A line between

This is Oliver's first (optional)
homework assignment he got from daycare.  Wes's oral directions were "draw a line between" the adult and larvae/nymph. My child is VERY literal.

Sleepytime tea

A few days or weeks ago, I posted on Facebook: "Pondering the dissolution of bedtime. You can "make" them go to bed, but you can't make them go to sleep. Maybe I just need to go all Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle on them."  I loved Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books growing up.  I think I still have one.  She was the wise older lady who gave great advice to parents whose children were misbehaving.  Like the kid who wouldn't take a bath.  She told the parents not to make the child bathe.  To cover him with a fine dirt and sprinkle seeds.  And after a few days, plants started growing on him.  And then he would take a bath without complaint.  Or the kid who wouldn't pick up her toys.  So her parents didn't make her.  And then she got trapped in her room and couldn't get out when Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle was taking the children on a parade around the neighborhood.  So she cleaned them up and learned her lesson.  Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle was wise like that.

I think the sleep example I'm thinking of may actually be The Cosby Show, though.  When Rudy wants a later bedtime, so her parents say she can stay up as late as she wants.  And eventually she's so exhausted that it's affecting her at school and she can't enjoy the rest of her life.  But regardless, we went through a period of weeks when it seemed none of our children would go to sleep.  And somehow, we got to the other side.  Some of these things we did, I think.  But others were probably a result of those phases that kids go through.  Who knows.

Zola has always gone to sleep well.  I (with help from my mom, while I was on a trip) had to get her to sleep through the night, but she's never cried at bedtime.  She got her pacifier, laid down, grabbed her blanket, and went to sleep -- on her belly with her but in the air.  That was it.  She hardly moved all night.  But then a month ago I decided she needed to get rid of the pacifier.  We went cold turkey.  I did the first two nights when Wes was working and wouldn't have to hear her cry.  I rocked her, sang to her, and put her down.  I went down every 10-15 minutes to calm her down.  After 60-90 minutes, she would give in and go to sleep.  And for at least four weeks I tried this.  Every 4-5 days, I would get a night when she only cried for 20 minutes.  Or a few when she would cry for 3 and then go to sleep.  Some nights I would stay down there and just talk to her when she cried.  Some nights I would pat her back, which kept her from crying, and left my hand on her until she fell completely asleep and I could tiptoe out.  I don't know exactly how that's better than a pacifier, but I was giving it a go.  Then my family came into town for Oliver's birthday.  One night she fell asleep faster than ever before.  The next night she was screaming at the top of her lungs for 20 minutes before I got her back up.  My mom held her, and she finally fell dead asleep and went down.  Some days after that, decided I just couldn't do it.  Letting her cry for at least an hour every night just seemed dumb.  For a whole month, she never had a pacifier.  I never caved and gave it to her.  I never let her have it at nap.  In fact, she'll go down in the very same crib at naptime and not cry.  But bedtime was different, and no amount of "sleep training" was working.  Hearing her cry every night made me physically tense.  I was angry at her for not going to sleep.  I was tense with the other kids.  I was mad at myself for not being able to fix the problem.  So I've gone back to the pacifier -- for now.  I'll try again when she's 18 months, and I might try some kind of intermediary like I did with Emmeline -- a gumdrop pacifier in her case, to give her something to soothe but that wouldn't stay in as easily.  For now, I think it's better for all of us.

Emmeline, on the other hand, has never easily fallen asleep.  When she was a baby, she nursed and rocked to sleep and used a pacifier.  Then I stopped nursing.  Then we got rid of the pacifier.  For a few days and weeks, she would cry for about five minutes and then fall asleep.  But she never just went to bed.  And she still doesn't.  She talks and sings and squirms around in her bed.  When we moved to the new house, we had to put a lock on her door to keep her in her room because she wouldn't stay in there.  She'd come out with 15 requests and questions after bedtime, and before we knew it, it was an hour later than when we laid her bed.  Sometimes she'd go into Oliver's room.  Sometimes he'd tell us, but usually they'd just play until I heard them down there.  I tried sitting next to her room for as long as it took for her to go to sleep, just to keep her in bed.  But once I stopped, she began again, and so we did the lock.  Now she doesn't try to come out, and we don't have to put the lock on.  So long as I put her on the toilet right before bed, she usually doesn't have an excuse.  She still sings and talks, but we even seem to have minimized that.  We get the kids into bedtime soon after dinner now, and then we either play a game, read books, or watch 20 minutes of a show or movie.  But every night, I read Emmeline the same two books up in her bed -- Llama Llama Nighty Night and If I Could Keep You Little.  She knows every word but still wants to read them over and over and over again.  There's no decisions about what to read.  We read those.  If we read other books, it's earlier and on the couch in the living room.  Every night, though, is these two books in her bed.  Then I plug in a nightlight that projects the solar system onto her ceiling, turn out the overhead light, and tell her she can look at the books until she falls asleep.  And she rarely comes out.  I've never seen anything like it with her before this.

And then there's Oliver.  Who doesn't nap and hasn't in years.  Who went through a few weeks of sleeping in really late.  He gets ready for bed with his sister and reads or watches with her, but most nights he gets another 20 minutes.  We let him work on his Lego sets that have pieces too small for his sisters.  Or he works on his road track in his room until he's sleepy.  Or, like Emme, he looks at books in bed.  Most nights we even say goodnight and tell him to turn off his light when he's tired.  We go back 20-30 minutes later, and his light is out and he's asleep.  He was never one to get up much, and he doesn't now unless he needs to use the bathroom.

