Roblog

I made a new sandwich by mistake last week. As I went to make a turkey sandwich to go along with my peanut butter sandwich on Thursday, I realized the turkey was bad (a few days too old). This was after I had already put the mustard and the cheese on the bread.

I had to make a quick call - no time for dawdling in the morning. We had no other lunchmeat in the house. So I decided to take a chance - I finished off the sandwich with some peanut butter. I like all three ingredients, so how bad can it be?

It wasn't all that bad, although I can't say I actually enjoyed it. It was edible but by about three-quarters the way through, I decided it wasn't worth it. I threw the rest away. You gotta know when to fold 'em.

Amanda has had some trouble recently getting to sleep. She cries and screams if we turn the light off, even though there is a night light in the room. Once or twice, keeping the light on calmed her down (even if neither her nor Elena got to sleep right away when we did so). Starting about 5 days ago, though, when the light was on it seemed to keep both of them up for hours. Elena woudl really prefer not to have the light on at bedtime.

I would turn the light off and negotiate with Amanda as to why the room was safe and that she didn't have to be scared. Her rebuttal, unchanged no matter what point we made, was "But I'm still scary!". Holding her, walking her around the house, reading her a story ... everything we tried just seemed to prolong the crying and not avoid it.

Finally, Monday night (after literally banging my head against the wall), Donna devised a strategy to deal with it. We would leave the light off and put up with the screaming and crying to help her train herself to put herself to sleep. But before we left the room, we would explain to her what she can do to keep from feeling so scared. We asked Elena what she did when she felt scared, and she said she covered up with her blanket. Donna is also keeping them up during the day (no naps!) to make sure they are tired enough to go to sleep at 8:00 PM.

Monday night was bad. She cried for about 20 minutes before falling asleep. That is always hard to bear. Last night, it only lasted about 20 seconds. Hopefully, tonight will be equally uneventful.

It seems I've had several bedtime-related entries recently (BTW - Amanda is going to sleep without complaint - except for just now when a "bumblebee" was in her crib), and today's is no exception.

We bought the girls' new beds last night. They should be delivered next Tuesday. They had a blast running around the furniture store (Fingers) climbing on the beds. Elena seemed partial to the Buzz Lightyear one. Even waiting in the "order processing and payment" area was fun for them, since there was an older girl (7 years old?) waiting there to that they could chase.

At first, I was worried that the girls might react adversely to moving into a bed from their cribs. They like their cribs - they can jump in them safely (always fun) and drape a blanket over them and you have an instant tent! So I wanted to make sure they started hearing that their cribs would be going away. They've been pretty underwhelmed about that event. Maybe the cribs don't mean as much to them as I thought.

The new beds for the girls arrived yesterday. Donna had gotten one of the cribs disassembled and out of their room when the delivery truck showed up to deliver the beds, but they helped with the second one. It wasn't long before the new beds were all assembled and in place.

The girls enjoyed playing on them all day (mostly they played "sleep"), so I was a little worried if they would be able to go to sleep easily. As it turns out, perhaps aided by the fact they didn't get a nap yesterday, they went to sleep quite quickly. When I went to bed, I couldn't help but to peek in on them: Amanda was curled up on the sheet but without covers holding her pillow, and Elena was under the covers on her tummy with her arms spread wide (hugging the bed?). Neither woke up during the night.

I thought they might decide to make up on their own and get out of bed this morning, but they didn't. We went in their room at 6:33 AM to wake them up. We found Amanda asleep on the floor next to her bed! I don't know if she fell out and didn't cry, or climbed out (asleep or awake). She said she didn't cry but "pretended to cry". She didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that she was on the floor, at any rate. We can get her some bedrails if she needs them.

I overslept yesterday. I forgot to turn on my alarm, and so I slept an hour and a half later than I had intended. When I finally did wake up, I showered, got dressed, read the paper during breakfast, helped wake up the kids, drove to the park-n-ride, caught the bus, and arrived at work.

At about 7:55 AM. I woke up at 5:50 AM. It's a sad commentary on my work life that this has to be considered "sleeping in" some days.

On the weekends, though, I have been known to sleep until 7:00 AM. Woo-hoo!