Bad Dreams

Friday night was a long one. Hannah made it through night #4 without waking up so that was great but somehow we still managed to be up all night...with Maddy. As I've said before, each week at school, Maddy's class has a theme. They talk about it all week, read books and do art work related to the theme. Friday was a special day and they were able to watch a movie related to the theme. Last week's theme was FARM and Friday's movie was Milo and Otis. Now I've never seen the movie but I'm making the assumption it's pretty tame if a room full of 3-year olds can watch it. However, Maddy went to bed Friday night and proceeded to have nightmares about all things animal and farm related. She would wake up screaming about her "yucky" dreams. We made it through the night but it was rough.

So, Saturday afternoon the tears started again when it was time for nap because she didn't want to have "yucky" dreams. I explained to Maddy that she needs to think of things that make her happy when she goes to sleep so she can dream about that instead. We rattled off a few things that make her happy like butterflies, baby dolls, glitter, etc. She made it through nap without incident. The same thing happened Saturday night before bed so I started the "what makes you happy" conversation again. The evening answers were much different. My favorite response being...the laundry hamper! If there were any doubt before it is official now that this child is mine! Putting laundry in the hamper, washing it and folding makes my little peanut happy! Happy enough that she wants to dream about it :) Some find this troubling and my response is whatever your opinion about my type A personality and that of my child...it worked because we slept all night!!!!

**Unfortunate side note - Maddy's nightmares Friday night were the final straw to convince her some things are worth getting out of the bed. All this time we've had the kid that refuses to get out of bed without someone coming to tell her it's ok. This has been amazing as we hear others complain about finding their kid in the playroom at 5am. Well scary farm dreams convinced Maddy to come find Mommy and Daddy so now she knows the world won't end if she gets out of bed. This morning after a laundry filled restful sleep I found Maddy sitting in the dark, on the couch, waiting patiently for someone to wake up at 6:40am!

St. Jude Trike-A-Thon was a SUCCESS!

Well, the Trike-A-Thon is over and it was a success with only a few traffic accidents which I consider a success with 15 three year olds riding bikes around cones.

Maddy’s stats:

Ride Time – 20 minutes
Total Laps – 11 (I’m not counting the laps where she was going the wrong direction)
Number of times she stopped to talk to friends – 6
Number of times she actually used the pedals to push – 0

A special thanks to Chesterbrook Academy - Mallard Creek for providing an organized, safe and fun time for the kids!

A good week...

Both Maddy and Hannah are having a great week so far. Monday night Hannah started acting like she was getting a cold so it was a long night of her coughing from drainage and us getting up to make sure she was ok. She didn’t have any issues yesterday though so if it’s a cold, it appears to be minor. With all the stuff blowing around in the air here it may just be allergies. Regardless, we decided to raise her crib mattress at one end to elevate her a little. That actually appears to have accomplished two goals. Hannah is a mover so we put her down in the middle of her crib and by the time she wakes up the next time she is all the way at the end of the crib with her nose pushed up against the railing. We’ve already had to remove her bumper because we were afraid she would suffocate herself with her nose up against all the time. So, raising the crib mattress actually kept her from being able to “scoot” to the corner which may have in turn allowed her to sleep all night last night without waking up! In addition, she didn’t cough all night. She went to bed at 8:30pm and I had to wake her up at 7:20am to leave for school.

Maddy is still on cloud nine from her dance recital last week. She keeps showing us her dance moves whenever she gets the chance. It’s a pretty quiet week for her at school except for Friday. Maddy is participating in the St.Jude Trike-A-Thon in the school parking lot. Should be entertaining to see with all those little kids “riding” around in circles. We haven’t even told her about it yet because we knew it would be non-stop questions until Friday. We will save that news for Thursday night in an effort to give her a reason to go to bed.

We had a pretty bad storm here last night around 12:15am that woke everyone in the house except the girls. Lots of the rain, thunder, lightning and about 15 minutes of hail between a quarter and golf ball size. I thought the windows would break any minute but Maddy and Hannah both snored their way through the storm. I will never understand how a baby wakes up when the car stops moving but can sleep through thunder that shakes the house!

Hope everyone is having a great week!