Doing it Again

She's doing it again. She's growing so fast, I can hardly keep up. At nearly 20 months, she is a bubbly, chatty, busy, funny, adventurous, sweet, smart girl. I can't get over how much she is growing and changing before my eyes. I'm watching her, hearing her learn more each day and I'm seeing tiny glimpses of the person she is becoming, the person she will be.

At her 18 month check up, she weighed in at 25 lbs, 3oz. (75th %) and was 33 1/4" inches long (90th %). A month and a half later, all I know is that she is taller than most children her age or older, and that pants that fit her three weeks ago were too short today. For someone who doesn't eat much, she is growing like a weed.

She's been growing her vocabulary too. She says, and repeats, a lot of words; but she understands so much more. Our reading routine has changed to a "where is/what is that?" game of pointing. She loves books with activities (sliding or lifting flaps, textures, mirrors) and loves any book about an animal, preferably on a farm. Out of the piles of books in her room, she picks out her favorites to read and reread each day. Her current favorites are The Cow Loves Cookies; Curious George; Brown Bear, Brown Bear; The Very Hungry Caterpillar; The Going to Bed Book; and Goodnight, Moon. When she's really tired, she goes straight for Goodnight, Moon. When she's too tired for a book, I rock her while reciting I Love You, Forever (its words ingrained from my own childhood).

She's becoming more focused, sure of herself. She takes my hand in hers and leads me to what she wants or needs. The other night, she grabbed her blanket and milk, took my hand in hers, and led me upstairs for her bath because it was bedtime and I was not moving fast enough.

And, oh my goodness, her blanket. She is more attached to her fuzzy blanket than ever. Her favorite corner is tattered and coming apart at the seems. She takes that corner and rubs it between her thumb and index finger when she's tired, sliding the fuzzy side against the satin. She sucks on the corner in her sleep. I watch her reach for it in the middle of the night, snuggle back into the calm, and settle back to sleep. It is a tent, a game of peek-a-boo, and a cape. She cries and beats on the washing machine when I wash it. I just ordered a back up.

She would rather be outside than anywhere else. We park hop around the city, visiting a park a few times a week. 

When we are inside, she loves stacking blocks, playing dress up, playing musical instruments, and playing with the insane amount of balls we have in our living room. Oh, and dancing. She loves dancing! Our favorite game lately is for me to play fast and slow rhythms on the drum while she runs, hops, and spins to the beat. 

Bath time and bed time are up in the air lately. Some nights, she loves it, some nights, it's a battle. But, story and snuggle time is always, always my favorite. 

Before I know it, we'll have a two year old on our hands. I have a feeling I'll utter these words roughly 765,546,238,891 more times in her life, but I can't believe how fast she's growing up! I'm so thankful for giggles, tiny high fives, and snuggles from my favorite dance partner. Life is good with a toddler.

Such Stuff As Dreams are Made On...

...And our little life is rounded with a sleep.

Yep. You guessed it. I'm complaining about not sleeping again.

I've been working on sleep training (lite) with C. No matter how hard I try, I just can't let her cry it out. Maybe after a few more months of no sleep, I'll change my tune. But for now, I'm just working on keeping her on a regular schedule of naps and a routine at bed time, hoping it will fall into place eventually. 

She goes to bed every night at 7:30. At 7:00, we start the wind down routine with a bath and lavender lotion. Then on go the footed pjs and the sleep sack and we snuggle in the rocking chair with her paci and her lovey for story time and a song while she drifts off to sleep.

Easy right?

Nope.

Around 8:30, she squirms and wiggles and rolls over and cries. It's time for a bottle. Then we sit in the chair and rock and rock and rock until her eyes flutter to sleep.

9:30 or 10:00 and she cries as if awakened by a nightmare. I pick her up, wrap her in a fuzzy blanket, and rock her back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until she relaxes in the comfort of my arms, breathes out deeply, and she sleeps.

She sleeps hard. So hard that I watch her tiny chest move up and down on the monitor just to make sure she is still breathing. And I like to think she would stay this way, BUT, her next dose of medicine is at 11:30. So I wake the finally sleeping baby for a little formula with her meds, a diaper change, and more snuggle time until she sleeps. This time is much harder than the last. The wake up call is uncalled for and it throws off the rest of the night.

1:00... 2:30... 3:30... 4:45... then I am awakened for good at 7:00 with tiny fingers poking me in my eye and pulling my hair. I guess I should mention that somewhere among the hourly wake up calls, I give up and put C in bed with me, hoping she will sleep better if she is near me. Sometimes I am lucky and we sleep for three consecutive hours.

Once upon a time, C was a great sleeper. Never all night long, but usually only one wake up around 3:30. That, I could deal with. This new schedule is. killing. me. slowly.

There are theories. She is teething. She is too excited about crawling to sleep. She has separation anxiety from me. I attempt to diagnose the situation. But then I remind myself that it won't be this way forever. That I will blink and she will be too big to rock. She won't need me to rub her back until she falls asleep. She won't snuggle her tiny nose into my chest. There will come a time when all her troubles can't be solved by a lullaby. So I embrace the joy disguised as exhaustion. I celebrate the memories disguised as obligation. And we rock and rock and rock back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until all is right in her little world. 

For an hour or so at least.

If a Tree Falls...

It's the age old question:

If a baby falls asleep two hours early, will morning come two hours earlier?

sleepy girl