A Truce in the Sleep Wars

We've been doing a bit of traveling, and every time I go to my parent's house, I'm reminded of how much progress we've made on the sleep front with Ela.  One year ago at this time, every sleep time was a battle.  I was exhausted just by the thought of the hour I would spend on an average night trying to get our eldest to sleep.  Then, she would sneak into our room as soon as we went to bed and keep us awake thrashing around.  It was always worse when we traveled, which is probably why I'm reminded of it when I put her down in her own bed at my parent's house.  Now, when she curls right up and I get to go downstairs and be social, I'm always extra grateful, but back then, my night effectively ended at 7:00 when I started putting her to bed. 
When Lily was born, I was determined that she would learn to sleep in her crib.  I never kept her in a bassinet in our room, even, for fear that I'd be tempted to just bring her to bed.  I think my regular mid-night trips to her room were somehow soothing for Ela, because she started staying in her room when she'd hear me coming down the hall every few hours.  For a few months, Lily was the one keeping me up, and Ela took a break. 
Lily, as it turns out, is a child who sleeps, for the most part.  At two months, she began sleeping through the night, and I could have danced for joy.  I haven't had regular, full nights sleep since Ela was born.  I was not expecting to get them again until both girls move out.  Lily gave me hope that may be I could expect a little better sleep a little sooner.  Then Ela began amping up her midnight battles again.  She kept leaving her bed, bedtime was a battle, and I was getting really, really tired. 
Then, in August, I stumbled on some advice from another mom on a list serv I'm on.  She spoke of magic words that had revolutionized bedtime at her house.  The magic words were, "If you stay in bed, we will leave your door open."  At the beach this summer, we tried them. 
I don't know how we lived before the magic words. 
It took remarkably little time for Ela to figure out that she'd rather have the door open than closed, and that she could get that by staying in bed.  We had to close her door a few times, but it's been months since we've resorted to that now.  Bedtime goes so smoothly, I don't even really mind her stalling tactics anymore.  And even her stalling tactics have gotten less serious now that she knows she can get to us any time she needs in the night.  This little bit of freedom has made her a much more reasonable sleeper. 
We use our new magic words both at nap time (which we call quiet time) and bedtime, but here's the catch: I know she doesn't stay in her bed when ordered.  At quiet time, I can hear her toodling around upstairs.  I suspect she leaves her room on a nearly daily basis.  I find evidence of her trickery all the time: open drawers in her room, doors that I know I left open are suddenly closed, or toys that were on the floor are in her bed.  Once I even found evidence that she'd been climbing my chest of drawers, though not enough to punish her.  The thing is, there's no screaming, and I can close off my room to prevent further climbing, so I really don't mind that much.  Also, when I come up stairs, she always runs right back to her bed so as to "not get caught."  The part of me that wants to be a perfect mom worries about what I'm teaching her by not trying to catch her in the act, but the more realistic part of me recognizes several things. 1) I am getting more sleep, which will lead to better parenting for the most part and 2) breaking rules is part of growing up.  She learned very quickly how and when to break this one, and I think we're all pretty happy with the results.
So now I get some quiet time every afternoon, during which Ela may or may not sleep, but certainly leaves me alone and I can listen for her from right below.  Lily sometimes even graces me with a nap at the same time, which means I get a little Mommy time right in the middle of my day.  This has greatly improved my morale. 
And every evening, we go up for bedtime confident in the knowledge that by 8:00, Ela will be secure in her bed, and if she chooses not to sleep for another hour after that, it won't cause extra crankiness in me.  Either way, I'm not likely to see her again until 7:00ish in the morning, when she decides that it's safe to leave her room and come wake me up. 
All this is amazing progress for Ela, and I'm very proud of her.  Lily doesn't sleep through the night all the time, but the fact that she'll sleep in her crib gives me hope that the battles for sleep won't be as fierce with her.  Also, now we know the magics words.  If only there were magic words for potty training, too...

She Remembers a little more...

This weekend, Santa was hanging out in the Eastern Market, so we took advantage of the beautiful weather to go see him.  Ela was excited to be going, and did her little happy dance when she saw him, but then we asked her to get on his lap.

She was less than thrilled. It was all we could do to get her to open her eyes and take her fingers out of her mouth for the picture.  Lily was highly tempted by that white beard, but didn't actually get up the nerve to pull on it.  We snapped our pictures, thanked Santa for his time, and went on our merry way.
All the way home, Ela talked about her blue train.  Apparently, Santa will just know that it's what she wants without her actually telling him. 