We've also taught Emme to come into our room -- not Oliver's -- when she wakes up, which means he's sleeping to a more reasonable hour than her.  Actually, 6:30 is pretty normal for a 2-year-old, just sometimes earlier than I'd like to get up!

I know as time passes their sleep cycles will change.  It's fall, the weather is beautiful, and the kids are getting plenty of outdoor time to wear themselves out.  Winter may be more challenging if they're too still.  But for now, it does seem to have improved.  And there does seem to be a commonality with the big kids that letting them "do something" quietly after tuck-in time lets them decide when they're ready to lie down and fall asleep.  That Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.  She's a smart lady.  

A rough in the diamond

Today was "opening day" for WNSL fall baseball, which Oliver is playing this year.  Anyone can tell on the field that Oliver has neither watched older siblings play baseball nor spent really any time watching the game on television.  That's of course fine by us, but it's glaringly obvious when he's next to kids that have done one or the other or both (and may also just be better at the game!).  In his first game, Oliver played somewhere near third base.  He was the last one to hustle into the dugout at the end of an inning.  He never even tried to field a ball that came near him.  He got a hit one out of his two at-bats.  He didn't know to join the huddle at the end to do the "break" that athletes often do.  The girls and I spent most of the game walking around in the stroller and letting Emmeline pick flowers in a field near the game, so I didn't see it all.  Wes did, though, and has been at the practices and has voiced concern over Oliver being so very unlike his peers -- unsure about what to do, where to go, slow to follow directions.  He has admitted, too, that it's probably hard to see Oliver having such a rough time learning something that he was so very good at, even from an early age.

 And yet I love watching Ollie out there.  I don't expect him to be -- now or in the future -- great at baseball.  But I love watching him learn.  And he's at an age when none of the kids on his team feel uncomfortable about their own lack of skills.  Each one of them tries to hit the ball every time they get a chance and don't get upset when they don't make contact.  Everyone does their best out on the field, even if that means a ball rolls by someone who is watching the stream of jet fuel behind an airplane in the sky.  They are likely aware that some of the kids are better than them -- at throwing or catching or hitting -- but it doesn't stop them from trying.  And that -- that I love to see.

Steps in the right direction

Steps.  Just one at a time here and there, so not a series of them or any real ambulation. But we definitely saw steps for the first time today. Wow!

Hairy situation

Emme "lost" her barrette at lunchtime and said it fell on the ground. Could not find it anywhere. Just discovered it at the bottom of her cup of juice, sitting in the refrigerator.

Rain, rain, go away

Overhead at the breakfast table: "It shouldn't be raining while we're having banana bread."

Cry baby

She didn't cry the day I met her. She didn't cry the whole way home. But nearly five months after meeting my youngest daughter, I left her crying in the infant room at daycare. For an adoptive momma, it's both a blessing and a curse -- to know that your child now knows you as her first source of comfort and then to take it away and know that it's so confusing for her. Hoping she calms down soon and comes to love the wonderful women who were also Emmeline's first daycare teachers!

BFFs forever

Ollie, Emme, and I read a book at bedtime that mentioned a best friend. I asked Oliver who his best friend is, and he said Emme. Would that it were always so!

Too much Mary Poppins

This morning, I was warning Zola to stay away from our fireplace, and Oliver wanted to know why she couldn't go in there. "It's dirty and dangerous," I told him. "Will she fly up the chimney if she goes in there?" he asked

(Re)adopted

Three months ago and half a world away, I met Zola for the first time. Today we completed her readoption and name change. She now has her momma's (and paternal grandmother's) name as a middle name and her Congolese adoption has been recognized by the state.

Up

When Emme doesn't want to go to bed and I'm home, she stands at her door and yells, "I want momma!" When I'm not home, she stands at her door and yells, "Basketball" (ie. lay on the couch with dad while he watches basketball, a habit that began in her infancy).

The princesses

While making a crown, bracelets, and a necklace this afternoon in order to play princesses, I offered him and his sister stickers to adorn their creations. His question: "But does Cinderella have stickers on her crown?"

Short story

Evidently my two-year-old doesn't know what shorts are. Tonight, her grandmother tried to get her into a short-john sleep set, but Emme wouldn't leave on the bottoms. She kept pulling the bottoms of the hem down and saying, "Too short."

Big girl(s)

This afternoon, Emme had an accident at the park. Unfortunately, I had neither a Pull-up nor spare pants for her. I did, however, have Zola's diaper bag. And as it turns out, my 26-month-old girl can wear the same size diaper and pants (a bit short, since they're 6-12 mos., but still) as her 7-month-old sister -- and maybe with more spare room!

A new way of looking at things

I love how Oliver looks at the world. He asks me to "pause" books when he has to go to the bathroom mid-read. And this morning, with the sunshine beaming so brightly I needed my sunglasses, he told me it's "sparkly" in the morning.

Mother of three

I told iCal I was having dinner with someone on Friday night, and it defaulted to 8pm. Clearly iCal doesn't know that I have three children. 5pm it is.