Black funk (and not the George Clinton kind)

I will confess the following: For the past few days, I've been in a bad funk. The inspiration well has run dry and I'm tired of Benevolent Dictator.

For some reason, she's gotten clingier and LOUDER. Much louder. Screeching howler-monkey loud. Part of it is the change to toddler-dom where she's showing her opinions and being vocal about her likes and dislikes.

As a result, bedtime's gotten worse. In the past, it was simple -- a couple of books and then rocked to sleep. Plop her in the crib and we're done for the night. Not anymore. For the past week, we follow the routine, put her in the crib and then, like a deranged jack-in-the-box, she springs up screaming like an insane banshee.

The crying is hard. She screams, she stands and howls like mad. I'm now at the point where I have to walk out of the room and let her scream ala Weissbluth. I know she's fine. I know she's safe in her crib and that nothing will happen. We've done this before and she's been fine in the morning. Nothing therapy-inducing as she gets older (I'll do other stuff to cause the therapy, I'm sure of that).

It's just rough to see her face contorted in a mix of fury and sadness as she tries to get me to stay a little longer. But I know she needs her sleep, so I leave the room. Her howls are so loud that we don't need the baby monitor anymore to know that she's awake. It still rips at my heart. But at the same time, there's this anger, this defiance in me that refuses to give into this wish because I know it's going to keep her up longer.

But yeah, it's hard. And it's making me want supersized mojitos, which is not a good thing because we're running low on rum and mojito mix.

On the lighter side, I have a question for dear readers. I haven't gotten a costume for Benevolent Dictator yet. Any suggestions?