I have a theory. It's very unscientific, but bear with me. Last winter, just after I bought 6-8 fleece sleepers, we realized that Anna slept better in lightweight sleepers.
This winter I decided to skip any warmer pjs for Anna. My plan was to stick to lighter weight long-sleeve/pants combos. And yet every time we put her in these jammies, she has horrendous nights.
Ah, but what do monkeys have to do with it? An excellent question. For the past two weeks, we have put Anna to bed in either her short-sleeved monkey nightgown, or her short-sleeve/pants monkey jammies. She has slept well, despite being sick last week. For the past two nights, she was in lightweight long sleeve monkey pjs and she resisted going to bed and had poor sleep both nights.
Tonight is the final experiment before the long-sleeved pjs head to Ebay. Anna has a pair of Ariel pjs that are short-sleeve/pants. If she sleeps well in them, I will be safe in concluding the following:
a) It's not the monkey jammies.
b) She's the Jane-child who does not need layers to sleep
c) I probably wasted my money buying sweaters for her this winter.
If she sleeps poorly in them, I will likely conclude the following instead:
a) The Children's Place clearly has sleep-inducing narcotics embedded in their pjs (both short-sleeve monkey options are from there)
b) Monkeys are generally good except when they're not (ie. the long-sleeved monkey jammies from Target)
c) If I was getting more sleep I wouldn't feel the need to conduct experiments with my 21-month-old's sleepwear.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
I guess she pays attention
Last Friday, Ben was keeping the girls busy while I got Shabbat dinner ready. It's ironic - Shabbat is supposed to be a haven of peace, and yet the lead-up to it is inevitably an insane rush (mostly on my part, who are we kidding?) to get work done and dinner on the table and candles lit 18 minutes before sunset. As it gets closer to the shortest day of the year, this time gets earlier and earlier.
When I finally called everyone to the table, Ben brought the girls downstairs. Apparently on the way down, Anna told Ben, "I want to do that Baruch-atah-adonai-eloheinu-melech-ha-olam!" (the beginning of most blessings - she ran it all together as one long word)
It's really amazing to me how much kids soak up when you're not even trying to "teach" them anything. Maybe she'll be doing the four questions at Pesach next year after all!
When I finally called everyone to the table, Ben brought the girls downstairs. Apparently on the way down, Anna told Ben, "I want to do that Baruch-atah-adonai-eloheinu-melech-ha-olam!" (the beginning of most blessings - she ran it all together as one long word)
It's really amazing to me how much kids soak up when you're not even trying to "teach" them anything. Maybe she'll be doing the four questions at Pesach next year after all!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Sleep.... dare I post?
Anna hasn't been feeling well for about a week, but her sleep has never been better! Although she's been waking during the night, she's come into bed with us and slept decently after that. We'll leave aside the issue of whether or not Ben and I can sleep well with a flipping dolphin in bed with us. Seriously, this morning Ben and I sat up in bed and watched her flip-flop her way down to the foot of the bed IN HER SLEEP. Crazy toddler...
She has been taking 2.5-3 hour naps, which is wonderful. The downside to this is that she has only been sleeping 8.5-9.5 hours at night. It makes for very early mornings still, but at least we've finally figured out that she really only seems to need 12 hours of total sleep in a 24-hour period. At that age, Rachel was sleeping closer to 12 hours at night and still taking a nap that was usually 1.5 hours, sometimes 2-2.5 hours. Clearly we were spoiled with her!
And no, we're not considering limiting Anna's nap time. It is annoying having to get both girls ready for bed at the same time (and honestly, I think Rachel needs to be in bed earlier than Anna because she (R) has been getting up way too early again), but the trade-off of steady sleep is awesome.
She has been taking 2.5-3 hour naps, which is wonderful. The downside to this is that she has only been sleeping 8.5-9.5 hours at night. It makes for very early mornings still, but at least we've finally figured out that she really only seems to need 12 hours of total sleep in a 24-hour period. At that age, Rachel was sleeping closer to 12 hours at night and still taking a nap that was usually 1.5 hours, sometimes 2-2.5 hours. Clearly we were spoiled with her!
And no, we're not considering limiting Anna's nap time. It is annoying having to get both girls ready for bed at the same time (and honestly, I think Rachel needs to be in bed earlier than Anna because she (R) has been getting up way too early again), but the trade-off of steady sleep is awesome.
Ah, the age of innocence
Rachel is working on a word search that is appropriately titled "Sick" - both she and Anna are under the weather with colds this week. She was looking for the words fever and flu, and just told me the following:
"Mom, I found an F but it doesn't spell any of the F words!"
Yes, I managed not to snort my coke out through my nose.
"Mom, I found an F but it doesn't spell any of the F words!"
