Play! Play! Play! Sleep.

Darcy gets a lot of opportunities to play when we're in Simi and this trip is no exception. She almost continually asks to go "somewhere with lots of kids". Here she is at the Topanga Mall, home of the famous rabbit carousel. She rode the rabbit twice, played in the play area with gusto, and made me take her up and down the escalator four or five times in a row. She had fun.

Darcy has had some sleep issues since we got here, especially at nap time. I needed a day off from the struggle, so I took her to the LA zoo (we've never been) in the morning with the hope that she would get worn out and fall asleep on the ride home. I had my book with me, so I figured I'd just park in the shade and read for a while. Other than petting the rabbit, Darcy's favorite part of the zoo was this play area. She played here for a long time before agreeing that we could continue our quest to find the "monkeys" that were, of course, straight up the hill just about as far from the entrance as they could be.

We saw gibbons. We saw chimps. We saw an orangutan. She pet the rabbit. She ate a lot. She did not fall asleep on the way home. Not one bit. We got home, washed, rested, talked to Michael who was sweating in the un-air-conditioned Depot, and then: "I want to go some place with lots of kids." As if none of my attempt at wearing her out had ever happened.


On the theory that she would fall asleep on the way to the Oaks Mall, off we went. She did not fall asleep. She was wide awake and playing instantly. Lots of climbing, lots of running around, lots of hugging of random strangers. We took a break to ride the elevator and visit the puppies. We had a snack. She played in the hanging carpets and drapery at Pottery Barn (she said, so truthfully, that she was "snug as a bug in a rug"). We went back to the play area. She played for another fifteen, twenty minutes.

Surely, I thought, she'd sleep on the way home. No. She whined about a bottle that she dropped and I couldn't reach. She screamed when I told her to stop whining. And then, silence. Five minutes from home, she fell asleep. She stayed asleep while I carried her into the house. She slept on the couch with a baseball game on the tv and five adults carrying on a conversation in the room. She stayed asleep while I carried her upstairs and changed her into a pull-up and put her in her bed. She is still asleep almost two hours later.

I can count on one hand the number of times she has ever stayed asleep when taken out of her carseat and carried into the house. I think I wore her out.