Progress?

Lucky people - two posts in two days! Although it took me three days to write the last one, so technically it should be two posts in a week...
Anyway!
I feel the need to record tonight's happenings because I am proud of how I handled it. And who knows, tomorrow I might need something to refer back to!
It was another bedtime which didn't go exactly to plan, although it started very well. Miss T asked to go up for her bath, we had lots of fun, got ready for bed with no problems.
Things began to go awry during story time when instead of listening intently to the tale of a little rabbit who is looking for the moon she began chatting animatedly about her day.
And the situation deteriorated when I tucked her up and went downstairs - the usual 30 second complaint was stretched out more and more and interspersed with plaintive "mummy come up" and "mummy cuddle" requests.
Typically, it just happened to be one of those nights when I have a to-do list that could keep me busy for weeks and Mark is at work till late.
So what did I do? Well option 1 was to hope she would settle by herself, and steel myself for up to half an hour of misery.
I did that for 10 minutes, and became more and more stressed with the thought of all the things I needed to be doing, and the possibility that she might keep this up all evening.
I even sent a few miserable texts out in the hope some magical fairy would come up with a solution.
None was forthcoming, of course so I made a decision. Shocking, I know!
I went upstairs, gave her lots of kisses, resisted her pleas to pick her up, told her it was bedtime and went back down.
And guess what? It worked! By the time I had got back down to my lengthy list, peace had settled on the house (apart from the hungry cats wailing for their tea...but that's a whole other blog!).
It may not sound that significant - after all, parents across the land get their children to sleep every day. And so do I, mostly.
But this incident had the potential to turn into one of those wallowing moments where we both end up in tears and no one is in control.
I am proud I took the decision to take control, and that I was able to go upstairs calmly and confidently - it isn't always so, believe me!
So - there you go. Little steps on the road back to sanity...and further away from the happy pills.