Sleeping Beauty

I just realized, tonight, that I hadn't written a blog for this week.

So, apologies to those of you who are dedicated enough to check in every Monday night or Tuesday morning.

When we last left our heroine, she was struggling against the evil power of sleep.

Her attempts to ward off a restful night were met with some resilience, as sleep found help from Finley's own parents.

No matter how hard she fought to keep from dozing off, Momma and Poppa would arrive to get her to return to her prison on the mattress.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't that dramatic, but she sure made it seem that way. It turns out that my philosophy of reasoning may have actually worked. She really only had one rough night since last week, but after that, it's been smooth sailing. Of course, I may have just jinxed myself and in all probability she most likely has gotten back into a pattern, but I like to think my reasoning plan did the trick.

Actually, it was a bit of reasoning and working a bit harder to help her wind down. Plus, we moved her bedtime back a bit, just to see if she would be just a little more tired before we set her down. It turns out that at her age, she's in sort of a transition state. According to one of the things Heather found while searching for information, once a child reaches three years old, they may not need as much sleep as they have been getting when they were younger. I'm not sure why, but I'm guessing it has to do with how she is evolving, socially.

At the risk of sounding too scientific, I'm guessing that as she learns more about the world around her and as she discovers and joins OUR patterns, she begins to adopt some of our social behaviors. Basically, as she interacts with us more - speaking more like us, eating more like us - her mind and body are adjusting to how we do things. If we don't act tired, then her brain may decide that she's not tired, either. I'm probably full of it, but it sounds good to me!

She also may just want to play a lot more and not go to bed until she thinks she's ready. But

somewhere along the line, her body is going to need less and less sleep, until she falls into the orderly 8 hours that everyone else is supposed to get. She has to adapt somehow.

The bottom line is that she's much better, now. It could have just been a phase or maybe it WAS something a little more biological. Either way, Heather's not waking me up in the middle of the night to go rock Finley. They're BOTH sleeping through the night. Now that's a social behavior I can believe in.

No Rest for the Weary

Way back when Finley couldn’t speak and didn’t do much

more than nurse or eat, we decided we were very lucky. You see, after about her 9^th week of existence, she started sleeping through the night. Of course, there were the occasional outbursts and fits, but nothing that wasn’t too horrible to deal with.

There were a couple of times over the past few years where she might have a cold or be a little sick and she might wake up in the middle of the night coughing or even throw up. And we would stumble through the darkened house, Momma cleaning up the little one and Poppa cleaning up the mess. Again, nothing that lasted more than a couple of nights.

Of course, being friends with other parents, we did our best to keep this a bit of a secret. No use rubbing it in or jinxing ourselves. Not every night was perfect, but the good ol’ days were much better than the stories we heard from the other parents.

And that’s the way we lived. Fairly quiet nights and pretty decent sleep for the both of us. We may have gotten too comfortable.

I’m not sure if it’s a precursor to life with a three-year old or some sort of growing pains or teeth issues, but it looks – and certainly feels like – our good luck has run out. For the past few weeks, Finley has not wanted to go to sleep and calls out and shrieks and cries for Momma. Momma is always first on the list, and in this case, I don’t mind.

Finley is basically trying to stall having to go to bed. She either wants some water, or to go to the bathroom or just wants to be rocked. All in the name of not having to go to bed. And the longer we try to ignore her, the more she cries. Some nights she basically cries herself to sleep and others she gives in after we plead a little bit.

The hard part for us – other than the anxiety of listening to her cry and worrying about the neighbors – is wondering how to deal with this. There are some schools of thought that say you should leave them be, because if you go in, you only empower them to think you’ll come whenever they cry. Then there’s the other side – which I subscribe to – that says you can reason with them. I may have to change sides, though. My way seemed to have worked tonight, but it sure didn’t work last night.

