What do you do when your 1-year-old is manipulating you at 4am? Laugh...

Ah the stories of parenthood. While spending the night at Grammie and TomTom's recently, Milo and I spent a painful night. I'm fighting an annoying head cold, and he's going thru a waking up in the middle of the night thing that we're all having a tough time kicking. I think we've started a couple of bad habits with good intentions, but as my college roommate Heidi's dear Grandma Norma always used to say, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

He had woken up a couple times earlier, but had gone back to sleep on his own, but at about 4am, he started asking for his "bot-too" or bottle. I got up and pointed out that he had his bottle (bottle of water) in his bed, and tried to hand it too him. "No no no," he says, waving it away, "Bot-too!!" I again try and explain to him that he has his bottle. "Pleez mum pleez! Bot-too! Bot-too!" Now he's kinda crying and being overdramatic and I'm getting a little irritated. I mostly like it that he now has enough words to communicate a bit more effectively, but sometimes it also drives me a little crazy. He starts pointing to the dresser where I had left out a bottle with some formula in the bottom and a bottle of water to mix if needed. The kid recognizes that this bottle offers something far better than the bottle of water in his bed, points, and emphasizes "pleez mum pleez mum! Bot-too, BOT-TOO!!" I couldn't help it, I laughed. He's so much smarter than we give him credit for, and though this was falling right back into the habit we were trying to break, I mixed the formula, and chuckling, gave it to him. He grinned, like "finally, she got it!" and said happily, "bot-too!"