Sleepy Beauty

So, last week we had just purchased and constructed

a new toddler bed for Finley. The first few nights were as expected. The freedom that came with being out of a crib found her exploring her room when she was supposed to be sleeping and peeking and reaching under her door to see what grown ups do after her bedtime.

The rest of the week was pretty much more of the same, but instead of falling asleep next to the bed, more often than not we found her snoozing away in her bed, when we went in to check on her. This was nice while it lasted, of course.

It’s probably the fact she’s been fighting a cold (which means we’ve all been fighting a cold) more than the new bed, but a couple of nights this week, she’s woken up in the middle of the night, crying.

Last night – or should I say, this morning – around 3am, Heather went in to console the little miss. It wasn’t long before Heather returned to bed, with a little someone in tow. It turns out that Finley is starting a new habit that we’re realizing we need to stop fairly quickly. She is always asking to sleep in our bed with us. Not so much that she wants to actually sleep, but because she thinks it’s fun and exciting. As much as watching her dad snore is exciting, that is.

And on nights when she’s been sick or awoken from a nightmare, we usually concede and let her snuggle with us. The last few times this has happened, I’ve voluntarily moved to the couch, because I know Finley will not want to sleep, but try to play and/or talk a lot.

But last night I was too tired to move, so I figured the two of us could get her to calm down enough to sleep. The good news is we did. The bad news is that my daughter is a bed hog. Heather and I both found ourselves clinging to the edges of the bed, trying to sleep, while the Princess took up the rest of the space. At least she was asleep.

This, of course, made for a very early morning and a long day with little sleep for us. And I know a happy family is a family that gets enough rest. We’re not as happy as we should be… well, one of us got some rest and is happy.

Ultimately, it’s nice to know she feels safe around us… Not that there was any argument about that. But, when she has a bad dream or is sick, she’s going to want to be in the safest place she can think of. And that’s next to Momma and Poppa.

We have to be firm about when she can jump in with us. Right now, it’s only those two main factors. But that doesn’t stop her from asking to jump in with us, all the time.

I have to admit I like hearing her little breaths and light snores right next to me. There’s a comfort about snuggling with the ones you love. Now if I can just get her to give me some space on MY bed.

Big Girl Bed

As we started seeing Finley’s third birthday coming into view,

we began to realize that the days of the crib were just about over. Finley actually began asking us if she could have a big girl bed and we said we’d get her one for her birthday. She was getting too big for the crib, anyway.

At first we looked at skipping the whole toddler bed thing and going straight to the twin bed. But, at this point – with a possible move in the near future – a toddler bed just made more sense. Especially since it would use the crib mattress.

So, we came home with a big pink box with a pink princess bed, complete with canopy. It took me a couple of hours to figure out the instructions and put it together, but after I was done and Finley got used to it, it was time for her first bed time on it. We weren’t sure how she would do. If she would even go to sleep or get up and play with her toys or read her books.

The first ten minutes or so after we closed her door, we could hear her running around her room, checking things out. She didn’t bang on her door or call out for us too much, but we DID see something a little funny. Apparently she was pressing her face against the bottom of the door to try and see us in the outside world. We could hear her breathing under the door and every once in a while, some very small fingers would pop out, searching.

Then after another ten minutes we heard nothing. As we tiptoed over to her door, we could hear her light snoring, again coming from under the door. And those little fingers were still there, clutching the bottom of the door. Finley had fallen asleep on the floor on the other side of the door!

Heather had to reach under and lightly tickle Finley to get her to move her hand. I pushed the door open enough to reach my arm in and turn her legs so the rest of her would roll away from the door. That allowed us to open the door just enough to let Heather through and she picked up the sleeping girl and put her into bed.

She slept the rest of the night in her new bed and, at this point, has been going to sleep quicker than when she was in the crib. It’s obviously a new thing, so we’ll see how long that lasts. But for now, it looks like things are going in the right direction.

And in all of this newness there was also a bit of sadness. As I sat down and was putting the new bed together, I started to realize that I would need to take the crib apart.

