(please excuse Sloane's skinned knee and bruised up shins -- this is life with a daredevil toddler who launches herself off of things with no regard to her own safety)
It's been a busy few days here. Grandma Janet was here for mommy's MBA graduation ceremony (pictures will be posted tomorrow) and we've been having lots of fun together.
Sloane has become obsessed with playing peek-a-boo. She'll grab anything in sight and cover her face - laundry, pieces of paper, toys, you name it.
The other day, while mommy was folding laundry, she grabbed something wholly inappropriate for peek-a-boo:
You are a non-stop bundle of energy. You can climb the stairs in the blink of an eye. You can wave bye-bye and clap and point to things you want. You like to give things to people and get very excited when the person says "thank you." You can kick a ball and you can run and you can swing on the swings (though you prefer it when daddy pushes you fast instead of scaredy-cat mommy who pushes too slow).
You are chatty and you love to give hugs and kisses. You try to dress your doll and put on your own shoes. You get frustrated when we can't understand you when you "talk" to us.
But most of all, you are a joy to be around and instantly brighten any room you are in and lighten the mood of anyone who comes in contact with you.
You're no longer a baby, but a headstrong, opinionated little girl.
Sloane has taken to talking -- not just her previous babbling, but entire conversations - with emphasis and punctuation. The only problem? Stupid Mommy and Stupid Daddy can't understand her, the dolts. This leads to no end of frustration on her part, usually followed by deep and demonstrative sighing over said parents' rank idiocy.
We've had a busy week here! Mommy had the yuckies, Daddy was busy with job interviews (yay, Daddy!) and Sloane? Sloane was just busy, busy, busy getting this walking thing down pat:
Riding the panda at the Roosevelt Middle School playground (around the corner from our house)
Sitting on her Throne (thanks, Uncle Pete and Aunt Maria, for her cool musical chair - she loves it)
Running wild
Sleep training This was also the week of sleep training. Before the past few months, I always thought ferberizing was horribly cruel and that I would never do it. After literally month and months of limited sleep and having to function at work (that old adage of "nap when the baby naps!" doesn't exactly work for working mothers and if another person says it to me, they'll get punched in the mouth), ferberizing was starting to look like the only option.
A little history: when Sloane finally dropped her last night feeding (11 pm) at the beginning of September, she became a pretty good sleeper. She couldn't sit up yet, so when she'd wake in the night crying, John or I would run in quickly, pat her on her back or tummy (depending on which way she was sleeping), stick the binky in, and run out. She'd be back asleep in a minute or two. Then came that horrible November when she was literally sick every single week (cold, stomach virus, double ear infection, cold) and John or I would hold her and rock her to get back to sleep. Then in December, she cut two teeth, plus we threw off the schedule by spending 10 days at my parents' house in New Orleans, six of those days without John. In the meantime, she learned how to sit up and, later, how to pull herself up. And she got used to being held and rocked to sleep no matter what time of night it was. By last week, we would be up for at least two hours trying to get her back to sleep at 12 am and again at 3 am. Every. Single. Night. We were exhausted and she was exhausted. We simply couldn't do it anymore.
So, at the urging of my pediatrician, my mom friends and my mother, this past Monday night, we embarked on a modified CIO method (not as extreme as ferber). It's been a tough six nights, but so far, we've made pretty good progress and we're confident that a few more nights will do the trick. It's been heart wrenching to hear her cry and not rush in to pick her up and cuddle her (our process is to go in every five minutes while she's crying, settle her back down without picking her up or talking to her, pat her back a few times and walk back out). But both of us know it has to be done and in the long run, she'll get better sleep. But it's been very hard.
