The Battle of the Overhead Light

Elyse is, well, let’s call it strong-willed. She is as determined as the day is long and three times as stubborn. She tests my will to go on daily, and the thing is…She knows it. Sometimes she looks at me with this smirk that says, “Oh, Mommy, I know that you have a white-knuckle death grip on the last remaining shreds of your sanity, but it is my job, nay my duty as your daughter and the two year old occupant of this house to test your limits and see just how far I can push you before you crack.” She and I go round and round about many, many things on a regular basis, but the battle that is currently being waged involves the overhead light in her bedroom.


Oh, I guess it started maybe two weeks ago when I went into her bedroom to check on her before I went to bed. At some point between when I had put her to bed and when I was checking in on her later that night, she had turned on her overhead light and had moved the dimmer all the way up so that it was as bright as the noon-day sun at 10:00 PM. I turned it off and went to bed.

The next morning, not only was her light back on, but she had climbed into her toy baby bed so that she could reach the sound machine on her dresser to turn that off too. She was screwing with me. She knew it and I knew it.

Now this went on for about a week. At nap time and at bed time I would leave her room with the sound machine on and the overhead light off, but darn it if when I walked back in she hadn’t switched the machine off and turned the light on. The light was one thing, but the fact that she was climbing into that bed to reach her dresser made me nervous. So the baby bed was relocated to the living room as a testament to the Power of Mommy and also to say, “Na, na, na, na, na, na!”

But the next morning, when I walked into her room, the light was on and she glared first at me and then up at the light as if to say, “You wanna dance Mommy? Let’s dance!”

And so we have been dancing every nap time and every night for about two weeks. I’ve even turned her night light all the way up to make it bright, but cozy. Still that doesn’t seem to help. Mike has taken the position of, “If she is sleeping, who cares?” But I care. I don’t know why, but I do. It’s just that it’s SO bright in there. I mean, how in God’s name can she possibly find that cozy? It’d be like saying, “Come on Honey, let’s go curl up on the couch and stare at the sun. It’s THAT bright.

Ok, maybe I am exaggerating slightly. But I am a person that likes it dark to sleep; cave-like dark. Except when I have to get up to pee in the middle of the night and then I’m all, “Night light! Where’s the night light?!?” So for me, a dark sleeper, to walk into a room that might as well be a tanning bed, I find it off putting, offensive, and just physically impossible to fall asleep under a heat lamp.

Short of removing the light bulb, I don’t think that there is very much that I can do. I’ve considered duct tape over the light switch, but that booger would work all night if she had to to get the tape off and turn the light on. I’m sure that at some point she will tire of the game and will stop turning it on, but for now she seems to be enjoying this way too much. I suppose that this is one battle where I am going to have to surrender, but I’m still going to sneak in at night to turn the light off, cause even though I know that I can’t win, it’s still fun to mess with her.