flea | Entries tagged with casper sleep

This wasn't Casper today, but rather the day that we drove down to Athens, after the movers took our stuff.

Her attitude today was rather more screamful, with added kicking and fighting. We made it to school only five minutes late (first tardy notice on day five!), but mr. flea thinks we should start waking her at 6:30 instead of 7, to have more time to deal with her before the 7:30 leave the house deadline. I dunno. I wish this would get her to sleep earlier, but not so far.

The thing about Dillo sleeping through (he would have last night, except a bathroom-needing screamfest from Casper at midnight woke him) is that when he sleeps through, he's up for the day at 5 or 5:30 or 6. I guess this is better than up at 10 and 12 and 2 and 4, but it's still sub-ideal.

Casper is sleeping on the cat's pillow-bed in the corner of the living room, where she built a nest for herself this afternoon.

mr. flea and I were working on getting the networked computers to talk to each other, and Casper was, we thought, playing with her doll house dining room and assorted residents on the table. She came in to tell us that she had just put her brother to bed (we thought he was already there). She said she went in and found him standing up looking out from the crib so she climbed in (I didn't know she could do this but mr. flea did) and told him to lie down on his pillow and put his blanket over him and gave him his Uglydoll and pulled the string on the music-maker and told him to go to sleep, and he did. mr. flea later checked and found he was indeed as she had described, facing opposite to the way he had put him down. Do you think we could teach her to do this every night? In any case it bodes well for the possibility of them sharing a room or a bed in future.

Today we went to the pool, at the city rec center, where we'd never been. It's pretty decent, $2 each for city residents (Dillo free) and they have decent open swim hours. Obviously not crowded as it is winter and a holiday weekend at that. Dillo was afraid of the water for a long time but ultimately got used to it. Casper continues to think she can swim but in fact she can only vaguely dogpaddle when held up, will not put her face in the water, and cannot use a kickboard. They have very well-priced swim lessons, so perhaps that will help move her forward; signup for the next lot is Jan. 14 (not to self!)

Emmett is doing basketball and I asked Casper if she'd like to also. In light of the fact that they would be in different sessions (as he is five and she is 4 and it can never work out between them) she opted no, saying she'd rather do soccer. So must keep an eye on when the reputedly good league starts spring sessions (we missed fall by finding out too late). Note to self: ask Stephanie's mum.

Tomorrow we may go to the zoo, although if it rains Monday may be a better day. I hope it is a good one; I find all zoos rather depressing but from the maps it looks like a decent one. Can't possibly be as depressing as the Athens zoo, which is essentially what zoos were in about 1950s US I think.

Dillo seems to be developing by leaps and bounds lately - he is just so tuned and and understands so much and communicates so well (despite poor pronunciation - but once you know that "boo" means "cow" you're good.) Such a big little noodle person.

He was terrified of the carousel at the mall the other day - literally trembling in fear until I took him off the horse and just held him in my arms. He is slow to adapt to new things; slower than Casper was at any rate.

Moxie, for one, calls 18 months a very difficult time - I think meaning there is a lot of clinginess and frustration at lack of communication, and the start of honest-to-god whining - but I love it for the language leaping process and the deeper and truer glimpses one gets of who the little person really is.

Here is my little person (remember, "boo" means cow, I couldn't get him to say kitty, which sounds like "gee", and "mine" is fairly well-articulated):

The Dillo fell down and hit his head on a chair at day care this morning, and it being a fancy-pants NAEYC-accredited joint, they called me to say so and filled out an official "incident report." These are pretty pro-forma, but there's a line at the bottom that reads, "Description of corrective action taken to prevent a similar occurrence."

Miss Apryl wrote, "Encourage child to be careful while walking."

Heh. I mean, he's 14 months old. Bonks happen. This one has left a very pretty bruise on his cheekbone and forehead, but it's just lucky he fell off the toilet in such a way this morning that he became wedged between it and the sink, and was thus uninjured.

He's walking very well now - falls down sometimes, but other times is really running. He ran across the room to me when I picked him up today.

Today we were playing block and he stacked one on top of the tower I was building. I love how the littles can tell they have done something hard and accomplishful, and look proud of themselves. He also, carefully and painstakingly, climbed into the big tupperware that holds the blocks, and then got annoyed when it was too small for him to stretch out his legs.

We've been getting Casper to bed, by herself, no protesting (or only very minimal) at 8pm regularly now. No more temper problems at school. But I feel like I hardly see her in the day, now that she's going to sleep an hour and a half earlier!

Dillo has slept badly this week, up 3 times in the night several nights running (when his usual is once at 1am and maybe again at 5, but sometimes not.) His top canines are well in.

