That Girl!
For the last couple of months we've been having a bit of a problem with little Laina. It started out with the midnight potty trips that invariably ended with her underwear shoved in my face to help her get back dressed. Once we got her dressing herself we thought we'd be sleeping through the night - no problem. It seems that once we gave her the independence to make her midnight journey alone, she believed that she could roam freely through the house whenever she felt so inclined. At first it wasn't too annoying. She would turn on a couple of lights on her way to the bathroom, wander back to her room, read a book on the floor for a while and then fall asleep either back on her bed or where she was reading. That moved on to a couple of walk-abouts a night, mostly to the play room to find her toys. Each night she seemed to stay awake a little longer. Last Saturday night her escapades had escalated to 7 trips out of her room. Seven times throughout the night I was woken up by all lights being turned on. The hallway lights, the kitchen lights and the bathroom light. Seven times either Robert or I had to get up to walk her back to her bad and hear her empty promises. "No mama, I PROMISE I won't do that again!" 1/2 an hour later one of us would be trudging back to her bedroom. We bribed. We yelled. We pleaded with that cute little twit. All for naught.
After only sleeping for 2 hours that night, I decided that drastic measures had to be taken. We'd have to lock her in if we were ever going to sleep again. And it was actually a hard decision to make. The main reason was that Alaina is potty trained and she sometimes does have to use the restroom. I didn't want her to go back to diapers at night, but if we kept the door open for her to use the potty then we were back at square one. To remedy the situation I put a little portable potty in her room.
Sunday night was pure drama. She was in shock that we'd even consider such a ploy. After 2 hours of kicking and screaming...literally...she fell asleep. I found her sound asleep sitting up by the door. Poor thing. Monday night and Tuesday night were pretty similar. Screaming, kicking, throwing tantrums for a good hour and a half. Tuesday night was made a little special because it turned out she needed the porta-potty after all. When I opened the door to check on her I was overwhelmed by the very strong aroma of poo. Good thing we had a place to put it. :)
Tonight I put he to bed and guess what? She didn't cry at all. Not one little bit. She just pouted for a few minutes and went to sleep. yeah! And the best part is that I've slept through the night for three nights in a row. Yeah for me! Now we'll just see how she does once daddy comes back into town.
Ethan came up to me today and said, "Look how cute we are Mom! Take our picture!" He was walking around the house holding Alaina's hand and when the mood would hit, they'd start dancing. They were cute, so I did take a picture. Doesn't Lainy look coy?
I don't know why, but I love this picture of Alaina. She is constantly in motion and looks like a little angel here with her pink halo.
