locked and loaded

Last night was the first night in a couple of weeks that I let Penny pick out her own pajamas. Yes I'm such a Nazi mama I never lets my child pick out any of her own clothing or wear anything inappropriate such as a sun dress when it's snowing. No, instead we've come to a stage in her development where we have a reoccurring problem - getting her to keep her diaper on. Normally this isn't a big conundrum since during the day she's either wearing pants or, in cases where she won't keep bottoms on, I'm there to make sure she's not going commando. But lately during naps and at bedtime she'll wake up and, I don't know, decide that the fate of the free world hinges on her behavior. Or maybe she becomes angry at the injustices of how toddlers are treated and decides to stage a sit-in with her stuffed animals as compatriots. Whatever it is, she must feel the only way to right these wrongs is by stripping off all her clothing followed by her diaper. 


Except it's not a used diaper. Nope, it's perfectly clean and dry. Then she must feel that urge. The urge that when she's older she'll recognize and act befittingly. Instead she's trapped in the prison of her crib and can only do one thing - pee all over the place. I am then notified of this development by a shrieking, shivering and usually damp child. And this usually occurs only after I've taken my sleep meds and am as loopy as a dodo bird trying to wrangle her into new pajamas, put new sheets on the bed and not fall over while arranging all this.


Since this began I've been a mean mama and made her sleep each night in footie pajamas for the main reason that they zip. I can then safety pin the zipper to the jammies and she can't escape them to do her business on the sheets. This has been met each night with crying and pleading, can she PLEASE wear the Santa or butterfly jammies? Why do I have to be so mean and outlaw all the cute two piece outfits? But until they figure out a way for me to lock her into these they had been off limits. Until last night when Jason had the brilliant idea of putting the packing tape to another use and taped her diaper on. And it totally worked. Even my little Houdini wasn't able to magic her way out of that stuff. So from now on she can wear whatever she wants to bed. Even if it's a sun dress in the middle of winter.