The worst part is that after all the anxiety of getting her to sleep, lately she’s been waking up in the middle of the night, calling out. So not only are we exhausted trying to GET her to bed, we’re exhausted dealing with her at two, or three, or four in the morning.

I have to clarify, here, or risk being beaten, that I am not usually the one who gets up in the middle of the night to deal with said child. It’s not because I don’t care or because I don’t want to, it’s mostly because I don’t hear her. I’m a pretty heavy sleeper and Heather can hear a caterpillar sneeze from two blocks away. More often than not, I wake when she returns to bed, but she’s really taking the brunt of it all.

At any rate, we’ve got a toddler who doesn’t want to go to bed and who wakes up in the middle of the night and has trouble going BACK to sleep. We’ve also got a Momma who is getting very little sleep and a Poppa who is trying – in his most laid back way – to deal with it all and convince the whole family that everything will be alright and that it’s just a stage.

The bottom line for me is that a happy, sleeping toddler equals a happy, sleeping Momma which equals a happy, sleeping me. So what to do?

Well, Heather’s reading a bunch of theories and I’m trying to stick to my “reasoning” method. But I’m learning that reasoning with a toddler is difficult. BUT, I maintain that if I can talk to her and she can – through reason – make the decision herself to try to go to sleep, it’s good for all of us. Again, it worked tonight. Who knows if it works tomorrow?

My hope is that this round of reasoning, if it works, can lead to more of the same in the many decisions she’ll have to make as she grows up. Giving her the power make the decisions and live with them will go a long way.

Now let’s all just hope she decides to sleep through the night for the next week, so I can report that my theory works.

Whack Job

One of the things I try to pride myself on in this fatherhood thing, is to not be too overprotective.

I’ve said from the beginning that I believe that kids need to fall down and get scrapes… within reason, of course. I think bumping your head a few times now and again, teaches you to duck. I believe you’re not doing your job as a kid if you don’t have skinned knees every once in a while.

Sure, I want her to wear a helmet when she rides a bike and I always make sure she’s strapped in when we’re driving. But beyond that, I could care less about her clothes or what she spills on them. I’m not wrapping her in saran wrap every time we eat or every time she colors. Kids spill. I just don’t think she needs to worry about vanity at this point. And that’s the way I liked it… Until this past weekend.

For the past couple of weeks, Finley has been saying she wanted to get her hair cut. We had gone to a kid’s hair place before and she was a bit scared, but now she seemed interested and even requested to go back to the same place, because they had an airplane chair she could sit in.

So we made the trip to the mall in Bellevue where the kid salon was. It’s a popular mall with the Princess because they also have a bunch of 25 cent rides she can go on… a carousel, a car, and a horse, among others. We hit the salon first and I only had one request; DO NOT cut it short.

I’m not sure why I was so adamant to keep her hair long. I guess I’m just not a fan of short hair on kids. And I guess I’m just so used to Finley’s long hair, that I made sure to say something.

When Finley got set up in the chair, Heather told the gal to just trim up the loose and scraggly ends… not much more than an inch, really. Things were good. The stylist said she was going to layer the hair in the back and I stepped out to get some quarters for the rides, but when I came back, I got quite the surprise.

There, on the floor, beneath the chair, was more blonde hair than I was expecting. A lot more. Somewhere between “trimming” and “layering” the stylist decided that Finley would look much cuter with a bob.

Anyone who knows me knows I don’t get mad very often. I try to be as laid back as possible. But for a few seconds this past Saturday, I was seething. I decided to step out of the salon for a few moments and take a few deep breaths. I had to remind myself that hair grows back and there’s not much we can do about it now, anyway. That doesn’t mean I’m not still disappointed and that we won’t be heading back to that particular hair salon.

Again, I’m not sure why I’m upset over her short hair. Most of it is because I said I didn’t want it short and the rest is because, it’s hard for me to see my Finley without her hair. Maybe I’m being selfish, because she DOES look cute with the bob, but I really liked her with long hair. She’s the same crazy girl who I love a ton and who loves me a ton back. I guess I’m just going to have to get used to the change.