She Remembers...

We've started talking about Christmas in our house.  Ela is at the age where I never really know what she'll remember from holidays past.  We've also been working on days of the week, so at the beginning of this week, I told her that we'd be going to see Santa on Thursday or Friday (I learned no to delay this during her first Christmas).  Ever since I mentioned it, Ela has been talking of nothing else.  This is really surprising to me.  For one thing, she apparently remembers who Santa is.  For another, last year she was terrified of him.  Our picture from last year is of her looking absolutely miserable (but not actually crying) in his lap. 
Apparently, the fear is gone now, and every day she asks to go see Santa.  The funniest part is that I don't think she knows what Santa does.  She just knows that he's a part of Christmas.  I think she's seen him in some of her shows on TV, but she apparently doesn't associate him with presents yet.  In the car today, she was again asking to see Santa, so I decided to see what she knew.  The conversation went something like this:
Me: What are you going to ask Santa for for Christmas?
Ela: Please! 
Well, she's got good manners, right? 
Me: Ela, Santa brings good girls and boys a present on Christmas.  What will you ask him to bring you? [and then I started leading] Would you like a train, or a dolly, or...
Ela: Ela wants train.
At which point I'm relieved, since that's what Santa was planning to bring her.
Ela: Ela wants blue train.
Uh oh.  I guess Santa's shopping list just got a little more complicated.
Me: Okay, then you'll say 'Santa, I want a blue train please.'
Ela: Santa, Ela wants blue train please!

Now that our rehersals are complete, I guess I better take her to go see Santa soon! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

We started our day out with an 8 K turkey trot.  Ela loved the Turkey.

The runners did great!

Now on to the food!

Colonial Williamsburg

Over the Veteran's Day weekend, Colonial Williamsburg offered free admission to all active duty military and their dependants. That comibined with a super good deal on a hotel room convinced us to go down and check it out. On the way, we stopped and picked up Zack's sister. We had a crazy night in the hotel room (Ela decided to skip sleep), and got up early enough to be there when the gates opened.
We were all very impressed with the people who worked there.  Every place we stopped, they were informative and intesting.  We found ourselves wanting to stay and hear more at every stop, but Ela kept us moving.  At the court house, we heard three mock trials. Amanda even got to be a judge.

We also visited the shoemaker, the weavers, a blacksmith and a silver worker, among others.  Ela's favorite part was the animals.  There were horses, sheep, and even two baby cows.

We had lunch at a tavern on the main road in town.  I had a really yummy peanut soup.  I've since found the recipe on the Colonial Williamsburg website.  I made a pretty good replica this week.  I'm curious to try a few others from the site, too. 
After lunch, there were lots of little reinactments in the streets.  We grown ups enjoyed watching the actors, while the kids found their own entertainment. 

 

At the end of the day, Zack marched in a Veteran's Day Parade down the main road.  It was a beautiful day that went by very quickly.   We had a fantastic trip.

Mommy Tales

We've been traveling and having so much fun lately, I haven't had a lot of time to remind the world that I have the cutest daughters ever.

 

See? Cute, right?   For evidence of Ela's cuteness, check previous posts, or just read some of these stories.

Ela is at an age where she says something funny about every thiry seconds. I almost always forget what she's said before I have a chance to write it down or share with the world.  For example, today she visited me in the bathroom while I was getting dressed to inform me that I was the big Mommy, and she was the little Ela.  I have no idea where this came from, but I was amused.
Ela loves Dora the Explorer.  Since we have netflix, I let her choose which episode she watches, and while she hasn't picked up any Spanish, she has learned a few things about the world from them.  One of her favorite episodes is a story called "Catch the Babies."  In this episode, one of Dora's challenges is to find three apples to feed a horse so the horse will move and let Dora pass.  About every morning for breakfast she eats an apple. The apple always leads to the same train of thought for her.  She says "Ela wants apple.  Horses eat apples.  Ela wants to watch Dora catch the babies."  I love listening to how her mind works.
While Ela hasn't picked up any Spanish, she is learning a little Japanese at the moment.  One of her current favorite books is one that my students in Japan gave me when she was born.  It is about animal sounds and which animals make which sounds. I read the Japanese to her and then translate.  She's reached a point now where she repeats the animal names back to me, and she won't tell me the animals in English, even though I know she knows them.  She seems determined to figure out the strange words.  It's interesting. 

