Going to Sleep the Clara Way

We've always laughed at how Clara gets herself to sleep. It's kind of noisy. I guess when Lee was a little baby, she used to rub her face back and forth on your chest when she was trying to fall asleep, but for as long as we can remember she just kind of gets quiet and then falls asleep. But Clara is a different story. She rubs her face into Tiger and writhes her whole body, and moans and groans and makes all sorts of noise. Then she'll yell out a bunch of times, then go back to shoving her face into Tiger and groaning, and this goes on (sometimes for quite a while) until suddenly she's quiet.

Once in a while if Lee is going to bed at the same time, she will complain and say "Clara's being too noisy!", but amazingly there are nights when Lee falls asleep during Clara's long wind-down.

I asked Bridges to imagine if adults went to sleep like that. You'd be in your bed, moaning and making all sorts of noise, and flipping yourself over onto your front and then your back, and then yelling out a bit, and then putting your face back down....meanwhile your spouse is next to you thinking "will you just go to sleep already?!?"

Moo, Oink, and Flip Flip

I don't think there are many things much funnier than watching your four-year-old teach animal noises to your 18-month old with a set of plastic animals. Especially when things get creative, like "gallop gallop" for a zebra, and "flip flip" for a butterfly. Clara isn't really close to saying any of these sounds (except for possibly "moo") but she laughs hysterically whenever she holds up an animal and Lee tells her what sound it makes. Lee will perform on demand for Clara for quite a while when she's getting a good reaction.

Order from Chaos

Something momentous happened today. Oh I thought it was like any other day. There was Clara, sitting among a pile of stuff.


This is what she does all day long. She empties the contents of cabinets all over the floor, spreads a set of pencils over the floor one by one, scatters a deck (or two or three) of cards, spreads out a collection of dominoes among three different rooms, and that's all before breakfast. I, meanwhile, try to control the chaos.

(But, Ruth, you say, why don't you install child locks on the cabinets? Ah, well, you see, we moved here when Clara was six months old, and we just knew that she would be out of that phase in NO TIME! Besides, it's not like we have any toys to entertain her).

But, finally, the end is in sight. In the picture above she is sitting among a pile of plastic animals that she has dumped out.

But, look at what is going on on her right.

The large animals are all lined up. Order. Organization. Wonderful.

Problem Solving

"I don't want to be a part of this family."

I know 4-year-olds will often say "You're a mean mommy" or "I don't like you", things of that ilk. And we've had some of that, often said in a fit of anger.

But today, when I asked her to pick something up, Lee announced to me in a completely detached manner that she no longer wants to be part of our family.

Now whenever Lee wants to do something that we are just not going to do (case in point: have a baby boy), I tell her, "When you grow up, you can do x or y or z." So it should have been no surprise that when I told her that she was stuck with us as a family, she responded "When I grow up, I'm getting a new mommy and daddy."

Problem solving. That's my girl.

The Mug Shot

I have no idea why this picture is so funny but I laugh every time I look at it. Clara was just about a month old and I guess the sleep deprivation is showing on Bridges' face. My first thought for a caption was "Yes I stole the baby" but a close second was "Oh sure, now she decides to fall asleep."

Omniscience

I am no longer omniscient.

It's a bit of a let-down actually. It used to be that whether I could see her or not, Lee thought I knew exactly what she was doing. I have a theory that the baby monitor contributed to this. Lee used to come home from pre-school and when she'd tell me about what she'd done that morning, she'd ask me "Did you hear me, Mommy?" It took me a while to figure out that she thought I always had the baby monitor on listening for her.

But even after this belief died, she still thought that as long as I was around, I knew what she was doing. Now, sadly, she has discovered that if I am not looking at her or I am not in the same room as her, she can do things and I don't see her doing them. Aha! So she's experimenting with this. Let's see, if Clara is bothering me and Mommy's not looking, then I can pinch her. Hmmm.....

Now this was not so bad before Lee learned the power of lying. I would come into the room, ask her what happened, and she would say "I pinched her." But recently Lee has also learned that she can say "I didn't do anything!"

There's a whole new leap in parenting skills required here.

Bedtime Companions

Lee's habit of taking things to bed with her has been going on so long that it never occurred to me to write it down, but I just realized that someday we'll look back and think "remember when she used to...."

I'm not sure when or how it started, but she really likes to sleep with an assortment of special things each night. Sometimes they are toys that she is playing with, like plastic animals, Polly Pockets, or pieces from her tea set. Sometimes she requests things that are downright dangerous, like pencils or scissors or especially pointy things. Those we tend to veto. And sometimes they're just random. I remember one night I was cleaning my glasses with one of those microfiber cloths, and she asked me "Mommy, can I sleep with that tonight?" I think she slept with the cloth for two or three days before I reclaimed it.

Last night it was a little statue of a Minuteman and a piece of ribbon. Tonight after a trip to Trader Joe's, she took to bed one of those jars of honey in the shape of a bear (new and unopened).

Clara Says "NO!"

So I have a bit of a dream that Clara will potty train this summer. She's only 18 months old but I know some girls who have done it that early (and even one boy). Lee was a bit over two. I am so done with diapers.

We had a quick go at it a few weeks ago, but it was half-hearted and unsuccessful. I figured I'd try again next week when Lee is at Summerfun. So today I put the potty on the floor and Clara came and looked at, raised the lid, and put the lid down again. I said "Clara, do you want to sit on the potty?"

She walked over, raised the lid again, shouted "NO!", slammed the lid down, and walked away.

It's her first time saying "no." :)