Our Early Friday

Happy Friday!  Seriously the weather right now is AWESOME!! I'm super excited about it since yesterday was miserably hot and humid. It's funny how once I moved away from Arizona the weather became such a prevalent topic. {random thought}

Sidenote: Andrew had a hockey game last night. George and Reagan went while Mama stayed home and put Lily to bed after a crankypants screamfest and I still managed almost two hours of time by myself. Heavenly! Andrew scored a goal ~ the first of the game actually, but they lost.  He always scores when I'm not there. hmmmm....

Reag was excited this morning when she woke up because it is not a typical Friday for her.  First thing, she gets to ride the bus home instead of going to BM's tonight, so she was excited about the bus riding. Secondly, and the reason she is coming home tonight...she is going to a slumber party for her best friend! Waaaahhhhhooooo! Yep, she's actually going!  We're excited for her to be home for the couple hours before the party too. She headed out the door to catch the bus on a Friday morning smiling for the first time all year.

Lily was really cute this morning when she woke up...chatting away talking about the "fa-woooot" on her dress and sitting down on the bottom step near Reagan, "Hi sisssss eeeee!"  Reag happened to be wearing her "Big Sisters Rock" shirt today. Fitting. :)

With the big kids gone, I headed up to get ready for the day.  Lily decided she'd keep me company and try something new to play with.  Yesterday it was a box of tampons spread all over the bathroom floor. Today: 

She's clearly in touch with her femininity.

Finally, Lily and I headed to the doc this morning for her ear recheck from her ear infection.  After the last two nights of screaming at bedtime, I was anticipating full-fledged ear infection.  I've since learned that although her ear is inflamed, but is not filled with pus {*gag me word* and DO NOT google to see how to spell it correctly ohmahgahd} that a lot of her bedtime stuff is, in fact, teeth and stubbornness.

"boo! mama!"

We headed to pick up her antibiotic then stopped to get her lunch at McD's...something we rarely do, so she wasn't even sure what to do. But, she kept saying, "Hi fry!" so I'm guessing she was happy. :)

Glad it wasn't worse and hopefully this time we'll kick it completely out so it doesn't return. The weather hasn't been helpful with kicking her cold, so hopefully that'll even out soon too!

When You Think You've Got it Figured Out

I mentioned the other day about what an awesome transition Lily has made to one nap a day. Well, yesterday was an utter trainwreck simply based on activity.  When she doesn't get the sleep she needs, the rest of her day is just off.

Yesterday morning, I got Andrew and Reag off to school, normal start to the day.  It was also Andrew's 6th grade Track & Field Day.  This is a big event in our district.  All four of the elementary schools compete against one another and it's held at the high school's stadium.  Big time event.

Lily and I had planned to attend the opening ceremony {complete with Olympic opening theme music} and leave after Andrew's first event and return a couple hours later for his remaining events. It didn't work out that way. We stayed the duration. 9am until 1:30pm. Of course, I was prepared with drinks and snacks and sunscreen, but when the concession stand was open, I just got her a hot dog for lunch and we stayed.  It rained, it was cloudy, it was breezy, it was sunny, it was humid, it was hot. Everything that Pittsburgh weather is...consistenly inconsistent.

What that meant in terms of her nap was she was limited to a short one after we got home and had to pick up Andrew and Reag at school for an afterschool appointment. 

While we were still at the Olympics track, she said, "Sleep," when a friend stopped to say hello to us. I laughed. She needs her dark room, her sound machine and all her other sleep cues to fall asleep, but girl knew she was tired.  On the way home, she kept trying to doze off in the carseat and I knew that if she slept for the 10 minute ride, she'd never got to sleep when we got home. And I needed her to nap before we had to pick up at school.  That created a car scene of a loud radio, lots of singing, talking to her, clapping hands, windows down and a myriad of other keep-Lily-awake actions.  Whew! Success. 

Up to bed, all cues present and she was out.  For an hour.  She usually sleeps around 3 hours, but we had to leave.  I hate waking a sleeping babe.

Off we headed to get the kids and to the appointment. She loves to see Bubby and Sissy, so she was pretty ecstatic even in her sleep-deprived state.

After the appointment we needed to stop by the grocery store for some cheese for our grilled burgers, 5pm. 3 kids. The grocery store. Nightmare scenario.  Luckily we made it unscathed and headed home.

Supper.

Bathtime.

Bedtime for sleepy, eye-rubbing baby girl?  Nope.

Crying crying crying, "Mommmmmmmmy! Maaaaaammmmmma!"

I can't take that.

I went and got her, rocked her, sang to her, still no luck.  I brought her downstairs to lay with me on the couch. I knew she was exhausted. Overtired. It's now an hour past her bedtime and she's F-I-G-H-T-I-N-G sleep like nobody's business.

Daddy took her back up to bed. She cried a little bit and then off to dreamland she went.

Finally...

She slept so well that I had to wake her up this morning.

An Afternoon Siesta

Recently Lily has transitioned to one nap a day, finally relinquishing her morning nap and taking one long afternoon siesta.  If I'm being honest, part of me misses my alone time in the morning. Like whoa.

However, what made me know she was ready was her.  She'd happily lay down late morning and fall asleep for a couple hours, but then she'd be Super CrankyPants {that's one of her superhero names} by mid afternoon until bedtime.  Like epic suppertime meltdown if she couldn't get her food quickly enough, get a bath and in bed.  The tough thing with that is it's still light out pretty late now. So, 6:30pm was rough.  Add an 8 year old who apparently needs 3925720428308 things equally as many times out of the bedroom which lead to equally as many wakeups for Lily, my happy baby was having a rough go of sleep. 

I tried a couple different combinations of having her nap a shorter time in the morning, then still having her nap in the afternoon.  That was an afternoon jumparoo in the crib for the duration and lots of, "Maaaaaaammmaaaaaaaa!" calling trying to sweet talk me into getting up.  Even though I recognize she still needed the down time, that combo wasn't working out for either of us.  She was still beyond tired by suppertime.

Finally, we tried skipping the morning nap all together and just trying an afternoon which has been totally working for her.  Andrew was a two-a-day napper well past two years old, but he was also a 6am riser until he was like 10.   I appreciate that the basics have worked for both of them and recognize they're two different people who have needed what works for them individually.

This new schedule of no morning nap had its whiny moments as the clock hit the noon hour at first.  Girl was ex.hausted!  But, the 3 and a half hours of sleepytime for her and downtime for me was heaven!  After some adjustments, we're successfully into a new routine that is working for her. She usually hits her wall about 12:00pm. If I say, "Lily, are you ready for lunch?" she heads to her highchair, "Eat. Eat. Mama. Eat."  She eats lunch, gets cleaned up and off to bed for a minimum of two hours, but usually three or so.  It's perfect and just like nearly everything with her, she transitions easily into what's next.

Yesterday during naptime, she apparently decided that she didn't want her arm in her jammies. {yes, most some days we spend the day in pajammies} then when realizing it, she didn't like it. I laughed.

Happy napping!