the sleep fighter

Help me... I'm sleepy but I won't let myself fall asleep!

Any suggestions on how to get a girl to go to sleep???

Addie is sleeping through the night (more or less) now but she has an uncanny ability to keep herself awake for at least an hour (but sometimes two hours or more) in her crib before she finally gives it up and goes to sleep. We've tried earlier bedtimes, later bedtimes, rocking until she's almost asleep then putting her in her crib, no rocking at all, toys in the crib, no toys in the crib, me putting her down, Robert putting her down, staying in the room, leaving the room... you get the picture. We're out of ideas.

She has a regular, consistent bedtime routine that ends with lots of books, lights down low, soft music playing, plenty of time to get drowsy.  But as soon as she hits the crib, she's wired.  Even if we rock her to the point that her eyes are closing and she is almost asleep, she still gets wired as soon as we put her in the crib.  She's not upset... she's playing.  And talking.  And jumping.  And rolling around.  And trying to do somersaults.  Anything she can do to keep herself from falling asleep.  One day this week she played for 2 hours straight before I finally went in there and patted her bottom until she was asleep.  It only took about 30 seconds of patting at that point because she was 2 hours past her nap time and obviously exhausted.  But none-the-less, she was showing no signs of winding down before I went in there.  I swear she would have played until she physically could not keep her eyes open.

Not to point fingers or anything, but this is obviously my sister's fault.  According to my mom, Natalie was a champion sleep fighter at this age.  She would literally run in circles to keep herself awake.  Meanwhile I would actually ask my parents to please put me to bed if I felt tired (yes, I was an angel).  Not sure how those sleep fighting genes got crossed into my offspring.  I'd love to see a study done on it.  But... in the meantime, we are still faced with a sleep fighter every time nap or bedtime rolls around.

It seems like all of Addie's little friends that were "troubled" sleepers like she was started to go to sleep peacefully and relatively easily once they started sleeping through the night.  Somehow Addie missed the memo that those two things are supposed to go hand-in-hand.  

So... I'm now opening the floor for suggestions.  Let the healing (and sleeping) begin.