The makings of the Big Girl Bed

Helping use the Allen Wrench

So proud!!

We had, what, four nights under our belt of good big girl bed sleeping?  The first night I woke up every hour to look at the monitor, fearful she'd slip through the gap between bed and bumper.  Then the second night I calmed down a little.  And the third night I slept!  Glorious sleep!

And then last night.  Last night I woke up at 4:30am to hear Paul sprinting from our room mumbling something.  I reach over to grab the monitor to see Paul lifting a sleeping Kate off the floor.  That's right.  She fell off the bed AND stayed asleep.  It wasn't until Paul went in and got her that she woke up and then freaked out because he wouldn't put her back in bed.  Meanwhile I had to get up at 6am anyway, and you can imagine that the house was a little chaotic after that.  Around 5:30 Paul decided to sleep with her in her twin bed and then slept until about 8 or so. 

Hoping to sleep past 4:30 tomorrow... without thuds...

Color Mixing!

We've transitioned to the big girl bed. Ever since my aunt left town we've had sleeping nightmares. A two hour fight everynight to get her to sleep, and waking throughout the night, crying, and needing help sleeping. We hypothesized it was one of three things: 1) her old digestive problem. We'd noticed she was having some tummy problems and requesting only milk as she did when she wasn't gaining weight so we started her on probiotic again. 2) the she didn't like the crib anymore. We bought a bed. 3) that she isn't sleeping enough at school and that's messing up the nighttime.

Well, poops are back to normal thanks to the probiotic, and around the time of the first normality she also slept through the night. So, maybe. She took to her new bed beautifully. She climbs in and out throughout the day, but waits patiently for me to get her out in the morning. And, even though she screams for twenty minutes at night because she doesn't want to go to bed, she doesn't get out, and when she's out, she's out. Saturday she napped for over 3 hours. So if we needed evidence that she doesn't sleep enough during the week we got it.

I don't know what's going on. From immediately after dinner on she starts fighting with us about everything in an attempt to delay bedtime. But you can tell she is just exhausted. My next move has been to buy a book written for professionals about sleep issues that was recommended by a friend and researcher. After that I plan on picking her up from school early one or two days to see if that makes any difference. Who knows. Bah.

Sleep. The ongoing struggle.

Playing with Cece

My aunt was in town last weekend and Kate quickly attached to her.  Yesterday was a little traumatic for all of us with her going home.  Luckily we'll see her in a month or so.  I got more "mom" time than I think I have all year.  It was truly awesome.  Yoga, massage, rest, time to read emails without having to say, "hold on, one sec, i hear ya"...

Kate's early bday present

This stroller is being pushed around everywhere.  We even had to take it in the car and put it in the trunk next to her stroller.  (Can you believe it collapses??)  So "Dolly" is getting a lot of time outside the house.

Ick

In the car today, driving Kate to day care, listening to NPR and the incessant talk about those tea partiers.  Suddenly I hear from the back seat, "tea party!  tea party!"  I cried a little on the way to day care today, and it wasn't from having to leave my girl there...

The day I wished had never come

Today was awful.  My daughter said the ugliest words I could imagine.

I almost cried.

She said (and this is verbatim), "No dancing, mama, no."

I quickly stopped my dancing to avoid further admonishments.

Secret Knock

If you're reading this, we decided we like you.  So, thumbs up to you.  Welcome to the very exclusive, very cool, private blog.  I no longer have to edit faces out of pictures, or hide our name.  Ah, the simple things in life...

More to come...

Update from school; And going Private!

My decision has to keep the blog, but make it private.  Your options:
1) Get a gmail account and log-in.  I will send you an invitation to the blog in a few days that will guide you through this process.
2) Send me a note asking to receive blog updates via email.

And now an update... got a note from the director of Kate's school tonight.  This woman is seriously the biggest gift to any parent.  I want to buy her a new car.  Or maybe a box of tea.  You get the idea.

Here is what she had to say:

You know, yesterday when were all in the Fellowship Hall, I had a chance to observe Kate and her teachers a little bit, and I thought that you might be curious as to how things pan out after you say goodbye.

 

It was interesting because you dropped Kate off, and Mara and Meghan both went over to say hi.  Meghan chatted a bit with Kate and offered her different areas to go play in. At one point she tried to guide Kate to an area, but Kate stood her ground.  She was not into moving. She just stood quietly. Meghan said something along the lines of, "Okay, just let me know if something looks like fun" and walked over to another area.  Kate stood and watched for about 5 minutes. She didn't look upset.  She was just observing.  She even ended up turning a 360 degree turn to check everything out.  Then, Mara sat down and announced that she was going to have a tea party.  And Kate just headed straight over with about 5 other friends.  She sat down, picked up a pot and cup and poured some tea.  After that, I did not observe Kate sitting quietly and taking things in again.  She was always moving around.  It really was just those first few minutes.

 

Kate definitely is still taking everything in.  When I see her through out the day, she is very engaged and happy (and she was crazy excited about music today and kept trying to leave snack early so she could go ahead and go!), so it was interesting to me to see her enter for the day, as it has been a while since I have seen that.  She was definitely a little tentative, but once she had observed the whole scene, she was ready to go.

 

First French

Braid.

Is Facebook the Answer?

So, making this blog private means that anyone who wants to read it has to a) get a google account, and b) sign in to see the blog. 

I'm not thrilled with that.  But, likewise, not so thrilled with the public domain.

I am considering using facebook as my means of info.  It's imperfect, and I don't love the idea, but it would be an update mechanism and I could easily control who reads what.  Thoughts?  Concerns?  Ideas?  Most of you all are on facebook, and those who aren't I will happily "friend" if you find me...

All dressed up and nowhere to go

Happy Labor Day!

Just another day of laboring in our house... but hopefully some of you are sleeping in and relaxing.

Conflicted

I know I gave this whole lecture on going private, and I am thinking about it seriously (or quitting) but I've noticed I'm too lazy to take the time to go to a separate feed to read people's private blogs since they don't show up in my reader list. And you know -- I do this for the VIEWERSHIP, so I wouldn't want my reader numbers to drop.

It's Saturday night, and I'm tired, so that's all you're getting for now. Okay, fine. Two more minutes. (I say this particular phrase so much my almost-2 year old says it to me all the time now...)

School continues to go well. She is now a) eating, b) talking to the teachers instead of running away from them when they talk to her or make eye contact, and c) playing with other kids. She is still not d) napping. Which shows up on Saturday when she naps for the combined time she's missed from the week... But other than that she's getting in the swing. I think it helps that most kids seem to go 7-3pm, so my 11-5:15 daughter has only one or two kids around in the afternoon so she gets lots of grown-up attention.

We have noticed, though, that in the two weeks she's been there she's more social overall. She warms up to people faster, and talks to them faster than ever before. So this whole exposure therapy thing for her social anxiety is definitely working. The only minor problem I am having is that if I warn her that it's time to go to school she stalls and complains about it. Once we're in the car we're usually okay, but I've had to plan trips and outings before school lately so I can get us out the door on time...