Clara Wakes Me Up...Again

     "Hey!  HEEYYY! Hey!" Clara shouted into the darkness early this morning.
     What the? I thought, trying to get out of bed.  Accidentally stepping on one of Wilbur's paws.
     "HEY! Hey!"
     It's like having Robert DeNiro sleeping next door, I thought, feeling around for my bathrobe. It was 3:30 am.  It's been months and months since Clara woke up in the night. I figured she might be getting her two-year molars.
     "Hi Baby, what's wrong?" I asked, lifting her from her crib and giving her a kiss.  "Do you have an ouchie in your mouth?"
     "No," she croaked. Though dainty of feature, Clara has a naturally husky voice that gets downright gravelly at nighttime.  Plus, because she's a toddler, she has thug syntax.  If you hung around her in the evening, you'd swear I'd watched The Godfather all day everyday while she was in utero.
     "Are you hungry?"
     "No.  Wannu snuggle."
     "I will give you some huggies, but it's not time to snuggle right now.  It's the middle of the night!"
     "Wannu snuggle, Mommy!"
     I hugged her for a second and put her back in the crib. She roared, her voice reaching a new, exquisite level of intensity, fueled by a terrible combination of sleep-deprivation and righteous indignation. I tried to get her to lie down, but she gripped the top of the crib railing with soft, dimpled hands that belied her brute strength.  Then she slung a delectable toddler thigh over the top rail and made as if to bail out of her crib.
     "Okay, okay, we'll snuggle, but just for a few minutes," I said. I know if she makes the leap from her crib to the floor, she'll not only survive, she'll be empowered. She'll practically rip the jammies off her chest like Superman rips off his shirt.  After the discovery that her crib can no longer contain her, there will be no stopping her.  No one in this house will ever, ever sleep again.  For this reason, I plan to keep her in her crib until she's eighteen.
      We're not making a habit of this middle-of-the-night snuggling, I thought, wrapping her in a blanket and settling us down in the rocking chair in the corner of her room.  After a moment, she said,
     "Wannu snuggle Daddy."
     "Daddy's sleeping."
     "Wannu snuggle big bed."
     "Heck no, Baby Girl.  We're not opening that Pandora's box."
     "Yes. Peese, Mommy."
     "No.  No way," I said, standing and putting her back in the crib.
     She gave out a low, dirging bellow that rivaled Marlon Brando's in A Streetcar Named Desire. I promised to stroke her hair for an extra long time if she laid down. Finally she acquiesced.
     After this, she's going to sleep until like ten tomorrow, I thought gleefully when I got back to my room. I nestled down into my delicious bed.
     "Hey!  HEY!  Hey! MOMMYYYYY!!!!!" I heard at 6:40 am.
     "Alright, alright," I said as I entered her room.  "Do you want to come snuggle in the big bed?"
      It might buy me a couple more minutes sleep.
     "YES.  Yes, yes, yes, Mommy."
     I brought her back to our room and settled her next to me.  Simon had just gotten up and was taking a shower.
     "Daddy, it's wake-up!"
     "Yes, Daddy's going to work."
     She settled into the bed and was still for approximately one-eighth of a second. Then she pushed her little foot into my hipbone, using it to leverage herself deeper into the pillows.
     "Ow!" I yelled, turning to face away from her.  She thrashed around some more and kicked me in the kidneys.  I moaned and rolled onto my back.  She grunted and climbed on top of my chest.
     "Eyes....nose....mouf," she murmured, picking out each of my features with none-too-gentle hands. Then she laid precisely prone on my chest, little arms pressed into her sides, nose squished tightly into mine, mouth pressed into mine.
     "What are you doing?" I muttered through closed lips. It was the one of the most irritating things I'd ever experienced. Call Hillary, I thought.  I've found a way to deter Assad from chemical weaponry. 
     She slid her runny nose, warm and wet and smelling faintly of yesterday's Go-Gurt, down until it was pressed against my mouth.
     "Yuck! Yucky, Honey!  Please don't put your nose in my mouth.  Don't you want to snuggle and rest some more?"
     "No, Mommy! It's wake-up! Wake-up! Mommy! Yes!"