I can't find my Rodrigo

As I've mentioned, my kids are short on sleep since school started. Now I am too. I can count on one hand the number of times I've slept through the night in the past 3 weeks. It's killing me! If I wanted to do this, I'd be having another kid (which I'm not, just to be clear).

What is waking me up at night? A stuffed penguin. Not just any stuffed penguin -- Peanut's lovey, Rodrigo. How could a stuffed penguin wake me up? He keeps hiding. Or running away. Practically every night, in the depths of the night, 3:30 a.m. or 4:30 a.m., I awake to the following being shouted: "I can't find my Rodrigo!" On repeat until I stumble up the stairs to her room. Rodrigo is usually wrapped up in the covers and occasionally on the floor. I head back down to my room, sometimes taking 15 minutes (grrr) to fall back asleep.

Yes, in this house, L's and my room is a floor below the girls. Not a problem, really, because they're not babies anymore, so they shouldn't be WAKING UP IN THE NIGHT. Except they are. Well, she is. Can you tell I'm tired?

Finally yesterday, we told Peanut that if she loses Rodrigo, she can just get up and turn on the light to find him. Then turn it back off and go back to sleep; no need to call for us. Last night? Silence. Maybe a coincidence, we shall see.

Although I have not been amused by her middle-of-the-night antics, I am amused by her naptime activities of late. She's been talkative and active in her room, but she has managed to nap more often than not. The other day she was so loud for about 45 minutes, then quiet. I brought my camera with me when I went to wake her to go get Jellybean at school, and this is what I found:

So overcome with the need to sleep, crawling those 3 feet to the bed just wasn't an option. Wait, I think I can relate.

Oh, what a beautiful morning

I was up really late last night, compelled by a very close basketball game. It took me a long time to calm down enough to sleep, so I was up until about 1 a.m.

Jellybean woke up early this morning (of course! Murphy's law of little kids) and came into the room before 7. She climbed into bed with me and said, "Tell me about baby chickens."

Huh?

I was still in a sleepy fog and she was persistent, so I managed to force my mouth form to words about, of all things, baby chickens.

About 25 minutes later, Peanut started chattering in her crib. I opened the door to her room, and without missing a beat, Peanut looked at me and said, "Watch this. Pbbbllllltttttt." She proceeded with some of the gnarliest raspberries I'd ever heard. She must have been working on those all night in her sleep. Quite the accomplishment.

Goes to show, you never know what goes through their little minds.

Bright lights at night

The neighbors across the street have been keeping their porch light on all night lately. They don't have any kids, so no one is coming home in the middle of the night. I don't know why it's on.

The reason I'm aware of the light is that our bedroom is right across from their porch. We need the windows open at night to circulate air with our attic fan, so the light spills in on our bed all night. I tried to see yesterday if the light was on all day, like maybe they don't know it's on. But it looked like the light was off in the daytime.

It's a waste of energy, and it's bugging me. I would love to say something, but I'll see how long it keeps going on. It's been about 10 days so far. I hate to tick off a neighbor. I also hate to have light beaming over my bed at 3 a.m.!

What would you do?