My brother, Dan, and I (well, mainly my brother) built Finley’s crib from scratch. It turned out great – if I do say so, myself. And it’s definitely something that will be a family heirloom. I guess I always knew she wouldn’t be in it forever, but to actually break it down and replace it with a pre-formed Disney bed was a bit depressing.

Other than a few weeks in the cradle next to our bed (also built by Dan) she’s spent that last three years in that crib. As she’s gotten bigger, we’ve lowered the mattress and raised the gate. We eventually added a crib tent to keep her in and now, it’s sitting in sections ready to be taken to storage. When we decide to have a second kid, it will be resurrected, of course. But her room seems a bit emptier without it.

This won’t be the last bed I put together for Finley. There may be a day in the not-so distant future where I put together a full-sized bed in a dorm room or a new apartment. At that time, it won’t be constructing a bed that will make me feel a little sad. There will probably be a few more things leaving her room along with her. And at that time, it won’t just be her room that will seem a bit emptier. I’m sure the house will be much bigger without her, too. For now, I’ll just kiss her good night and tuck her in while I still can.

Joy to the World

As I’ve noted before, Finley loves to sing.

More often than not, she loves to sing loudly… which I like. She can really to belt it out, and why not? Whether or not our neighbors love it is another story.

And as is the case with most things in her life, when she gets a hold of something like a certain toy – or in this case a song – it becomes her favorite thing. This means she likes to sing the same song over and over. The problem with this, is that if it’s a particularly annoying song, then we’re stuck with listening to it again and again.

The old standards have had their run and sometimes return. The “ABC” song is a favorite that comes back every once in awhile. “Old MacDonald” has a pretty good rotation, too. But some time ago, I decided to try and sneak in a song or two that I wouldn’t mind hearing repeated. One song in particular stuck and seems to be her current favorite.

I can’t remember exactly how I came to play the Three Dog Night version of Hoyt Axton’s “Joy to the World” for her (‘Jeremiah was a bullfrog!’),

but like any good top 40 song, the hook stuck and we’ll catch her singing portions of it – or at least trying to – all the time. As with most kids, she mixes up different lyrics with different sections and it makes for pretty funny and cute renditions of a classic rock song.

And as much as we enjoy hearing her yell out her renditions of “Joy to the World,” there is another song that has crept into her repertoire. One that means just a little bit more to me.

I’m really not sure where the tune or the lyrics come from, but there’s a family lullaby that has lived in the back of my head since I can remember. It’s a simple song about a little bird and a little baby.

“Oh, where have you been little bird, little bird/Oh, where have you been little bird/I have been to a tree/I have been to a tree/I have been to a tree, dear Finley”

The little bird goes on to say there is a nest in the tree and an egg in the nest, and finally a baby bird in the egg. Of course, when it was sung to me by my mom, “Randy” was the baby in the story.

I’ve been singing this song to Finley since the day she came home, on nights where I’ve needed to go in and rock her to sleep. But I hadn’t sung this to her for a while. Then, last week, when she was having trouble falling asleep, I pulled it out again.

But this time, now that she is much more aware of the story in a song, she wanted me to keep singing it. She wanted to learn it and sing it herself. And now, it’s part of her night time routine. It’s actually an important part of her routine, because we make it the last thing before she lies down and goes to sleep. Some nights, we can hear her singing it to herself after I’ve left the room.

So, a simple song that I heard as a little boy is now a favorite of my own little girl. And who knows if twenty or so years down the road, she’ll be singing it to her little one. If not, grandpa will have to step up and rock the grandchild to sleep. That would be joy to the world.

Here Comes Three

In one month Finley will turn three.

Beyond the several “I can’t believe she’s going to be three” moments we’ve been having lately, something else is starting to creep into view. You see, for several months now, we’ve been seeing a slight increase in attitude and temper.

It seems there is something out there called the “Terrible Threes.” Yes. What was once the “Terrible Twos” has evolved into an even more hideous beast. What you thought you had gotten through in that second precious year has now doubled in size and in ferocity.

