Transitions

Up and out!

On Saturday, Avery climbed out of her crib for the first time.  I wasn't home when it happened since it was my day off, however, here's the story as D relayed it to me:  she was supposed to be napping in her crib, took off her jammies (normally she doesn't wear jammies during nap time, but sometimes she asks for them), took off her diaper, peed a little bit in the crib, then climbed out of the crib and landed with a thud on the floor.  She was just fine, but apparently wanted to go potty, so D took her to the potty.

In any case, since that moment, her climbing out of the crib has gotten very proficient in short amount of time.  Just now, I was attempting to get her to nap.  I left the room and about 30 seconds (if that) later, I hear her cry and then open the door.

This is why I'm currently sitting outside of Avery's room and blogging on the little mini-laptop rather than sitting in my nice and comfy office blogging on my nice, big iMac.  Since this is the third or fourth time she's climbed out of the crib, I decided to take the mattress and put it on the floor.  Avery LOVES that, but has no desire to take a nap when not contained in the crib.  At first, I tried putting up the doggie gate outside her door to keep her in there.  But she just stood at the gate screaming for me.  Then I tried sitting in the room with her while she tried to nap, but she simply ran around the room playing and talking.  Eventually, I lost my patience and gave her the option of a time out or napping.  We did several time outs (which is the same thing as napping when you think about it since she's in her room alone for both), but each time she chose the time out again.

Finally, I decided that I had to win the battle today, which meant she'd just have to cry it out in her room. I wanted to just say no nap today would be OK.  That certainly would have been easier today, but since this is the first time she's napped in her room outside of the crib, I decided that losing the battle today would make the war (the war being sleeping in a big girl bead) harder.  So I prevented her from opening her door by sitting on the outside and holding it shut.  She gave up on that pursuit after about 30 seconds.  Then I decided just to sit outside the room until she went to sleep.

I'm now back downstairs and she napping upstairs.  From the time I took the "sit outside her room and wait" approach, it was about 10 minutes, though the overall nap-attempt time today is more like 60 minutes.

Transitions

Transitions are tough for both Avery and me.   We have two big transitions going on at the moment: potty training and crib to bed.

The potty training is going very well so far.  I'm sure we have a long ways to go still, but the past few days have been very successful.  I haven't changed any diapers in a few days (though D did change one last night, which I just remembered).

Anyway, she woke up with a dry diaper this morning and went potty for D.  Before we left the house, she went potty several times.  I put a diaper on her before we left around 10:30 and gave her the choice of going potty first, an offer she declined.  I wasn't ready to risk an accident when we were out and about, especially given we have a guest in town (see Jeremy subject below) and given that we were off for food carting (i.e. not near any easy-to-get-to bathrooms). The diaper was unnecessary, though.  We got home, had some milk and some avocado, then headed up for a nap at 1:30 ish.  She had a completely dry diaper and then went potty on her own.

Naptime wasn't so successful at first.  In addition to our crib debacle, she asked to go potty several times.  It turns out she really did need to go poopy!  I know, TMI, but this is my blog and I'm going to want to know all these details, so that is why I'm blogging it.

Summary: she's making good progress on the potty training.  It's amazing how much easier it is when you don't have to change diapers all the time!  I'm so looking forward to no diapers!

Jeremy

My friend Jeremy is visiting from DC.  Who is Jeremy?  Well, we met on a plane when I was in 6th grade and he was in 7th grade.  He was going home from summer camp and I was going home after a visit with my Nain (my mom's mom).  We sat next to each other on the flight from Syracuse, NY to Pittsburgh.  I was bringing a box of cookies to my mom, so I'd put my name and address on the box because that's what you do when you're 12: label a box of cookies with your name and address in case they get lost.  Anyway, since we were kids traveling alone, the flight attendants walked us to our connecting flights.  Jeremy carried my box of cookies and wrote down my name and address.  A month or so later, I got a letter in the mail from Kansas City and it was from him.  He asked if I wanted to be pen pals and I eagerly said yes.  We have been writing ever since. Now we only email, but we've stayed in touch all that time.

We're taking Jeremy to Tabla for dinner tonight with Avery.  Hopefully she'll be well behaved.  Fingers crossed!

Ice

On Saturday night, the G's attempted to have their date night.  Unfortunately for them, by the time they got to our house, they slid down the hill a bit.  They finally abandoned their attempt to get their car either home or to our house, got out of the car, and walked down the hill to our house.  They had to spend the night.

Here are some pictures of the scene in the morning.  My favorite is of the Hummer in the third picture.  When our hill is icy, it is not something to mess with ... no matter what kind of car you drive. The first picture shows a car (on the left side) that has run over landscaping and just barely missed hitting the house in front of it.