Yay, insomnia. I spent most of last night tossing and turning, and I'm kind of astonished that Matt managed to get any sleep. I got up at 2 to take a decongestant in the hopes that would help. It did, a little, but I don't think I got more than an hour of fitful sleep before I was awake again.

I actually feel mostly okay -- at least, no worse than usual for a rainy day -- but I might be deluding myself.

There's your fair warning, in case I start raving about random and improbable things.

We heard Penny starting to talk to herself around 6:15. "I'm going to let her talk," I told Matt, "unless she calls for us or cries. I want to stay in bed."

"Okay," he said. We dozed through another round of whapping the snooze on our alarms, then he got up to take his shower. I was awake anyway, so I got up and started to sort the laundry. Penny had gotten quiet again. Or maybe I just couldn't hear her over the rain and the shower. I don't know.

(I have an appointment next week to have an ear/nose/throat specialist look at my ears and hopefully come up with a way to restore my hearing. It's driving me crazy, and I'm sure it's no picnic for everyone around me, either.)

So I'm contentedly putting laundry away, and suddenly I hear Penny crying.

My first guess is that she'd called for us a few times, and I hadn't heard her. (I told you the hearing thing was driving me crazy.) I dropped the socks I was matching and went into her room.

"It's okay, sweetie, it's--"

Penny was not in the crib. She was standing next to it, her blanket tucked under her arm. She was already mostly done crying. "Out!" she announced cheerfully. "Penny get out!"

"Yep," I said, flabbergasted. "You sure did."

Time to start closing the gate when we go to bed so she can't wander downstairs in the middle of the night. Or, maybe better, time to put the doorknob protector on the inside of her door, so she can't leave her room. And also, um, take a look around and make sure there's nothing within her reach in there that we wouldn't want her to play with unsupervised.

One thing's for certain: When I tell my parents about this, they will be extremely gleeful, and my mother will say something about payback.

--Liz