Still not working

Apologies for the lack of posts lately, but sleep is still going terribly, terribly wrong since transitioning to the big bed and we are at a loss. We've tried EVERYTHING. Since transitioning Edie to her twin bed, she has started waking many, many times in the night and she isn't trying to be cute or funny. She seems legitimately freaked out and 95% of the time she doesn't even get out of the bed. She goes to bed happily at bedtime, but she wakes up crying most of the times (starting only 2-3 hours after falling asleep), and while frequently we only have to rub her back and sooth her back to sleep, many other times it takes 5-10 minutes of holding her and coaxing her back to the bed while she sobs and begs for random things like going downstairs, saying she's "all done here". We never took the crib down and we have tried asking if she'd rather sleep in her crib, but she insists she doesn't. That said, every now and again she DOES want to sleep in the crib. But on those nights, she will always wake a few hours later and ask to be tucked into her big girl bed. I feel like pulling my hair out!

The only thing I can guess at is that we are confusing her by keeping both the crib AND the new bed in her room? But then, should we take the twin bed down and try again in a few months or remove the crib and hope for the best? Or maybe she's coincidentally started having bad dreams at the same time as the transfer? She's also waking from her naps at daycare on occasion upset and crying, which is new and Jen feels pretty sure that it's a bad dream when it happens at daycare. We've tried having big long talks about the bed and we've tried not making a big deal about it, neither work. We have a nightlight and talked about how it would keep her safe at night. She bought it, but it hasn't helped. We haven't had a single good night in that bed since we set it up and I feel about at my wits end because I can't figure out a consistent way to handle it. If I thought she was just being dramatic, we could do some serious sleep training, but it doesn't seem like fakery to me. Except when it clearly is. But that's only 5% of the time it seems.

Aaand, to top it all off, she's supposed to sleep at Jeff's parent's house this weekend, and then my parents' house for a night and THEN she comes home on Monday night to spend 3 nights with just Jeff because I am going on a business trip. SCREWED. Hanyvays. Suggestions are welcome.

Big Girl Bed

So, as predicted, the whole big girl bed thing is going .... mediocre at best. I suppose I won the potty training battle and should just be grateful. She hasn't had an accident in 3 weeks and now goes all night in a dry diaper. I bought a rubber sheet recently and am thinking I can probably safely let her go all night without a diaper soon.

But sleeping has fallen apart completely. Edie doesn't get out of bed as much as she has begun waking multiple times in the night and calling for me. We've tried all the obvious things, but nothing seems to work. My favorite are the times that Jeff tries to go to her and Edie totally loses her shit, yelling, "NO!!! I don't want YOU!! I want MOOOOOM." I wish I could say that it's nice to feel needed, but in those particular moments I feel trapped and irritable. I'm going on a 4 day business trip soon. I'm hoping that Edie will be forced to learn that Dad is just as good midnight comforting as Mom while I'm gone.

I keep thinking we might be on an upswing, and then I have a night like last night where I'm so tired and all I want to do is sleep. So instead of sticking to my principles, I somehow end up doing what I have previously judged other mothers for - letting my kid sleep in my bed. Sigh. Jeff slept in the big girl bed, complete with pink ruffled sheets. Giggle.

Parenting is hard work. The hardest I've ever done. I was driving home from a meeting today in a daze - blinking my dry, tired eyes and wondering if I could squeeze a teensy nap in before picking Edie up from daycare (answer - no) and had the dark thought that I should visit the old drop-in Mom's group I used to go to and kill their dreams that sleep will ever return to their lives.

When Edie was a newborn I would go every week to this group and essentially we would all sit around and talk about how tired we were. I remember one Mom asking when it would get better? And the leader hesitating, and then answering, "Well, typically after a year, the topic of these types of gatherings is no longer sleep." HA! If only we knew what she was REALLY saying: "After a year you will be so used to sleep deprivation that waking once or twice every night of your life will no longer be worthy of conversation." Because the truth is that it's not that common for us to go all night without Edie waking and needing something. But after a while, waking once in the night doesn't even warrant mention. It's only the nights like we've been having recently where Edie wakes 4-6 times per night that make me feel so tired I could lie down on my filthy kitchen floor and sleep for days.

