Birthday Girl!

Little Miss Almost Four is now Little Miss Four.  She was delighted to recieve two beautiful Disney princess dresses along with a myriad of other sparkly, glittery, pink, shimmery little girl things.  Nana got her a lovely yellow princess cake, just like LM4 asked for.

But the real excitement with turning four was the promise that LM4 would do poo-poos in the toilet.  All along, LM4 had come up with various excuses as to why she couldn't go on the toilet--she'd never seen school before, Nemo says crabs live in the bottom of the toilet, she was a big girl baby.  Even the promise (or bribery) of Timbits couldn't inspire her to do her business in the toilet.  So as her birthday approached, I seriously thought she was just going to make another excuse.

Bedtime last night:

Me:  "Ok honey, time for bed, and now that you are a big four year old, no more night time panties.  If you have pee-pees, you can go to the toilet, even in the night time.  If you forget and go in your bed, there is towel to catch it and here is a clean towel to put down after and go back to sleep."

LM4:  "Or poo-poos.  If I have poo-poos, I can put it in the toilet."

Me:  "Um, oh yes, yes, that's right honey, pee-pees or poo-poos.  Good night bubba, Mommy loves you."

And off I went.  Then, a few minutes later, it happened.

"Mommy, Mommy, come and see!  I put some poo-poos in the toilet!  Look, I really did!  I can't believe it!"

And she did.  And she proceeded to do it three more times before bed.  She is very eager to keep practicing cleaning her bum, and as promised, Daddy took her out for Timbits first thing this morning.

Another hurdle jumped.  For her and me.

The Sleeping Wars

I am trying to remember the last time I actually slept a whole night.  I think it was sometime about three years ago, when Little Miss 4 was a full-night sleeping one-year-old and I had gotten over the need to check on her every 20 minutes to see if she was breathing.  Those were good times.  Then the second pregnancy hit, and sleep eluded me again with killer cramps in my legs followed by the discomfort of trying to rotate a heavily pregnant belly from one side to the other.  The new baby, cute as she was, loved to wake up all night and feed and cry and do other things that were the opposite of sleep.  She was an unpredictable nighttime baby and I never knew how many times I might be summoned to provide a comforting boob.  Then my oldest daughter starting howling in her sleep and coming into our bed at all hours.  Though I loved the cuddles, it's not easy to sleep between a cute snoring three year old and her snoring bear of a dad.  

When we moved to Canada, and put the kids into new beds and new surroundings, I decided to be lenient and indulge the little darlings when they woke up in the night, with cuddles or more milk or whatever their sleepy demands.  That was eight months ago. 

Now the worst thing has happened:  Little Miss Almost Two is climbing out of her cot, and not settling into her Big Girl Bed. 

Bedtime has disintegrated into hours of continuously going into her room and putting her back in bed, Supernanny style.  She finally settles if I lie with her or someone yells, whichever comes first.  I climb into my bed, only to be woken by little feet coming down the stairs at ungodly hours of the night.  In her cot, she settled back quickly with a bottle of milk, but in the Big Girl Bed, it's another hour or two before she settles back.  Both her dad and I are going mental with lack of sleep.  I am already dreading tonight, but took an extra dose of Patience pills (aka Omega 3) in hopes of maintaining my cool as long as possible. 

I really wish crib-makers made the sides A LOT higher.