It's no wonder we don't bother

Insert 15 steps associated with failing to persuade a small child to go to sleep. And despairing of ever having a child who takes less than 2 hours to put to bed.

Insert 3 observations of ways I could improve the process, including having no life because of the need for a "routine" that means you can't go out on Tuesday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday nights like usual.

Step 16; answer the phone and leave small, not quite asleep small child in my bed with a laptop and a ranty blog post about failing to put small child to bed.

Setp 17: Come back and have small child desperately telling you that she'll give back your laptop "in one minute" she just wants to play a game.

Step 18; Argue with small child and finally lose it and take small child back to her bedroom with threat of darkness if she gets up again.

Step 19; realise that ranty blog post was lost when small child loaded internet game in window that wasn't actually logged in so failed to save

Step 20; Write something only half as entertaining as the original, although with hint of pathos for the obvious angst of it all.