Lately, Gigi has been waking me up at 3:00 in the morning once or twice a week.

“Mommy, my bed is all messy,” she says sweetly with her polka dot green blanket in hand. “Can you come remake it?”

So, dizzy with sleep, I nudge her back to her room to solve the problem of the messy sheets. (Scott snores – I mean sleeps – through the entire thing.) For weeks now I’ve been able to neaten up the bed (sheets re-tucked, pillow re-positioned, comforter re-fluffed) and get her settled back into semi-sleep in a matter of minutes. This regular routine has satisfied…until last night…when Gigi announced that she needed me to change the sheets completely from the Dora to the Princess collection.

“I have a happy sleep with the princesses, Mommy,” Gigi explained.

I remember being awake enough to weigh the pros and cons of a fresh sheet change in the middle of the night, estimating how long it might take to quickly do the job versus arguing with my stubborn – I mean strong-willed – three-year-old. But some fast thinking on my part about how brutal bad habits and power struggles can be if you do not hold strong, kept me from capitulating. Patting myself on the back, I gave some lame excuse as to why a full sheet change couldn’t happen and quickly headed for the door.

Gigi wasn’t finished with me just yet, however. Needing to have the final say about this matter (as any smart three-year old would) she scrambled out of bed (thereby messing up all my good sheet work) opened her door and called out, “I WON’T have a happy sleep tonight!!!”