It was too much excitement for her. Havana is dead to the world, fast asleep. Ilyana is lying awake possibly wondering what would be the next frontier to be broken, now that she has graduated, albeit by escape, her crib.