I miss sleep!

I really miss sleep!  I know pregnant women don't get to sleep like they should but this isn't pregnancy related.  It's Emily related.  Two weeks before we left for Disney, Emily was waking up every morning around 4am and would come sleep in bed with Matt and I.  I let her only because I knew I would be sleeping with her in Disney and didn't see too much harm in it.  We came back from Disney and Em's wake up time moved to between 5am - 6am.  Matt wakes up anywhere between 430am - 515am so it didn't mean I would have to wake up with Em every morning, right? Yeah, I wish.  It seems Em would wait till Matt was either walking the dog or in the shower and then scream and cry to get up. Apparently, Daddy getting her out of bed isn't the same as Mommy doing it.  Well, now Em refuses to sleep through the night. Last night she was, shall I say, excited to go to bed.  She had a long day and didn't get a nap so she was ready for bed.  She went down without a problem, which is another issue we have been having lately.  I thought I was in the clear.  Well, 2am, I hear little feet coming down the stairs. I meet her halfway and bring her back to her room before the siren (her cry) goes off and wakes Matt and Jenna.  I held her for a little bit but explained it was WAY too early to be getting up and she needed to get more sleep.  I have a video monitor and watched her on and off for an hour before I heard her door open again and then she slammed it.  I check the monitor and she got back into bed but was up for at least another hour.  Thankfully, she slept till 830am but even that isn't good since we leave every weekday at 815am to bring Jenna and Chase to school.  We've tried changing her bedtime but she still wakes up at the same time every am no matter what time she goes to bed...yeah, New Year's Eve was fun! I know when Baby #3 comes I am going to be getting less sleep but I am hoping to "fix" this little Em problem so I don't have 2 little ones up with me in the middle of the night.  Just not sure where to begin.  I am reading about other people having the same issues on the parenting and baby websites but they aren't saying anything we haven't already tried.  Anyone have any unique ideas?!?! 

My least favorite times of the day

I know you are probably thinking..."she's home all day, what's so bad about that?"  Well, I have 2 times of the day that I do NOT look forward to....2am, give or take an hour & dinnertime.  

Em has been getting up every night around the 2 o'clock hour and I can't, for the life of me, figure out why.  Actually, I have two theories...nightmares or force of habit.  I can't remember the last time I've slept through the night!  She's slept through the night twice that I can recall in I don't know how long.  The first night I was up with the stomach bug ALL night and the second night, Jenna woke me up when she had the stomach bug. :(  

Now, I know you are wondering "why would she dislike dinnertime?"  Well, let me tell you...Emily!  ;)  Emily eats from the second she gets downstairs in the morning till the second I put dinner on the table (slight exaggeration).  I know, you're probably thinking, "well, duh...don't feed her so close to dinner!"  I wish it were that easy.  She goes from one snack to the next and is very persistent when it comes to wanting something.  When we sit down to eat dinner she takes a couple of bites, drinks her milk and just starts having a tantrum.  Every night when we sit down, I think to myself, "this is going to be a good night...we are going to make it through dinner without a fit" but I haven't been right yet!  My sister reminded me that we went through this with Jenna too but I guess I blocked that out.  I'm going to start regulating Em's snacking and see if I can at least make dinnertime more tolerable.  2am (give or take an hour) is another story....I have no idea how I am going to solve that.  Although, Matt did say "Who do I have to pay for you to get a good night's sleep?" so I may have to figure that one out and take him up on that.