The power of routine

I put our daughter to bed every single night.  It's really nice quiet time, and I honestly couldn't tell you which one of us enjoys it more.  Along with this bedtime goes a very specific nightly routine:

1. Rock in the rocking chair while reading a book
2. I read the book to her three or four times
3. She "reads" the book herself after that (which ends up meaning that she opens the book and lays it on her face, because she's typically exhausted by this point)
4. After a few minutes, I ask her if she's ready to go nigh-night, and she hands me the book and I put her in bed

Now, before I tell the rest of this story, let me give a brief history on Caroline's bedtime habits:

She never gets up out of bed at night after I put her down.  Never.  Never has once.

Two nights ago, I decided to skip steps 3 and 4 above because she was so tired.  She didn't seem to have any interest in reading the book herself after I was done, so once I read the book three times, I put it on her bookshelf and put her in bed.

Not two minutes later, she was back up out of bed and calling for me.  I was really quite confused why she was up out of bed, since she never does that, but we walked back into her room and began rocking in the rocking chair again.  We sat there for a little while, rocking, and she was fidgeting, and I was starting to wonder what it was going to take to get her back into bed.  She just didn't seem ready.

Then she asked for a book.  I handed it to her to let her read it herself; she held it open for barely a minute, then closed it and asked to go nigh-night.  That's when it dawned on me: She just finished steps 3 and 4 of our routine.  I almost laughed out loud, looking at the creature of habit I had sitting in my lap.  I put her back in bed and she didn't budge for the rest of the night.

Once #2 comes around, I'm going to have to make sure her and I keep our nightly quiet time, because she obviously takes it very seriously.