Another Break From Being Awake

On Friday, Elsa was in her bedroom doing "quiet time." In our house, "quiet time" is usually anything but, so I was surprised to suddenly realize that Elsa's monitor had gone silent. I figured she must have crawled into bed and gone to sleep—that's rare, but it's happened once or twice. Still, I decided I better peek in and check on her.

Well, she wasn't in bed. Instead I found her sprawled out, spread-eagle, face down on the floor in the middle of her room, with various toys scattered around her. Seriously, she looked like a scene from "CSI: Mequon." I could totally picture the tape outline of her silhouette. You guessed it—she was sound asleep. It's like she just passed out in the middle of playing.

This kind of thing might happen fairly often to other three-year-olds, but Elsa hasn't fallen asleep on the floor, well, ever. So I have to say, I panicked for a few seconds. My first thought was that there must be something medically wrong with her, and I rushed into the room shouting her name. She just looked up at me, groggily, with a carpet imprint on her face, and said, "What?" I said, "Oh my God, Elsa, what are you doing asleep in the middle of the floor? You really scared me!" She just blinked at me and said, "I'm not scary," and put her head back down on the floor.

I tried to talk her into getting into bed for an actual nap, but of course she couldn't be convinced to do that. She eventually went back to playing, but was in bed at 7 p.m. sharp that night. And for what it's worth, she did get the swine flu mist the day before, so I'm guessing that little immune system was in overdrive that afternoon.