But I suppose parenting is nothing if not a lesson in patience and perseverance. It can't be this way forever. Unless I decide to have another kid! Then perhaps it could! Oh. god.

PS: We haven't offloaded pictures from our camera since THANKSGIVING. Apologies and I promise photos soon.

20 Things we have done while snowed in this week

Include, but are not limited to:

1. Watching Pinnochio

2. Making brownies

3. Making birthday cards for Uncle Javi and Uncle Scott using stickers, stamps and markers

4. Building a snowman with neighbors/friends

5. Strapping Edie to my back using the old Ergo carrier and walking to various neighborhood locations to buy milk, rent videos, etc...

6. Suffering from sciatica from #5

7. Walking to nearby coffee shop for hot chocolate with whipped cream AND marshmallows

8. Watching Tinkerbell And The Great Fairy Rescue (x2)

9. Reading Curious George books until I can recite them from memory

10. Putting Edie down for her nap 5 bajillion times every day and listening to her little feet pitter patter on the floor as she climbs out of her twin bed to run to the door and call for me. (x eleventy billion)

11. Watching Tinkerbell And The Lost Treasure (x2)

12. Dying macaroni noodles different colors using rubbing alcohol and food dye (currently drying, to be strung into necklaces tomorrow)

13. Whining incessantly once 5:30pm hits = direct result of not napping earlier in the day

14. Taking long, hot, late morning showers (Edie hearts showers SO much)

15. Eating lots of soup with bread and cheese for lunch

16. Making pancakes for dinner

17. Borrowing our neighbor's sled and pulling Edie to the video store and back to rent MORE Disney films

18. Post-pancake sledding, in which Jeff sent Edie hurtling down the hill in our neighborhood park by herself. She loved it. I squealed with terror.

19. Watching half of Tangled. And I didn't hate it (please don't hate me for this)

20. Climbing (self) and wrestling (Edie) in and out of elaborate snow gear no less than 20 times

Snow

It seems lately that getting snowed in in Seattle is becoming an annual event. The grocery store was like Y2K yesterday. I don't think I did a very good job of shopping; I was too distracted by the mania.

The snow has arrived. There will be no making it to daycare today, or possibly tomorrow. We appear to have something like 2-3 inches so far and it's still snowing pretty hard, with the temperature holding strong at 29 degrees.

We will no doubt re-watch Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue and Whinnie the Pooh today, maybe talking Jeff into joining us for The Muppets Take Manhattan. We may need to fashion a low class sled with the lid of a large storage bin from the basement. I *almost* bought that sled at Bartells last week, but then thought, "Ah, this snow hype is all garbage, it's not going to snow enough to SLED!" One point for Mother Nature.

There's an animal loose in the house tonight

This day marks Edie's first night in a twin bed. We bought her big girl bed off Craig's List earlier this week, then purchased the mattress and "bunky board" (a board that you use instead of a box spring so the mattress is low to the ground for little ones) today. On a whim, we put it all together this afternoon and you wouldn't believe Edie's excitement. For a while all we had up was the headboard and side slats and Edie climbed inside the frame of the bed, laid on the floor with her pillow and "tucked" herself in with the area rug, using it like a blanket.

We haven't disassembled the crib and removed it yet, so if things go terribly, we may need to revert back. I'm not going to lie, I felt VERY nervous leaving her loose in a giant twin bed after turning the lights off tonight. She hasn't ever tried to climb out of her crib, but lugging her in and out of that super low crib is starting to wear on my back. And after a few nights in a pack n play over the holidays, I realized she's just getting too big to sleep in a pack n play while traveling. And if she can sleep in a big girl bed at my parents' house (which she did over New Years), then why not just make the change here too. I mentioned the idea to Jen at daycare and she said she thought Edie would do great in a real bed. Then I got all excited about a mini room makeover and that sealed the deal.