Yes, I managed not to snort my coke out through my nose.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
More from the trenches
Yesterday I cooked a "nice" meal for lunch since Ben has rehearsals every night this week and he was taking pasta with him for dinner. I filled all of the water glasses at the beginning of the meal as I always do.
About halfway through eating, Rachel reached for her water glass which was empty. I told her sternly to pay attention and that there was no point picking up her water glass because there was nothing in it.
"But why didn't you give me any water?" she asked.
"I did. You drank it." *stifled laughter from both adults at the table*
Yes, I gave her a refill.
*****************************************************************************
Last night after the girls went to bed, I finally took on the arduous task of cleaning up the playroom. I sorted (read: purged) the toys and by the end of the night, the room was looking much cleaner. We just won't talk about the large bin of stuff in the basement waiting to be donated somewhere!
When the girls got up this morning, neither one had anything to say about it, but I noticed that they both played happily with various toys. I think that Rachel was pleased to see her little Strawberry Shortcake dolls after such a long absence, and Anna had plenty of space to dump things and generally create disasters in her wake.
Since Rachel has a "late" (4:15-5:30) Kindermusik class on Wednesdays, we didn't really have time for the girls to clean up the playroom before they went to bed. I went in there a little while ago, figuring that it would only take a few minutes to sort things out.
I hadn't banked on Anna playing a little game of hide-and-seek with the pieces from her new, beloved chunky transportation puzzle. The police car and boat were in a corner of the playroom behind Rachel's old carseat. The train engine turned up in a bin of Little People and toy cars, while the airplane was found in a bin of Build-a-Bear clothes. The (rather large) school bus and fire engine are still at large. I suspect that they may have been tossed into the blocks bin, but I'm not about to dump it to find out!
While searching for the elusive puzzle pieces, I was amused to find a foam bath shark in Anna's ball popper. Tempting though it was, I refrained from pushing the button to see if the shark would shoot up and out accompanied by irritating melodies. I'll save that for the morning instead.
About halfway through eating, Rachel reached for her water glass which was empty. I told her sternly to pay attention and that there was no point picking up her water glass because there was nothing in it.
"But why didn't you give me any water?" she asked.
"I did. You drank it." *stifled laughter from both adults at the table*
Yes, I gave her a refill.
*****************************************************************************
Last night after the girls went to bed, I finally took on the arduous task of cleaning up the playroom. I sorted (read: purged) the toys and by the end of the night, the room was looking much cleaner. We just won't talk about the large bin of stuff in the basement waiting to be donated somewhere!
When the girls got up this morning, neither one had anything to say about it, but I noticed that they both played happily with various toys. I think that Rachel was pleased to see her little Strawberry Shortcake dolls after such a long absence, and Anna had plenty of space to dump things and generally create disasters in her wake.
Since Rachel has a "late" (4:15-5:30) Kindermusik class on Wednesdays, we didn't really have time for the girls to clean up the playroom before they went to bed. I went in there a little while ago, figuring that it would only take a few minutes to sort things out.
I hadn't banked on Anna playing a little game of hide-and-seek with the pieces from her new, beloved chunky transportation puzzle. The police car and boat were in a corner of the playroom behind Rachel's old carseat. The train engine turned up in a bin of Little People and toy cars, while the airplane was found in a bin of Build-a-Bear clothes. The (rather large) school bus and fire engine are still at large. I suspect that they may have been tossed into the blocks bin, but I'm not about to dump it to find out!
While searching for the elusive puzzle pieces, I was amused to find a foam bath shark in Anna's ball popper. Tempting though it was, I refrained from pushing the button to see if the shark would shoot up and out accompanied by irritating melodies. I'll save that for the morning instead.
Monday, November 02, 2009
A few random things
The other day, Rachel was playing piano and Anna was not so patiently waiting her turn. After a few minutes, I asked Rachel to get down so Anna could play for a bit. Anna got up on the bench before Rachel got off, and she pushed Rachel.
Um, no. "Sorry, Anna, you lost your turn," I told her sternly as I lifted her down from the bench.
She proceeded to throw herself on the floor and had a lovely temper tantrum. In between sobs, I heard her yelling "I want to practice piano, I want to practice piano, I want to practice piano!!!" (To my mother and anyone else who notices/cares: Yes, I agree that practise as a verb should be spelled with an s, but no-one else does it that way and I just can't be bothered. Don't worry. I won't be taking out the letter u any time soon.)
********************************************************************
Rachel has developed a bad habit of sucking on her fingers lately. We're not sure why, unless it's time for those elusive and mysterious 6-year molars that I may have heard about. Or perhaps I invented that concept in a sleep-deprived stupour. In any case, she was having a snack a couple of days ago at the kitchen table. I had asked her to sit at the table because she wanted to eat her snack, read her magazine (ok, it's a Hanna Andersson catalogue - what can I say, the kid has good taste?!) AND watch the tv show that was on.