It turns out that several of our parent-friends warned us of this. When we would mention some of the more rougher patches of dealing with a two-year old, those much wiser folk would laugh and say, “Just wait ‘til she’s three!” We just shook this off as a scare tactic or some sort of parental joke, but now it seems to be coming to fruition.

The first thing that stands out as a change in her temperament is how she deals with us or rather, how she defies us. The standard warnings and counting to three have lost their edge. Old stand-bys like reverse psychology and threatening time outs just don’t carry the same weight.

Then there are the times when she takes defying to a whole new level. For instance; Finley has this need to hop on the couch as if it were a trampoline. And that was fine and cute when she was smaller. But, as she’s gotten bigger, we can tell that the old divan isn’t going to stand a beating like that much longer. Not to mention the odds of her falling off and cracking open her head have increased, as well. So, we ask her to stop. And she doesn’t. We tell her she’ll get a time out. Doesn’t faze her. In fact, she’ll look us in the eye as we’re telling her not to and bounce up and down. Sometimes she’ll even laugh about it.

Of course, her tune changes when we grab her to take her to her room for the actual time out. “I want to be good,” she cries. Ten minutes later, she’s back up on the couch, bouncing away.

The same thing goes for the coffee table. “Don’t climb on the table, Finley.” “Down!” “You’re going to get a time out!” Up she goes. She’ll even dance on it, taunting us. THIS, is just the beginning of the threes.

But here’s the thing. What happens at four and ten and… the dreaded fourteen? I mean, after all, isn’t childhood just one long prison sentence where we’re trying to escape parental chains (From the kid’s point of view, anyway)? I’ll admit that’s what I thought at times. I would bet most kids do.

So, the challenge for us – other than trying to lose as little hair as possible – is to make our particular prison a little less maximum security and a little more work release. It’s that whole thing about boundaries. Making sure the kid can be a kid without clamping down too much on them. But how much is too much and how much is too little? I guess this is where we earn our parenting stripes.

It’s certainly not like this ALL the time. She can be a very funny and sweet kid. But when she gets cranky, all bets are off. Our job is to teach her what is acceptable and what isn’t without letting her get away with too much. Sure, it’s a balancing act. But, we signed up for this circus. We already have a trampoline artist.

Spaced Out

There’s a saying that goes something like this:

“You don’t know what you got, till you lose it all.” Well, I’m here to tell you, you don’t know what you got, till you start packing. You see, we’re about to put our condo on the market and to get ready, we have to purge a bunch of stuff from the place to make it look less cluttered and more “generic” for the folks that want to come in and take a look.
The good news is that, overall, we didn’t really have that much stuff to take out. The other news is that most of the stuff we do have, belongs to Finley. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not doing a complete purge of things… just putting a few items into storage. Of course, we had to rent a second storage space to have room (that’s a whole different story). But when you start counting up clothes, toys, and books, Heather and I fail in comparison to a certain toddler.

It’s not a real surprise, but the reality of it starts to hit when you’re put into a situation where you have to pare down your life a bit. On the flip side, when we finally end up finding a house to move in to, we know we’ll have much more space for all our stuff. And if I know my girls, we’ll have much more space to fill with MORE stuff.

But the hunt for a new abode isn’t just about how we can fill it. For me, it’s about what’s on the outside as well.

More specifically, what kind of OUTDOOR space we can get. I grew up with a decent sized backyard and would love for Finley to have the same. Right now, in condo-land, our outdoor space consists of a tiny deck out the back and a walk down the street to a park. I’m hoping we can get enough green to put in a swing set and maybe a soccer goal or two.Of course, the more space we want the farther out in the boonies we’ll have to go. It’s no secret that the cheaper places with more

land can turn your commute into a Lewis and Clark expedition. We’re just hoping we can find some sort of compromise somewhere and maybe get lucky.

In the meantime, we’ll keep stuffing our storage units and hope someone will come along and give us a good deal for our place. And maybe, before too long, we’ll be able fill empty rooms in some house, somewhere, while Finley plays in the backyard.

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.