We put the tension rod baby gate up in her room tonight, which we haven't used in over a year probably, but otherwise she's totally on the prowl in her room. It feels a little like a hyena is loose in my house. But her room looks SO CUTE. It's not even arranged the way we want (because of the crib) but it looks so grown up. And reading her bed time story while sitting on her bed with her? LOVED.

She seems to have sung herself to sleep without getting out of bed, but part of me suspects she could be sleeping on the floor, or trying to climb back into her crib. Or pulling all the books off her shelf. Or rocking like a maniac in the rocking chair while standing up and wrapping a cord around her neck that I didn't spot. The possibilities are endless! Cross your fingers please.

This and That

Edie and I were eating dinner tonight before Jeff got home from work and she said to me (very earnestly), "Thanks for making a tasty dinner Mom."

Full disclosure - Jeff frequently says this to me when we all three sit down to dinner, so she didn't craft this sentence on her own, but she decided to say it to me without any prompting and it cracked me up.

And also? Edie has taken to calling Jeff by his given name instead of Dad. ALL OF THE TIME. It's either "Jeff" (made into two syllables like his Grandma used to do) or "Jeffrey". Apparently I'm going to have to start being one of those Moms that calls their husband "Dad". The other day when Jeff came home, she looked up from playing to say very casually, "Oh! Hi Jeff." and then went back to her toy.

Lastly, for those who are curious - potty training is going really well still. Right after I wrote here about her first day at daycare going smoothly, she had a rough start the very next day. On Wednesday, she had a major tantrum right as I was dropping her off (regarding her magic wand - cue eye roll). I had to leave her screaming bloody murder because I was late for a meeting and I knew that Jen would have an easier time snapping her out of it if I was gone. Apparently she peed her pants 3 times within an hour of me leaving that morning. Jen is confident it was an effort to prove she was in charge of something, because she was fine the rest of the day. She also hasn't had an accident since then. Which means it's been 5 days of smooth sailing and public bathroom scouting. I'm discovering bathrooms in places I never knew existed! And it's soooooo fun.

But seriously, things are great. Edie no longer requires any reminding at all to use the bathroom, she runs to the bathroom, pulls her own pants down, does her business and wipes what we're calling her "front" (because I'm apparently 12 and not comfortable hearing the medical term for her "front" 15 times per day) all by herself. I haven't had to clean a poopy diaper in WEEKS, she's napping in her underpants and waking dry and typically only peeing once all night in her diaper. It feels like I pulled a fast one - it was so much easier than I'd imagined!

I'm sure karma will level the playing field when it comes to big girl bed time. I've been surfing Craigslist for days, trying to find an interesting twin bed option and having fun envisioning rearranging her bedroom - getting rid of the diaper genie, the changing pad, etc... Reality will probably find me locking her door at bedtime and her throwing herself against it to get out 4 times a night. So any jealous mothers reading this need not worry - I'll get mine.

Potty Training recap

Edie had her first day of daycare today since potty training. I assumed things would be too exciting for her to avoid at least one accident (especially when I learned this morning that Jen had a brand new, gigantic twisty slide in her backyard installed over the holidays) and therefore wasn't surprised when I picked her up to see she was wearing her back-up pants. But Jen quickly informed me that she was only wearing her back-up pants because she'd gotten her other pants wet while playing with the water table! So proud.

Edie spent the weekend with my parents while Jeff and I had a fantastic weekend in Portland for his birthday. She had a few accidents over the weekend, so I was a little (overly) worried that we might have taken a step back in the potty training department. But she hasn't had any accidents since we came back on Sunday evening.

I have constant reminders of how grown up she is when I notice how tiny her rump looks in pants, when I pick her up and feel her butt instead of a big diaper, and when I need to do laundry even more often to make sure she has 2-3 pairs of big girl underwear clean each day, JIC. Her quick adaptation to potty training is making me think about graduating Edie to a twin bed. I had planned to delay this decision a bit longer, but am now finding myself trawling Craigslist each night for a cute twin bed frame.