Friday, July 30, 2010

Sleep drama...Again

We are making a return to the sleep-deprived cranky toddler. We took the side off of her crib completely to make it a "big girl bed" and with her newly discovered independence, Roxanne is in a sleep deficit. She gets up and turns the light on, picks up books, walks around, etc., but we still feel like this is just what's next. She's been doing really well with her potty training, so we want to make it so that she can get up to go potty if we go down that route in the next few months. Or year. And really, it just felt like it was time. She seems to LOVE the "big girl bed" and talks about it a lot, but it's definitely an adjustment. I've been reading horror stories of kids being up and down all night during this transition, and it certainly hasn't been that bad, but missing one or two hours of sleep at this age still has an impact on her. In any case, this new transition has brought on some very funny (after the fact) moments. Here's my favorites:

*As I said, she likes to turn the light on, but she can't reach it. At first, she was putting her chair under the switch and climbing on it to reach. After I caught on around 10pm the other night, I moved the chair out of her room. Twenty minutes later, she walked out of her room crying, and telling me that I needed to put the chair back and she wouldn't stand on it again. When I refused, she figured out how to pull her laundry basket (with dirty clothes in it) to the switch, and stand in that to turn the light on. So I put that basket on the glider in her room. She pulled it down, and turned the light on. When I went in to turn it back off and put her back to bed, I put the basket in the playroom. She had a meltdown, and told me that the laundry basket had to stay in her chair (the glider). I told her no, and that it was going to stay in the playroom. She kept on and on, and since it was 11 by this point, I just put the basket back on the chair. But apparently, this was not enough. She insisted on finding Justin and telling him that the basket was to stay on the chair. After that, she stayed in her bed and fell asleep.

*A couple of nights ago, she came out of her room crying and asking for me. When I went to her, I brought her back to her room and put her in her bed, but she kept crying and saying something I couldn't understand. When I finally got her to calm down, I could understand her, and she was asking me to "get that scary crocodile out" of her room. So we talked about it and decided there indeed was no scary crocodile. An hour later, we had a repeat, except this time, she wanted me to get the eyeballs out of her bed. Seriously. How gross is that???? I finally decided that she was talking about the dot pattern on her sheets, since they do sort of look like cartoon eyeballs in the dark. But they are dots with hearts and flowers in them! Talk about backfiring...

Today, we had an unexpected day off. So we ran lots of unnecessary errands (i.e. window shopping and buying little things here and there) and just generally had a nice day. We came home to nap, and Roxanne was just really not having it. At one point, she snuck out of her room, went in the playroom and closed the door behind her. But she totally got herself caught by immediately picking up her Muno guitar. I could hear her playing the Foofa song, so I came in and put her back to bed. Let's hope she doesn't figure out any new sneaky techniques. I'm apparently not very intimidating when it comes to these situations...

Thursday, July 22, 2010

OK, some real pictures

Roxanne LOVES helping these days. She loves to do grown up stuff with us, and Justin decided to let her help with the laundry down in the basement. He got these photos of her down there. I say we keep this trend going. :)
She's a busy thing.
Eating delicious cupcakes with the birthday girl.
Riding Evie's bike.
She's telling me something important here.
Checking things out.
"Give me the camera, mama!"

Roxanne's photography skills

Here's a collection of Roxanne's photographs. She LOVES taking pictures. I think we should get her one of those toddler digital cameras for her birthday. They seem rough and ready for drops and spills. Some of these are from home, others from her friend Evie's birthday party.


Her portrait of the birthday girl.
With the help of sunlight, Roxanne actually caught a real picture. And who doesn't love the pictures of someone else taking a picture?? Classic.
This red light was coming off the camera. I have no idea how she managed to catch this, but it's cute.
This is such a cute angle. She sometimes forgets that she has to turn the camera away from her, hence all of the close up self portraits.
Right after throwing a fit and being rewarded by getting the camera. Mom of the Year. That's me. See those crocodile tears???
I love her little shadow, and her toe. This was at the party
Again, at Evie's party. She always tells me she loves her red sandals.
This is me and Justin. There's something kind of adorable about this "portrait" of us. Like, this is from Roxanne's viewpoint... If you were to pan up, we were smiling nicely and saying cheese for her, but this was the result. Awesome. Oh, it was also taken at Evie's party.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Bootie Queen

Roxanne just talks about booties all the time these days. Is it the Spongebob SquarePants? Should we stop watching it? Or is it just that she's my child, and has inherited some of my weird quirkiness? I mean, it's nothing really gross or weird (phew) but still. She's such a silly little kid. Her other current obsessions are reading (that's always a big one for her) which involves holding a book during nap and even at bedtime some nights. She will sometimes wake up in the night and ask for a specific book that she wants to hold. I know she can't actually see it in her crib because her night light doesn't shine very brightly. It's more of a blue glow as part of her noise machine (she likes to listen to the classical music setting on it all night, every night). But she's super specific about which book she wants. So it is not unheard of for me or Justin to be standing in her room half asleep, silently cursing as we dig through her giant book bin trying desperately to find "the Sleeping Beauty book," or the "Muno can't sleep book," or the "Wonderpets Book - no the big one, not the one that plays music!" She's a little tyrant. But so charming during the day... She definitely reminds me of that little rhyme my mom used to always say to me:
Once there was a girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good, she was very very good, and when she was bad she was horrid.

One of her other big controlling times is when she's singing a certain song and can't remember the words. She'll yell at me or Justin "I can't do anything! I can't sing the song! You help me! You help me!" And then Justin and I help her sing the song in half-terrified voices. The other day, she wanted Justin to sing the "princess song," which is this one from Cinderella about "a dream is a wish your heart makes." I sing it to her often, but she has only seen the real version once or twice. Justin has NO idea what the words are, so when she kept demanding that he sing it, we both kept trying to deflect it to me. But she was adamant that Justin sing it, and was almost melting down at his refusal. So finally, we pulled a Cyrano D'Bergerac and I whispered each line to him and then he would sing it. Oh the ridiculousness of parenting... I promise we aren't always total indulgent softies. We just pick our battles. Roxanne has taught us a lot about what to worry about and what to just let go. She's a stubborn little thing, and she's very particular, but she's also extremely smart and precocious. Kind of a tough combination to fight with. :) She's already learned the old "Mommy, can I have ice cream for dinner?" and when I say "of course not!" she simply turns to Justin and says "Daddy, can I have ice cream for dinner?" Sigh.

Oh, and for other news, I just put up a big long rambling post on our house blog. Hope you are all doing well, and staying cool!

Monday, July 12, 2010

Seriously bad blogging













Sorry. I need to get back in line with my blogging! Remember those days when I blogged sometimes MORE THAN ONCE IN A DAY??? I'm working on it. Seriously.

In family news, Roxanne is really basically becoming a kid. No more baby. She's so precocious, and says and does things on an hourly basis that kind of blow my mind. Like the other night at dinner where she asked Justin if he knew about the oil spill. "It's on the beach." she said while nodding earnestly. I guess maybe I need to cool it on the NPR. She is becoming very girly now, too. She wants to paint her finger and toe nails all the time, and she LOVES wearing dresses. As soon as she puts it on, she announces: "I'm a pretty princess." Is this kind of thing instinctual??? She also has been increasingly interested in putting toys/babies/balled up pieces of paper, etc. "to bed" and calling them little babies or kittens. She is obsessed with snuggling things in blankets and giving them pillows.