Apparently this was too many things for poor Captain Oblivious. I turned around from the computer to see her silently sobbing.
"What's wrong?" I asked, all worried.
"I accidentally put my fingers in my mouth instead of my snack and I bit down on them and it hurts!!! But I didn't bite my finger off!" she informed me in between sobs.
I managed to tell her that I would go upstairs and get Dad since he was the expert in checking wounds. I fully admit that the minute I got upstairs, I was doubled over laughing.
***********************************************************************
We didn't go trick-or-treating on Saturday night since Shabbat didn't end until just after 7. Rachel knew it was Halloween but didn't really care about going out. I think she figured that she got her candy at Boo at the Zoo last weekend, so it was all good.
Just before Havdalah (end of Shabbat), I told Anna that after that it would be time to go upstairs and have stories. "No thank you, I want to stay downstairs," she informed me. Hey now, who said the 20-month-old was allowed to have opinions?
************************************************************************
We had a rather long weekend, not even factoring in the silly time change. Ben found out not that long ago that he had to have a final-looking version of his (at that point UNWRITTEN) thesis in to the graduate school office by today. Needless to say, his wife was not very pleased about this, especially since it meant giving up a gorgeous weekend to write, edit, criticize, re-edit, and finally put together something resembling a thesis, the point of which remains to be seen.
We're both amused that his advisor does not seem to have even read Ben's thesis, but instead emailed to say that the signed approval forms were in the office for Ben to pick up. This morning he emailed to say that he would read the thesis in a day or two and then they could set up a meeting. Whatever works, I guess!
I suggested the following text to Ben for his acknowledgements page:
"The author wants to thank his family for their support, especially his wife and mother-in-law who would like to throttle him for his inability to write a coherent, grammatically correct sentence."
He didn't go for it. I can't imagine why not. He does owe my mother a few drinks for giving up several hours of her Sunday morning/afternoon to proofread though!
Um, no. "Sorry, Anna, you lost your turn," I told her sternly as I lifted her down from the bench.
She proceeded to throw herself on the floor and had a lovely temper tantrum. In between sobs, I heard her yelling "I want to practice piano, I want to practice piano, I want to practice piano!!!" (To my mother and anyone else who notices/cares: Yes, I agree that practise as a verb should be spelled with an s, but no-one else does it that way and I just can't be bothered. Don't worry. I won't be taking out the letter u any time soon.)
********************************************************************
Rachel has developed a bad habit of sucking on her fingers lately. We're not sure why, unless it's time for those elusive and mysterious 6-year molars that I may have heard about. Or perhaps I invented that concept in a sleep-deprived stupour. In any case, she was having a snack a couple of days ago at the kitchen table. I had asked her to sit at the table because she wanted to eat her snack, read her magazine (ok, it's a Hanna Andersson catalogue - what can I say, the kid has good taste?!) AND watch the tv show that was on.
Apparently this was too many things for poor Captain Oblivious. I turned around from the computer to see her silently sobbing.
"What's wrong?" I asked, all worried.
"I accidentally put my fingers in my mouth instead of my snack and I bit down on them and it hurts!!! But I didn't bite my finger off!" she informed me in between sobs.
I managed to tell her that I would go upstairs and get Dad since he was the expert in checking wounds. I fully admit that the minute I got upstairs, I was doubled over laughing.
***********************************************************************
We didn't go trick-or-treating on Saturday night since Shabbat didn't end until just after 7. Rachel knew it was Halloween but didn't really care about going out. I think she figured that she got her candy at Boo at the Zoo last weekend, so it was all good.
Just before Havdalah (end of Shabbat), I told Anna that after that it would be time to go upstairs and have stories. "No thank you, I want to stay downstairs," she informed me. Hey now, who said the 20-month-old was allowed to have opinions?
************************************************************************
We had a rather long weekend, not even factoring in the silly time change. Ben found out not that long ago that he had to have a final-looking version of his (at that point UNWRITTEN) thesis in to the graduate school office by today. Needless to say, his wife was not very pleased about this, especially since it meant giving up a gorgeous weekend to write, edit, criticize, re-edit, and finally put together something resembling a thesis, the point of which remains to be seen.
We're both amused that his advisor does not seem to have even read Ben's thesis, but instead emailed to say that the signed approval forms were in the office for Ben to pick up. This morning he emailed to say that he would read the thesis in a day or two and then they could set up a meeting. Whatever works, I guess!
I suggested the following text to Ben for his acknowledgements page:
"The author wants to thank his family for their support, especially his wife and mother-in-law who would like to throttle him for his inability to write a coherent, grammatically correct sentence."
He didn't go for it. I can't imagine why not. He does owe my mother a few drinks for giving up several hours of her Sunday morning/afternoon to proofread though!
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