The status of things

Things are a-changin'. Gillian has caught some scent of that in the wind, or something. We have had some issues with control these past couple of weeks that have to be coming from somewhere. First it was holding her pee until she went on the floor (she refused the diaper and also told me she had a "booboo on [her] 'gina"), which initially looked like it might be an infection...so off to the doctor we went. Just as they were about to insert the catheter to extract a sample (Gillian, a 25 lb toddler, had to be restrained by four adults), she peed and peed and peed. Like a scene from a sitcom, I dashed over, grabbed the bucket from her training potty and caught some while she peed all over the examining table. Even though the urine looked clean, the doc sent out for a culture to make sure and sent us home with some antibiotics (there was no infection). I put some A&D on the outer nether region to make a big show of fixing her boo boo, and we maintained our "no pressure" stance with the peeing, and I think we're finally out of the woods. She's back to the potty, happily, with no more talks of boo boos.

Two weeks ago, we started having departure and sleep issues. We go to our birth class on Wednesdays, and our neighbor (who Gillian adores) watches her for us, feeds her, bathes her, plays with her, and gets her to bed. Gillian barely notices most of the time when we leave, but two Wednesdays ago she decided she didn't want us to leave. She cried and threw a fit when Sean left the house. She wouldn't get off the bed for an hour and a half. Darla called to ask what she might try to do in this scenario. The right answer was to ignore her. Eventually Gillian came out of the bedroom and joined her for dinner and then got in the bath, happily spending the rest of the night with Darla. For good measure, she gave Darla plenty of hugs and kissed and made sure to say "I Love You" as much as possible before bedtime. We had a similar display last Wednesday, except Gillian was so upset she vomited on me...but, apparently, that time as soon as we left, she was fine. Luckily we only have a few classes left, but still.

At bedtime, she has started calling out for us more and more after, say, 2 am. Just the right time to completely kill any restfulness sleep holds for us over the course of a night (especially sine I get up at 4:45 to do my yoga every morning). I went to work three times last week with about 4-4.5 hours of sleep, which isn't working for me right now. Among the stories of why she wouldn't go back to sleep, we had the infamous "the bad monkey bit the fan and now it's broken" or "there's a pink Ra-Ra" or "the Blue Monster ate all the Letters". At the end of the day, I think she's procrastinating, not scared, especially when she charmingly invites me to "rock her in the rocking chair", like it's a priviledge and treat I should be dying to take advantage of (usually true, but not at 2 am on a week night). When she started calling out for Sean only to ask him to pick something up off her floor for her, it became clear that this has nothing to do with being scared, and everything to do with being able to make us come at her leisure. So, we had a heart to heart with her yesterday about how we aren't going to come anymore when she calls us at night. When I tucked her in, we talked about everything in her room being OK, nothing being scary. The "pink RaRa" turned out to be the pink blanket on her book shelf that obviously looked scary from her bed. The fan we turned off and back on. I even put a magic fire truck-(I found it in the grass, but it works) that can squirt anything scary with it's special fire hose and make it go away- next to her bed for good measure. I reiterated that we weren't coming in unless something was really really wrong (which we had just established was not the case), and, like magic, she came out of her room at 7 o'clock, just like she was asked to. I would hate to make this bigger than it is, and hope appealing to her reasonable nature (we all need to sleep so we can play and work well tomorrow) might keep us from having to make this a true power struggle (like revisiting sleep training, for example).

In better news, the weather is finally magnificent and we spent the morning at the beach/playground in the sunshine. In spite of the break in temps the past two weeks, it has pretty much just rained and rained and rained. I was feeling a wee bit frustrated...but today is making me forget all that. Gillian found a ladybug that was docile enough to just sit on her hand for the better part of a half hour, which delighted her (the one that wouldn't sit still did not delight her). She made sand angels (I guess Anna taught her to make snow angels, and that transferred) she commandoed across the sand, fully clothed (who was I to deny her after our beach hiatus??), and we soaked up some vitamin D like sponges.

Current favorite thing: Puzzles. And she's really good at them.

In other news-I'm nesting. Sean finds this hilarious. I accomplished quite a bit this morning before 8 o'clock rolled around.