The Haps

I just got back from a fabulous girls weekend in Las Vegas, but am waiting for my mom to post some pics so I can swipe them to post here. Instead, I thought I would write about our progress in the sleep department with the girls.

You may or may not recall that we have been having issues with the girls at night. Kyla would go to bed first, and nearly every night would be awaken by Allie, who usually threw a fit at her bedtime. Neither one could fall asleep easily after that, and we had two tired girls in the morning. Kyla is also trying to transition to one nap, which is hard and leads to a lot of extra whining. So, I had finally had it. I checked out Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child from the library and read, trying to find a solution. If any of you are familiar with Dr. Weissbluth, he is all about early bedtimes (like 5:30 or 6:00). And while I knew I could never do that, I could commit to earlier bedtimes (Kyla was going to bed around 7 :30 and Allie at 8:00). So, we started Kyla in bed at 7:00 and she did great. Until she started waking up before 6:00 and screaming for Allie, which then woke us all up.


Back to the drawing board. I finally admitted that the girls are just not ready to share a room. But we don't have an extra room available for KyKy, so she got relegated to the dark, windowless store room in a pack n play. It has been wonderful! Because it's dark, she wakes up later, and because she's alone in there, even if she does wake up earlier, she doesn't get out of bed until the other kids get up. So, yay for KyKy. These pics are from Sunday, when Kyla found a cupcake with plenty of icing (I had scraped the icing off of hers, just to avoid this scenario). It was really quite humorous watching her enjoy the cupcake and I loved these pics.


Allie has a different struggle, in that she doesn't like to go to sleep and she gets herself overtired. So, following Dr. Weissbluth's suggestion, we came up with and earlier bed time, 7:30, and Allie's Sleep Rules. They are: Stay in bed, close your eyes, lay very quietly, go to sleep, stay in bed until morning. We made a chart and have gone over them repeatedly, until she knows them all. If she follows sleep rules, she gets a dum-dum in the morning. And she can choose the flavor. I also added in that she can have a dum-dum if she stays dry all night, because she started having trouble with that again. She's been doing great staying dry, but has probably only gotten 3 suckers for following sleep rules perfectly. BUT she's doing much, much better and there is far less fighting and crying. So, we are grateful for that.

Allie also started a gymnastics class on Wednesday and was the only one wearing a leotard with her undies sticking out the bottom. It was great. The first day was a little rough (she was especially emotional, it may have been one of "those" days for her!), but she told me yesterday that she is going to have a good attitude this week and follow the teacher. Jeff took this picture of her a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, this is how she looks most of the time. We still have intense battles over combing her hair, so if I don't feel that it is absolutely necessary, I don't fight her on it.

Damon seems to be doing great in school. He clings to his cousin, David, whenever possible, but he seems to really enjoy it and is doing well. His big news is that he finally lost his top tooth that has been loose for months. He had about wiggled it out and asked Jeff to pull it out, because it was hurting him. Jeff was having some difficulty, so I suggested the pliers. Damon wasn't so sure about that, but braved the tears and let him do it. It was the easiest tooth Jeff has ever extracted and we are all loving Damon's new grin.



Oh, and here are two funnies from Allie.

1. Yesterday Allie was listening to My Playlist and "Crush" came on. From the other room, I hear, "I love David Archuleta....and David Cook." Then she followed that up with, "I love Kyla and Damon." Then after a long pause, she said, "And mom." Well, at least I'm still making the list. I didn't hear any mention of Jeff.

2. My mom is finished with her chemo and on to radiation (yay! Check out her blog if you aren't already an avid reader). We talked to the kids about it and how now we can start praying for grandma's hair to grow back. So, Allie said in her prayer, "Bless grandma's hair to grow back," but didn't stop there. Next, she said, "And bless grandpa's hair to grow back, too." We may have to have a discussion with her about baldness...