Perhaps the true reason I am exhausted is that Lucy is in another one of her "phases." Bryan reminded me the other day that she has gone through many "phases" like this one, I just tend to block them out. Her latest phase is one in which she does not sleep too much at night. Yes, gone are the days of 12 hours of peace and quiet. Lucy now wakes up 3 or 4 times each night, and will NOT go back to sleep. She wants Bryan or I to stay in her room with her, and when we do, she still takes FOREVER to go back to sleep. She is also having lots of active dreams and nightmares (which the doctor reassures me is totally normal-super!)
My little independent spirit has become very clingy again too (I am reminded of months 9-11). She wants me to hold her all the time, and seems to be leery of a lot of things that in the past would not have bothered her. I think THIS part of the "phase" is normal, as she is now aware of fear and being afraid of different things. (Thus the reason swimming lessons are not so fun right now, despite my best efforts and the efforts of my sweet friend Katie.)
If you will remember, she has been in a toddler bed for about 6 months.
The transition was so easy! We had a couple of rough nights, but she didn't get out of bed until we got there, slept all night, and seemed to love it. However, about a month ago, all of that changed. Lu is having all these crazy nights, and I feel like I did when she was a newborn-kind of in a fog, and drinking lots of coffee. I NEED SLEEP!!!! Most people I think can probably do on 6-7 hours, but not me! I am a 8-9 hour girl, and I have some major deficits in that area.
So, not only am I NOT sleeping (I should interject that Bryan is not sleeping either, but hey, this blog is more about me than him ;-), but my body is also suffering due to this craziness. If you will notice in the picture above, Lucy's bed is a toddler bed. SO, when B or I go into her room we sit in the floor next to this bed and try to comfort her and let her know she can go back to sleep. Let's stop and take a minute to review what we know about the floor...1. It is hard, 2. It is NOT a great bed, 3. It has no soft sheets and cozy pillows.
So picture me, trying to sleep on the floor next to Lucy while rubbing her back or holding her hand all the while my body going numb. It is such a treat! Almost a month into it, we have had enough.
Enter even BIGGER big girl bed. We are done horribly hard floor, we are done.
If we have to sleep with Lucy, it won't be in our bed, and we won't be going numb anymore either. Let me say this ON THE RECORD...I don't want to enable my child to not be able to sleep by herself. However, when she's screaming her head off or has had a bad dream and is freaked out, I am not going to just let her scream. Please be reminded of the fact that when she was a baby and we were told to let her "cry it out" she cried it out for 3-4 hours (of course we did go in and comfort her during these HOURS, but the child is hard headed and doesn't give up after 15 minutes like most normal children do). So, we're going in her room , trying to comfort her the best we can, and are no longer going numb.
Now, on to the crafty part of this entry. When we put the new bigger big girl bed up, we realized Lucy needed some sort of end table. Well, please note we are poor. Really poor right now. (You can feel free to take a moment to cross fingers, say a prayer, poke a voo-doo doll, whatever floats your boat-in hopes that after finishing his student teaching in December, Bryan will FIND A TEACHING JOB!) So, how do I get a table that is cute and funky AND CHEAP? I scoured the town and found this table on clearance at Hobby Lobby:
Note that I am in the spray paint aisle. I loved the table as it was, very shabby chic. However, it didn't really fit Lucy's room. After 30 minutes in the backyard with a can of spray paint, we now have:
This very cute pink side table. It is the perfect size for Lucy's lamp, clock, and bedtime story- book Bible. So cute!
P.S. Lucy woke up at 1:00 last night, and I fell asleep in her bed almost instantly (as did Lucy). Woke up at 7! Success :)
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