From the bag of Mommy tricks...

No pictures to accompany this story, but it was funny enough to share, anyway.

Elli's latest "need" before going to bed at night is for Mommy to come in and run her fingers through Elli's hair. She'll go to bed without it, but it speeds the process up significantly.

(However, she's incredibly particular -- no one else can do this. Daddy has tried, and it ended in angry shaking of the head indicating "no", whining, and crying for "wan' Mama!".)

Anyway, last night, I went into her room and tucked her in and was softly rubbing her head when she started signing to me, "More! More!" So I took my other hand and used both to comb through her hair. She immediately burst into a full-face grin that squeezed her eyes shut and she laid there totally blissed out for a good 2 minutes. (Yes, it was incredibly hard to keep my giggling silent.)

After the two minutes, she opened her eyes, looked at me and said, "All Done!", grabbed her bunny and blanket, closed her eyes, and fell right to sleep.

(As a side benefit, from all that brushing of her hair straight up, she woke up this morning with hair a 1980's diva could only hope for in terms of height....)