Sleeper

At 5:00 this morning I heard my daughter shouting and crying from her room. I figured she was asleep because if she was awake she would have just climbed into our bed. I went in there and as suspected she was curled up in child's pose in the middle of the room with no blankets and likely freezing. But she was sleeping for sure. Usually by 5:00 am she's already snuggled up with us for more than a few hours so this was a pleasant surprise. I put a few blankets on her and went back to bed but then thirty minutes later she came in first with her pillow, then her blanket, then her other blanket (I'm serious, she made three trips) and then she crawled into bed for her last hour of sleep. I can't figure her out. But literally every time I blog about how she sleeps half the night with us, she ends up sleeping basically the whole night in her bed. So I am going to dedicate this blog entirely to her sleep habits so I can continue to get some rest. Just the thought of that is putting me to sleep so it's already working.

The Other Plague

The eleventh plague, which no one ever talks about, but which is second in severity only to the slaying of the first born, is the plague of the matzah crumbs. We have matzah crumbs in every friggin room in the house. I mean, who brings matzah into the bathroom? Probably no one - you just can't contain the stuff. It travels. This is the only week of the year when we allow shoes in the house because I swear matzah crumbs will tear your feet to shreds. We sweep it up, it comes right back. I even go so far as to wet the matzah so it's a little more supple but it still crumbles.

And all this without even mentioning the constipative qualities of matzah. I mean if we really wanted out of Egypt fast God should have made Matzah the first plague and ordered the Egyptians to eat it for a week. By the third day they'd have been begging the Jews to leave. I can hear the conversation between Pharoah and Moses: Alright alright Moses. I'll let your people go if you let my people "go".

Pissy

I thought it would last a day or two. I was wrong. Several weeks ago (months? I've lost count.) my daughter was suddenly terrified of taking a bath. This is a girl who used to lie down in the tub so that only the tip of her face - like her nose, eyes and pursed lips - was sticking out of the water and bubbles. While my son was whining about getting his head wet she was snorkeling for tub toys. We called her the baby beluga. Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, she freaked out about going in the bathtub. I put her in and she was literally shrieking to get out. My son was already in so I knew it wasn't too hot. It was the same as any bath day. Same amount of water. Same gnarly bath toys. But she was having none of it and made that clear with blood curdling screams. Step aside Ronald Regan, this girl is the Great Communicator.  All the while she was also ranting about poo poo. So I figured she had to go. I put a diaper on her but she didn't go. And then it occurred to me that maybe she was worried she would have to go. Two days before she had pooped in the tub which really upset her (though you'd think my son would be the one with the hang-up now. Yes doctor, I have a latent fear of floaties). 

Anyway this has been going on for a while and the only way I can get her in the tub is if I go in first which as you can imagine after a day of work and scrambling for dinner and an hour at the park, the last thing I want to do at 7:30 at night is get in a luke warm bath. A spa, sure. A sauna, no problem. As long as I'm alone. In Baden Baden. But the luke warm piss tub is not a fave. Although now she even gets nervous with me in the tub and I see her kind of holding her crotch which says to me that the feel of the water is making her want to pee but she's not comfortable peeing in the tub (she used to just pee right on her brother without a care in the world. Again, we wonder why he's not the one troubled by the bathtub). So here I am telling her, sweetie, it's okay. You can pee in the tub. I've lost my mind.

So how is this going to end? I don't want to force her but she stinks. My son went through a brief bathtub boycott when he was about her age. Younger actually. We came to understand, at least we think, that he was afraid he would go down the drain. So I sat his butt on the drain and he felt a little tickle of suction which made him laugh and maybe he realized that in fact neither his giant tushy nor the rest of him would ever fit down this drain. But his anxiety only lasted a week. This is going on months. I even put her in a  swim diaper (I mean I am pulling out all the stops here). That worked for a few minutes until she likely peed in the diaper. She's going to end up being the stinky kid at school that no one wants to be near. Just pee in the goddamn tub. We all do it. It's your one opportunity to pee standing up. You'll love it. It's liberating. 

No can do.

Sleep Saga continues

The sleep situation is not improving. She's taken it to the next level and now when she comes to our room she actually brings her own pillow and blanket. I hear her pad in around 3 am, she hands me her pillow which I put long ways in the middle of the bed since that's the only way it will fit. Meanwhile she's gone back to her room to get her blanket. So, I mean, this girl's wide awake and fully functioning in the middle of the night. So she claws her way up the bed and over me to her bed away from bed and falls back asleep immediately. I just don't get it. And more importantly, I just don't know how to make it stop. We tried bringing her back to bed. We tried having her sleep on the floor in our room, instead of the bed. She's having nothing of that. I need a solution that takes into consideration the other person sleeping in her room and the fact that she doesn't sleep in a crib anymore and can get up at will.

I've mentioned this problem to friends and it turns out that EVERYONE'S kids are coming into their beds. As old as six or seven! I never knew this. I was that obnoxious parent who swore by sleep training (since it worked so well on our oldest) that I think other parents just stopped confiding in me about their nighttime disruptions for fear I would judge them. Which I would have. Now I know better. Although now I'm even a bigger proponent of sleep training when babies are young because while doing it at four months is hard (emotionally) I am telling you that doing it after the age two is IMPOSSIBLE.

Why is this uncle different from all other uncles?

We had Passover Seder at my brother's house last night and as usual the highlight was a surprise visit from Elijah the Prophet. My older brother knows the drill at this point (I have two brothers - one hosts, the other is the prophet). We wrap him in a sheet and a tallis and he wears a wool Rasta hat and sunglasses and then walks in doing the customary Elijah jig. He grabs the wine glass and shimmies out as mysteriously as he arrived. I'm not sure why he takes the whole glass but that's his shtick. The adults are cracking up at this point and the kids are vacillating between fear and exhilaration. My son turned to me in the car later and asked if that guy was Santa. My nephew is almost six so I'm not sure how much longer he'll believe in our Rastafarian prophet. So far no one has made the connection between the entrance of Elijah and the disappearance of Uncle Aaron. I guess we're good for another year.