Lily is at a disadvantage when it comes to cute stories since she's still learning the basics.  She's still precious (as evidenced by the picture) there's just less to tell.  She's recently learned to sit up on her own, and so she spends a lot of time sitting in places playing with whatever toy I can convince Ela to let her hold onto.  She's teething, so everything goes in her mouth.  Lately, she's been making some great smacking sounds, playing with the new teeth. 
Lily is also a little Daddy's girl.  She lights up whenever she sees him.  One of my favorite things about her is that she can smile and cry at the same time, and often does.  It's like she doesn't know how to stop smiling for long enough to tell us she's sad.  It's funny. 

So we're enjoying our happy girls and taking a little rest this week after the busy month of October.  More stories to follow. 

Treats and Tricks

Our neighborhood is not exactly one that inspires trust, at least after dark.  In fact, my husband says we live in the ghetto.  I disagree.  It's really a very nice place to live, with good people all around.  It's just a neighborhood in the middle of a big city, and as such it's a little less safe than, say, the average suburb.  I feel perfectly safe playing with the girls outside all day long.  However, I think twice about going anywhere alone after dark.  This says much more about DC than it does about my neighbors. 

All the same, last year for Halloween, I decided to take Ela to North Carolina to trick-or-treat.  I did this for several reasons, one of which was that I didn't want to knock on strangers' door in DC.  I felt much more comfortable doing so in my parents' neighborhood, where at least they all knew each other.  It was Ela's first trip out, and I didn't want anything scary to happen.

This year, I decided to give DC a chance.  I know a few more people in my neighborhood, and I didn't figure that Ela would be up for a big run anyway, so I made plans to go out with Ela's best friend, Audrey, who lives up the street.  Zack found out last week that he'd be on a business trip, so I felt better going with at least one other adult.  We'd hit a few houses and call it a day.  After all, people do trick-or-treat here. I didn't want to be totally snooty when I know and like people around here and trust them to help my girls celebrate a fun holiday. 

So Halloween arrived and I managed to convince Ela to put on a costume.  She chose her lady bug one:

In the time it took me to get Lily into her outfit...

... Ela was ready to take the costume off again, but then I reminded her that we were going trick-or-treating (which she'd seen on Dora the Explorer), and that (more importantly) Audrey would be there, and she stuck it out until we got outside, only insisting on losing the headband.

We left the house around 5:45, with plans to meet a bigger group at six for a short trip up a few streets.  We met Princess Audrey at her house and then the rest of the group at a playground, which was nice because the girls got to play on the equipment before we headed out. 

As it turns out, Ela liked trick or treating this year.  She said the right words, and got her candy, and insisted on carrying her own bag.  She loved all of it except getting down steps, which was hard because she couldn't see her feet in her tutu.  We were out for roughly an hour, and it was getting dark when she announced that she was getting tired and wanted to go home.  As we were on our way home at the time, it worked out perfectly.  It was a super experience.  I was very glad I had decided to stay in the area.

I sent Ela inside with a piece of candy (her only one for the night) while I waited on the porch for another neighbor friend who was coming by to trick or treat, since we'd bought candy before I knew Zack wouldn't be home.  His mom was watching him from across the street.  Audrey and her mom were still hitting a few houses on our street.  I saw a police car pull up at the end of our street.  That alone didn't phase me. I'd seen them out and about while we were trick-or-treating, and I actually like that they were so visible on a night that begs for minor mischief.  Then I saw the cop come running down our street from the car.  That was when I decided it was probably time to call it a night.

Apparently, my neighbor decided the same thing, because she started hurring her son along. I met him on the sidewalk with a handful of candy and walked back up to the house to close up shop.  I was closing myself in the house when Fiona called.  She had just gotten home with Audrey and she informed me that the owner of one of the houses she and Audrey had been visiting on their way home had called the cops I'd seen.  Some men had been doing some work for him in his back yard and were held up at gunpoint. 

See? I knew there was a reason we didn't trick or treat in DC last year.

So I turned off the porch light, locked the doors, and pretended we weren't home.  I bathed the girls, and put them to bed, and when I came back downstairs, there was a cop car parked right outside the house.  I figured that meant I was pretty safe to take the dog out one more time, so I did.  My neighbor across the street informed me that they had put up crime scene tape at the end of our block.  I thanked her for the information, and hurried the dog back inside.  Then I set the alarm for the night.

Nothing else out of the ordinary happened, but I was glad we did our trick or treating earlier rather than later.   I'm also glad that next year we'll be in Cary, where the odds of running into a mugging are much much lower.