Which makes me think about next year and five years from now and ten years from now. All the changes that are coming up, that we’ll have to talk about. Hair, I’m sure, will be the least of my worries.

I’m sure we’ll have talks about earrings and nose rings and boys and lip rings and eyebrow rings and boys and tattoos and hair color and skirts and tops and boys. All the things she’ll be interested in, but that I’m not so sure of. Well, I’ll let her have a nose ring over a boy, any day, actually.

The reality is, I can’t control it. I can help guide the best I can, she’s going to have to make the decisions and live with the results. I can hand her the peroxide for her ear holes.

I guess I just have to learn now – with this new haircut – to just keep finding my Finley underneath it all. She always be there, no matter what the outside looks like.

Happy New Year!!

Happy Holidays!

See Finley Run

One thing we noticed early on as Finley got up on two feet

was how fast she was. I don’t know if it’s because she’s so low to the ground or if there’s some instinctive ability that switches on when we need her to do something, but that kid can run.

I think it’s more of the latter because whenever it’s time to wipe her nose she sprints for the couch. Or anytime her naked butt is showing, she has to do a lap around the house. It must have to do with escape and freedom, because it seems like we’re always chasing her. In fact, much like my parents did with me, we’ve purchased a little harness to keep her from running away or into the street. It’s a little monkey backpack but the tail of the monkey happens to be just long enough for mom and dad to hold onto.

For the longest time, I was convinced that our little FloJo was going to challenge peers for the short distance sprints. I was sure she was destined for flat track glory. That was until this past weekend.

This was our second year as a family to do the family walk version of the Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis. It’s a 5k (just over 3 miles) walk around downtown Seattle. It’s a big fundraiser that features holiday costumes from pretty much all of the entrants.

So we loaded up the stroller, complete with bows and Christmas lights. I donned my Winnie-the-Pooh costume and Heather had her Santa hat and Christmas sunglasses.

As much fun as it was seeing the other folks with elf, snowflake, and candy cane costumes, it’s still a bit of a hike and for a toddler like Finley, the first mile or so of people watching starts to get old and she wants out. We decided we’d wait until the last mile or so to let her get out – that way the crowd would have thinned out and we could always throw her back in the stroller and not have far to go to the finish, if she got tired or cranky.

And sure enough as we made the turn for the last mile we pulled her out and set her on the ground, complete with her backpack/harness. I was expecting her to shoot off right away, but she was still checking out the scene and wasn’t ready to go anywhere fast.

Finally, we had to encourage her to get moving, since we were beginning to get passed by the rest of the field. So she started to walk. Of course, her steps aren’t the biggest so her walk was not much faster than when we were standing still.

We kept encouraging her to pick up the pace, but she didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Then, out of nowhere she started to jog. It definitely wasn’t a sprint, but it was enough to get me into a quick walk behind her, as I held on to the leash. And she kept going and kept going. Suddenly, my mini Usain Bolt was turning into more of a pre-Prefontaine. She was turning into a distance runner. The best part was that as she jogged, she kept her hands in her coat pocket, so she had this little upper body twisting thing going on. But she kept on going.

I guess-timated that she easily went a half mile without stopping, which for her first go-round at 2-years old is pretty darned good. Of course, when we got to a steeper hill, things began to slow down and I eventually carried her across the finish line on my shoulders. But she did a good section of the last mile on her own.

Obviously, she saw it as a whole lot of fun in a wide open world, not a race or exercise. But, that’s probably the best way to approach running. It’s probably the best way to approach anything, come to think of it. It will be interesting to see what she’s like in a year, and see how much farther she can go. Maybe each year she goes a little bit more, until she runs the whole thing on her own. And maybe, just maybe, Momma and Poppa can run right along side. It would be fun to go from the stroller to running. Who knows, maybe in a few more years, she can push me!

Getting Ready for the Holidays