1. Dillo is growing canines. On top.

2. I got Casper asleep by 8:30 pm. Go me.

3. Eleventy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/casperflea/1435323168/

When I left this morning, both kids were crying. Casper woke up and had an accident in her bed, and that set the day off wrong. Then she tried to put approximately a pound of cinnamon sugar on her toast and freaked out when mr. flea prevented her. Dillo was just crying because he's a baby and that happens sometimes. Actually he only started crying when I said goodbye, so it was probably me leaving that was the problem.

Yesterday Casper hit a girl named Bianca at the end of the day as they were lining up for dismissal. She was crying when Beth got there, and Beth talked to Mrs. B about it, but we couldn't get much out of Casper, just that Bianca was doing something she wasn't supposed to (touching a broom in the janitor closet?) It's so hard to rely on a just-four year old to give you an accurate account - or any account - of an event.

This is the update from mr. flea:
"Casper had a rough morning this morning. I got her ready and out the
door quickly and over to drop Dill off at DCC. All her old teachers
got to say hello to her and I think that cheered her up some. I
dropped Dillo off and he cried ... I took Casper over to Whole Foods
to get a treat and talk some. She had 1/2 chocolate chip cookie and
some chocolate milk.

Then into school and I spoke with Mrs. B. It turns out that she
has been waking up from nap in a bad mood, you know like she does
some times. Mrs. B. isn't letting her sleep long enough - 30 - 45
minutes. I think this is because she is trying to gradually ween the
kids off nap time so they can get more done in the afternoons.

Yesterday she was in a really bad mood after waking up and it went on
all afternoon. When they were standing in line at the end of the day
Bianca was trying to be nice to her asking what was wrong when Casper
hit her. This really bothers me. I apologized to Bianca.

I spoke to Casper and told her to keep her hands to herself,
especially when she is upset. I told Mrs B. that we would talk to
Casper about waking up from nap time over the weekend and that I
didn't think 30 - 45 min. was enough nap time. I think that we can
solve this problem.

I think she would be better off not going to sleep. What do you think?"

I'd LOVE to rearrange Casper's schedule so she goes to bed earlier and doesn't need a nap. But it's going to be hard. If they lie down at all at school she'll fall asleep, I think. She's pretty tired a lot lately - I have heard from a lot of parents that school makes the kids really tired, even if they are used to all-day daycare. Her ideal schedule would be to go to sleep at 9 or 9:30 - the way she does now - and sleep late in the mornings. But her room is sort of at the crossroads of the house and she tends to get woken up in the AMs by 7 or 7:30. If I'm the only one up, she can sleep as late as 8, but once Dillo's up, and he usually is, she's up. (School drop-off is 8:45).

Anybody got advice on shifting her schedule? She will lie in bed with the light off but awake for a loooong time if we put her down early. Like, an hour. If we just did this for a solid week, do you think it would take? I suppose we'll try.

(As an aside, isn't Bianca a lovely name? I don't think we could get away with it, but if I were Italian or Hispanic, yeah!)

Just a long and tired week, with visitors.

Casper news:
I am amazed in general at the human capacity to learn idiomatic speech. I mean, who would have thought an almost three year old could come out with things like, "Since you like jumping, I'm gonna show you some special jumps!"

Great sleeping. This helps a lot.

If mr. flea tells her to do something, she'll reply, "o-KAY, Mister Bossy!" This is not as rude as it sounds, since it is a quotation from Finding Nemo.

We've had better success with table manners - i.e. sitting at the table and actually eating dinner - by dint of threatening to take away whatever she creeps off to play with. mr. flea does the threatening. We developed this after the question, "Do you want a time out?" got the response, "Yes!!" She also now asks to be excused (generally when reminded), and has been introduced to the concept of the Clean Plate Ranger.

Dillo news:
Took him to work today, where he was an ANGEL. Slept, looked google-eyed, nursed quietly and then miraculously did not give a half-hour performance of grunts, groans, and spitups afterwards.

He's getting bigger, I think. We're 5.5 weeks and I think he is already past the worst of the crankiness - he was never as systematic as Casper was. Has graduated to some lying on the floor and kicking of legs. Rolled up onto his side today. You've got to watch out when he's in your lap because he's strong and will try to shoot himself off by kicking.

Sleep is just okay. The big stretch is still 9-12 or 1 if we're very lucky. Last night I had him to myself as mr. flea fell asleep in Casper's bed, and he slept 9-12, nursed and then was awake wiggling but quiet until 1, slept 1-4, then dozed and wiggled on and off until 6, when I woke mr. flea and begged for a respite. (Yes, sane people would/could sleep through the quiet wiggly phase, but I am not sane.)

I think now he look like Lou Costello: http://www.flickr.com/photos/casperflea/217808539/