drastic measures for sleep

Ok, so a while ago I wrote about how Rachel needed to start sleeping through the night. Well, she had three nights where she did 9 hours, then 11 the next night, then 9 the next. But then, we took a 4 day trip to Minnesota AND she got a cold so she completely forgot about how nice it is to sleep for more than 4 hours at a time. We tolerated it until she was not quite so sniffly, but then she had figured out that if she screamed long enough that we would come rescue her (originally for fear that she was too sick to sleep). This turned into a really piercing scream along with desparate clinging almost every time we put her in bed which was more than we could handle. We made sure that she was well fed, had some ibuprofen in her (on the slight chance that she was teething), had a clean diaper (even sprung for the dispoable) and then we put her in a room with a door, four walls and a ceiling all connected to each other. This may sound rather odd to the many who haven't visited us, but we are renting a loft (which we love!). This means that we live in an old warehouse buildling and the wood rafters and brick walls are exposed (along with electrical conduit and HVAC ducts and sprinkler pipes -- don't worry, it looks just fine -- I'll post pictures one of these days). But, along with the 13+ foot ceilings, come only 8 foot interior walls for the bedrooms and closets. Thus the only enclosed rooms are the bathrooms. Well, the noise from a crying child is rather loud when closing the door to her room doesn't do any good since the wall of her room doesn't meet the ceiling. So, on Tuesday night we pulled out the pack-n-play, and crammed it in one of the bathrooms (the door now opens only about 8 inches) and it is the most wonderful thing ever! She cried for 14 minutes the first night, has actually slept 9 hours in a row now (2 and a half at naps, up from 1 and a half) and she doesn't cry and cling every single time I put her to bed. Ahhhhh. Now we are considering temporarily removing the sink from the bathroom so that the bed can be in there and the door can open a bit farther :) You have no idea how wonderful it is to not have to listen to a screaming child. And she seems so much happier during the day, too! Not only is she well-rested, but she also knows that there are expectations for her and I'm sure that it is easier for her to know that when she goes to bed, she is going to stay there. I cried when I put her in there the first time because it seemed so cold-hearted to shut her in the bathroom :), but she survived just fine and I will be a happier person for it.

She is a smart little cookie and growing up fast -- it's hard to believe that she is 16 months old now! She still doesn't talk at all (who needs to!?!?) but she communicates things just fine. When she wants to sit on your lap to get her socks and shoes on, she toddles into the room, holds them up, walks over to you, and then turns around so that you can pick her up and she can sit on your lap. She does the same sort of thing if she wants you to come play with a toy on the floor -- walk over, turn you around from washing the dishes, show you the toy, make some noises, then sit on the floor with the expectation that you will join her (which of course you do:). She likes going down stairs and if nobody is there to help her, she doesn't go down backwards even though she knows how. She just puts her feet down one step and then slides her butt down, too.

Mariah is still a chatterbox. Today we were working on a homework assignment and we had to go count and count all of the buildings on our block. We first had to decide what our block was, then how to handle townhomes (are they all one building?? or is each unit considered a separate building). After we had started walking, we went by a parking garage with a ramp going down. She exclaimed "that's a ramp,...a simple machine! We're learning about simple machines at school" (today they built a roller coaster at school! and they've started riding their bikes, too, to learn about wheels). So, for the rest of the walk around the blog, she spied all of the simple machines that she could (two more parking ramps, screws holding in plates on the wall, lots of wheels, pulleys on flagpoles or fence gates, etc.). Oh, and we counted buildlings :) I was impressed that I was having a conversation about simple machines with a kindergartener:)

Allison is still having fun at home and we enjoyed a trip to the park today since it was 60 and sunny. She was very exicted this week because we finally got out her "new" clothes (mariah's old winter clothes). She loves having a new selection, but doesn't always match the best (stripes on the shirt with flowers on the pants) but that is the least of my worries:) As of about10 mintues ago, she was still awake even after having been in bed for almost 2 hours! She'll fall asleep the instant Mike and I go to bed, but her ability to keep herself awake is absolutely amazing. Mariah taught her to play chess today. It was amusing.