I assumed bedtimes would be easier by the time the kid was 5

The kid has never liked bedtime. I gather that's normal. But it gets weird sometimes.

One of the smaller problems with the pandemic is that the she can sleep as late as hse wants, there therefore stays up later and later. At the same time (since early April, let's say?) but unrelated as far as we know, she has refused to go to sleep in her own bed. We'd read books to her in her room, we'd say good night around 8:30 or so, maybe she'd play with dolls or look through a book for a few minutes, and when she had truly tired herself out she would go down the hall to our room and go to sleep on our bed. When we came upstairs around 11 we'd carry her to her bed and try to air her sweat out of our bed before we got in it. (Those were the good nights. On bad nights, when we came upstairs we'd find her in our bed wide awake and grinning to us.) Around early June we figured out that the problem might be her outgrowing her bed. It was just a crib with multiple modes. We bought her a new one. It was a big project. We got it assembled about three days before we went to California. She slept in it happily those three nights.

We've been back from California for almost two weeks. I expected bedtime problems for the first few days due to jet lag. I didn't expect her to start sleeping in our bed again, but that's what she did last night and maybe the night before.

And then, this morning, I got up at 7 to log in at work. I found the light on in the living room before I got downstairs. She was asleep on the couch. I stealthily took my computer from the living room to the dining room and worked for a good hour and a half before she woke up.

Given that she woke up early, I'm glad she handled it the way she did. And of course this is the least of the problems these days. But it's weird.