Changing Things Up

For about three months now AK has had a boo-boo on her nose. It started out as a scratch and stayed as a scratch. As soon as it would start to heal, the little *&%^@! peanut would pick at it again, reopening the wound.

The whole process physically pained me. I really wanted to just shake the heck out of her or tie her down to make her stop. Of course, it doesn't help to know that when she is a teenager with a scar on her nose she will blame us.

Between the liquid bandage and bandages on her nose, we finally got her to stop prying off the scab - most of the time. I recently discovered that the only time she would still futz with it was between the time I put her to bed and the time she actually fell asleep. For some reason, picking her boo-boo brought her comfort.

The Hoos shared my frustration and last week decided that we needed to do SOMETHING.

He proposed moving her to a bed. Logical, right?

If you recall we moved LP into a bed before she was 2 to make room for AK. Since we don't have the same time constraints, I had already decided that we should keep AK in the crib as long as possible. Mostly because I didn't really want two little girls creeping me out by giving me the evil eye at my bedside in the middle of the night.

And then, on Friday night, I found myself (with LP's "help") dragging the mattress off of the trundle bed in LP's room onto the floor in AK's room. Amazingly, she followed her same bedtime routine as usual and let me leave the room a little before 9.

"Hmm...not too bad," I thought to myself smugly....

Until I was woken up with cries of "Mommy! Mommy!" on Saturday morning at 5:50. On the bright side, she didn't leave her bed until the Hoos went into settle her down.

It was still the weekend so Saturday I gave it another shot. She again went down around 9 and this time I was able to leave while she was still awake, telling her the bedtime white lie, "I'm just going to put on my pajamas." Again, she didn't leave her room or call out after I left.

And Sunday morning was the best morning ever. And way better than LP's second or third morning in a bed.

1. The entire family slept through the night.
2. The first child out of bed was LP at 8:20.
3. LP let her room and pitter-pattered into her sister's room.
4. The next thing we heard was LP asking, "Mommy? Daddy? Can [AK] and I go downstairs by ourselves?" {Could you hear the 'Hell, yes!' at your house?}

This morning was pretty good too. We are going to give it some time and keep the crib in AK's room for a while (and be prepared to put the baby gate up at her bedroom door if need be), but I am mentally rearranging AK's bedroom furniture.

Oh, and speaking of changing, if you don't count the weekends, AK is rocking toilet training. Every day last week she wore the same clothes all day! I think she just likes to pee in her undies when I am around.

Something New and Different

Last night the Hoos and I tried something new and different. GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER, my grandmother reads this blog! We had both girls ready for bed by 7:45pm - and AK was sleeping by 8!

A little after 7, LP took up residence on the potty. Because, you know, why would you want to hang out in the living room where there are toys when you can hang out in the water closet. AK and I sat precariously perched on the edge of the tub as the hired entertainers for this bathroom visit.

As soon as she saw the tub, the little peanut, a true water baby, started throwing herself toward it. I figured I might as well use my time in the bathroom efficiently and give AK a bath while we waited. Of course as soon as I start filling up the tub, LP announces that she is done and also wants to take a bath.

By 7:30 everyone is squeaky clean. Shortly thereafter LP alerts us that she is ready for bed, and, even though the Hoos and I have yet to eat dinner, we decide to go with the flow . Considering that AK only took one nap - from 11-12:15 and LP took a 30 minute nap, it sounded like it might actually work. Sure enough AK is down for the count around 10 of. It takes LP a bit longer, but by 8:30 she is snuggled in and snoring. Considering up until a few weeks ago LP's bath didn't even start until 8:30, this is something of a minor miracle.

Everyone was still sleeping when I left the house at 7 this morning (I did feed AK when she woke up at 5:30). Hopefully this is the start of something new, different and exciting - actual downtime for the Hoos and me!

The Sleeping Saga Continues

We are still working on getting LP to sleep in her big girl bed. We moved the baby gate from the top of the stairs to the door of her bedroom, thinking that if she was more contained perhaps she would be more likely to stay in the bed.

To those of you reading this it will be obvious that this is not really logical. She stays in her room, but not necessarily in the bed. Two of the last four night we have discovered her sleeping on the floor near the door - once with a blanket balled up as a pillow and another time with her little head resting on the door jam. The Hoos transports her to the "bed" (as a reminder, this is a twin mattress on the floor next to her crib) and all is well.

Until 12:30 or 4:30 or both. When LP stands up, walks to the gate and starts chanting "Daaaaaadddddyyyyyyyyy." We have no idea why she does this. She never did this when she was in her crib and really the scenario hasn't changed much.And no amount of "LP, go back to bed!" cajoling actually gets her to return to her bed. Sigh....

What this means is that the Hoos has to get up, go to her room and rest with her. Typically as soon as she sees him she runs back into the bed, but she doesn't really return to sleep. And so he waits. After a while he figures she is relaxed enough and he quietly gets up and returns to our bed.

Monday, in order to keep her calm and because it was the second time he had to respond to her calls, he left the gate open when he crept out at 4:30, even though she was awake. That meant that at 6:15 I had a little visitor standing next to me. A little visitor who did not want to go back to sleep even though she was up half the night. I carried her into her room, shut the gate and the door and made use of the "bed". She played around me, diapering Baby, changing her clothes, putting on "undies" (pull-ups) and generally creating a mess while I tried to delude myself into thinking this counted as extra sleep.

Last night she only woke up once at 4:30 and when I left the house at 7 she was sleeping nicely on the bed. The Hoos reported that at 7:45 when he went to wake her up he found her quietly and deliberately emptying her dresser onto the floor - I guess trying to pick out her outfit for the day.

The only twin bedframe we have for her right now is all metal and moving it into her room would require removing the crib and some significant rearrangement and we just can't figure out if the time is right yet.

Any ideas on how to keep her in the bed? Do you think that having a bed frame with the rail attached will really help (it is not like she still won't be able to climb down, although it might make it more difficult to get back on once she is off)?