Worst parenting moment ever.

I tend to overuse hyperbole. Favorite phrases of mine are, "This is the best ___ ever." "I'm having the worst ____ ever." "You never do _____."  So implications in relationships aside, I'm working on it. I'm now allowing myself one hyperbole a day. For instance, if you follow me on twitter, I was putting on skinny jeans right after I lotioned my legs. And that was the worse thing ever.

Exaggerations aside, I just had the biggest "Oh shit!" moment of my entire parenting career. And I thought about keeping it to myself because it is incredibly embarrassing and horrible, but then I thought, you know what, for the greater good, I will share my misfortune with the world. My only hope is that you, dear reader, never make the same mistake.

So Lena and I have been having bedtime issues. I say both of us, because she's the one that has trouble going to sleep, but then I'm the one that is struggling to stay awake as she's struggling to fall asleep. Not a good combination. We sort of figured out that it was somewhat related to nap time, she doesn't nap on the weekends anymore, and tends to get worn out and go to bed earlier on the weekends, and then during weekdays when she naps at school she goes to bed later. I had sort of resigned myself to deal with this until elementary school when they don't nap.

Then, two things happened. About two weeks ago, Lena had an awesome Saturday. We went to the park and the museum and we ran around like maniacs for about 8 hours. And then we had people over for dinner. And I gave her a few cookies for dessert, and she was wired, and didn't go to bed until 11. And I was like, damn, I guess she was over excited by having dinner guests. Then the Monday after that, we had an awesome dinner, and she forgot about dessert because we were playing with something or whatever, and by the time she remembered she hadn't had dessert she was already in the bath, and I was just like, "It's too late, we'll have dessert tomorrow." And that night Lena was asleep by 8:30.

At this point, I use my now-questionable-though-I-previously-thought-were-fine powers of deduction and say to myself, "Why on Saturday after a long day she went to bed at 11, and on a Monday when she napped at school did she go to bed at 8:30?"

And I thought and I thought. And then this light slowly turns on in my head. She didn't have dessert on Monday. And you know what we usually have for dessert? Chocolate. A small piece of chocolate. Or chocolate covered raisins. Or a cookie with some sort of chocolate in it. Do you see where this is going?

I'd like to add, I was out the other night telling this story to a friend of mine, and I literally had said one sentence, "So I've been giving Lena chocolate for dessert--" and he interjected with, "But what about the caffeine?" I mean some people are naturally smart I guess.

APPARENTLY THERE IS CAFFEINE IN CHOCOLATE.

Especially in dark chocolate. I mean it's in the cocoa part, so white chocolate has no caffeine, and dark chocolate has the most. Which is not enough to affect anyone who probably weighs over 100 pounds, but holy shit. To a 34 pound bean, a piece of dark chocolate is like 10 cups of coffee. (Exaggeration. I did not do any sort of calculation to come up with that number.) I have been caffeinating my daughter. And she is having trouble sleeping after that. BEST MOTHER EVER. RIGHT HERE.

Gosh, so I figured this out, and we don't have chocolate for dessert anymore, and Lena is asleep every night by 9:30 at the latest, usually earlier, and she almost always falls asleep while I am reading to her. No more up and down and in and out of bed, and me threatening her to stay in her room and her just saying she can't sleep. Because of course she can sleep. If no one gives her caffeine.

Needless to say, I feel just a little bit silly.

But Lena sleeps great now! And so do I. I think in parenting more than anything the phrase "All's well that ends well" is extremely applicable.

I am such an idiot.

Lena, you'll be pleased to know, is no worse for the wear.