The Night-time Escapades of Sumayah

Yesterday we were out all day for a picnic so Sumayah didn't sleep and then of course fell asleep in the car on the way home. I tried waking her a few times when we got home but she was too tired so I knew she wouldn't be able to fall asleep at her usual bedtime. So she and I were lying in bed watching one of my favourate movies, 'The Wedding Planner', me hoping that she will grow sleepy. Skip forward a few hours to midnight, the whole house was dark and quiet, everyone fast asleep...or so I thought. When I turned off my night light to sleep Sumayahs room was quiet so I assumed she was sound asleep in her bed. But I was rudely awoken from my deep sleep when I heard her walking into the room just past midnight with no top on looking like casper the ghost! At first I thought she had gotten her hands on the powder again, but as she approached me I realised that she was in fact smothered in cream, all over her torso! I was partly too sleepy, partly too amused, partly too flabagasted to have any sort of angry reaction to this. When I took her back to her room to clean her up I discovered that what was left in the the 400g tub of aqueous cream was not only all over Sumayahs torso and face, but also on her pillow, her sheets and her duvet! What amused me the most was that this was all done in sneaky silence in a dark room. And this is not the first time either. You see I have been battling with Sumayahs sleep habit for all of her little life. For quite some time we managed to cut the night wakings to just one per night, quickly resolved with a measly 75ml sip of milk. This I could accept, the real problem was getting her to fall asleep in the first place. I would find myself lying in her room for sometimes 2 hours before she slept usually only at about 10. This caused havoc with my nightime marking. But finally this week I tried to implement the sleep training again and within one night she was allowing me to leave her room and she would stay in her bed till she fell asleep. It was like she was just ready, so there were no tantrums only a lot of back and forth putting her back into bed the first night. I guess because she understands alot more now so I could actually use reasoning rather than behaviour modification. But of course in between we had out 'incidences' one of them much like the one I described from last night. She was in her room with the light off talking to herself as usual and then finally it was quiet. We were in bed with the rugby on very softly and I can see her room door from my bed. So I thought it was safe to assume that she was asleep...again, I was mistaken. When we finally turned off the tv and lights to go to sleep I heard a faint sound coming from her room at about 11.30. I decided to investigate only to discover Sumayah sitting on the floor of her dark room with all the toys unpacked from the toy chest, her clothes unpacked from her chest of drawers and scattered all over her bed, and Sumayah with one of her pants halfway up her one leg. When she saw me she casually said, 'Mommy, I'm dressing' as though it was the most natural thing in the world for her to be doing at this hour! Yes, this is Sumayah, our little alien ;)