The day started out really well. Lily slept late. (Of course she slept late! She barely slept yesterday!) We struggle with helping Caleb and Daisy understand that when they stomp and yell in the hallway, it wakes Lily up. So today, I talked to Caleb about Carl Sandburg's poem, "Fog". (You know... "The fog comes on little cat feet...")
In preparation for our discussion, I asked Caleb if he knew what fog was. He replied, "Yes! It's little drops of water in the air!"
Hmm. Not quite the response I expected!
Then we talked about what fog looked like, and sounded like.
Then I read him the poem; this illustration came up in my web search, and he liked it.
Then we talked about how cats walk quietly because they take little cat steps, and Caleb practiced some of his own. Maybe he gets it? And can you tell I used to be an English teacher?
Later, Caleb surprised me with this drawing:
He explained that it was two cyclops, and showed me all of the parts. I was so delighted at his first humanoid drawings that I immediately pulled the memory card from my camera to upload the picture and send it to Chris. (Caleb is a little bit behind - he should have been drawing human figures for a while, but until now has only done it with prompting from us.)
When I had the pictures uploaded, I looked up and saw that Caleb had added a person, too! Here's his final masterpiece:
What? You can't tell what it is?
Don't worry; he explained it all to me.
I know it's ridiculous, but I'm totally proud.
Later, I pulled out some gel window clings that I bought on clearance in January. Caleb and Daisy had so much fun with them!
Aren't they cute? This is why my windows are always filthy.
And then, in a desperate effort to fix our bedtime issues, I did something crazy:
I put Lily down for her nap in her crib.
Napping is not our problem. Lily generally naps in my bed; I nurse her to sleep and she stays asleep for at least an hour and a half. But in my frazzled, frustrated, foggy brain, it somehow made sense that totally shaking up our bedtime routine might help. Chris and I discussed him handling the whole thing - feeding Lily a bottle (which she doesn't do) and putting her down in her crib (where she doesn't sleep) in an effort to fix things. I thought maybe, maybe that idea might be more likely to work if I got Lily comfortable sleeping in her crib for naps. If she naps well in our bed, then surely she'd also nap well in her crib. It's what babies do, right? And my goal is to have her napping in her crib full time and starting out the night in her crib by the end of the year, so I decided to start today.
DO NOT LET THIS PICTURE FOOL YOU.
It did not go well. She went down easily for her morning nap: I nursed her in the rocking chair until she fell asleep, then placed her in the crib. She woke up when I laid her down, but I turned on her turtle and she fell back asleep. Sadly, she woke up about thirty minutes later, so I crept in, turned the turtle back on, and left. She quieted down for 15 minutes, but then was awake.
Darn.
But she had slept so late this morning that I was OK with it. Her second nap didn't go so well. Again, I nursed her and laid her down. This time she stayed asleep and I snuck out. Again, she woke up after thirty minutes. But this time, all hell broke loose. I spent the next hour and a half trying to get her back to sleep, and the child screamed more than I've ever heard her scream. She screamed so hard I thought she would vomit. It was not good. It was very, very bad.
Finally, I gave up. We played, ran to Costco, got home, and she was asleep in the car. But then she woke up and I had to bring her in and she was hungry so I nursed her and she fell asleep and I laid her down but she woke up and I just couldn't. take. it. any. more.
Luckily, Chris was home, so he took her and got her to sleep. She finally slept - her evening naps are usually only thirty minutes or so, but this time she slept for an hour and a half, in her crib, by herself.
We haven't attempted bedtime yet, but I'm praying it goes better than the rest of the day did!
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