Every night, bedtime for the children is an adventure. With my work schedule, I rarely get home before seven so that throws a lot of things off. Usually after dinner, baths, a walk or some other family activity, it’s 9:30 or 10 before the kids are ready for bed.

Finn likes his sleeping time. If we go much farther past 9:30, he’s crying on the floor. He’ll pause, look up and then wail again, saying, “Why am I up? Put me in bed. Where’s my bottle?” Once he hits the crib, he’s out. Typically, we don’t hear a peep from him until 8 the next morning.

Amelia, however, is on the other side of the spectrum. She will prolong bedtime as long as possible. She’ll find another book, another show to watch or just put on the cute flair and keep us entertained until we have to say enough is enough. Once she’s settled down, that’s it for her. About three times a week though, she wanders into our room and climbs into bed with us.

Monday night, however, was a rarity. After the kids are asleep, which is around 10:30 to 11, my wife and I have only a few hours to ourselves, mostly spent talking or vegging out with the TV. Last night was the TV. Sometime around one in the morning, we were winding down, ready for bed after the show we were watching was over when we caught a little shadow out of the corner of our eyes. My wife said Amelia’s name as I realized it was my daughter tottering into our room all sleepy-eyed. She came out to the living room, discovered we were still up and decided she’d join us.

Despite our various attempts to put her back to sleep, Amelia stayed awake, her eyes wide and wondering, her voice sweet and happy. We tried to get her to lay down on the couch. We switched from our show to the Olympics thinking the mundane sporting event would lull her into sleep. No such luck. Men’s diving was on and, when the first guy leapt into the air from the board and plummeted to the water spinning and twirling, Amelia exclaimed, “That was a cool trick.”

The next half hour was spent watching cool trick after cool trick, each earning the same enthusiastic reaction regardless of the scores from the judges. Then, she decided to do tricks of her own. She stood up and said “This is my first cool trick.” Her arms raised over her head in perfect diving form, she stood on her tip toes, jumped and spun around, falling onto the baby blue blanket on the floor, pretending it was the crystal chlorinated waters of the Beijing pool.

It was exhausting but I didn’t want it to end. As the hours wore on, I knew she should be in bed sleeping, but she was being unbelievably cute and sweet. She’d cuddle then jump up and perform another trick. She danced softly and sang songs. She requested a story, then spent the time picking berries from the pages (it was about a mouse that liked to pick blackberries).

Eventually, she gave in and collapsed in our bed with her mother petting her to sleep until April dozed off as well. I didn’t want to bother them, but part of me wanted to wake Amelia up and spend more time watching this adorable spectacle. Of course, we needed our sleep too.

We love our little ones, but at the end of the day, no matter how cute, we would beg them to go to sleep. We need our rest too so tomorrow’s day can be just as fun even if they’re amusing in the depth of night.