No Naps

The other day Molly just didn't want to take a nap. I put her in her crib, and left like I always do and after about an hour of her playing happily in her crib, she was still going strong. So I decided not to worry about it too much. It did kind of suck not having all that time to myself to get things done, but what else could I do? My Dad has been saying I should try this out in the hopes of her sleeping better at night, so here was the opportunity. It hasn't made her sleep though the night any more consistently, but it has made bedtime a breeze. Usually we can spend up to 2 hours in attempt to get her to sleep. We would start at 8 and wouldn't be done until 9:30 or 10. Feel free to judge away if you must. I know lots of people would say that we should have sleep trained and that we've screwed her up, but crying it out is not for us. Anyhow, no napping definitely speeds up bedtime. 20 min. (including story) seems to do the trick and once she didn't even make it through her favorite book, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. On days when she seems like she just has to take one, I make a point to not let her sleep more than 1 1/2 hours and that seems to still have the desired effect. Thankfully no napping doesn't seem to have ill effects on her mood, she still seems pretty happy to me.

The other parenting task that I'm doing all wrong is potty training! When she wants to use it, she loves it, but when I've tried to do the whole schedule, taking her in every 15 min. she resists. Today she initiated the whole process herself in the morning. After showering, she was running around before I got her dressed, and she went in and took care of business and then she even went in and picked out a pair of underwear to wear. I thought "this is a sign". I had no where to go today so I figured I'd see how we'd do. At first I thought 30 min. would be enough of an interval, but it wasn't, so I switched to 15 min. She would go in and sit down, not go, and then go on the floor somewhere 2 min. later. I gave up after the 4th "accident" of the day.
For another day I suppose.

Pottying in Style

One thing I think I do right, is feeding her. I'm not perfect by any means but I do get her to eat her veggies and she's still crazy for fruit. I'm also really good at limiting the junk she eats. I figure that at this point I still have control, so why go a ruin that by introducing her to all of the junk I love? A perfect example is cookies. I am terrible when it comes to cookies, I love them to the point I could probably make myself physically sick from them. I'll make cookies (I don't buy them) and after they're gone I'll tell myself, like a drunk might, that I will never bake cookies again. Then, a month later I'll be at the store and I'll talk myself into getting a bag of chocolate chips. I won't make them right away, I can hold myself off for a little while, but eventually I'll cave and there will be a whole batch of something sitting in the kitchen and I won't even know how it got there. Yet, even with this horrible addiction, Molly has never had more than 1/4 cookie in one sitting. I know you shouldn't judge, but the other day at the Dr's office I saw a kid probably a little younger than Molly with a baby bottle of chocolate milk. C'mon! I'm not opposed to chocolate milk, I love it, Molly's had it before, but make him drink it from a cup at least.

In other household news Molly's birthday is coming up. I have desperately wanted a nice outdoor area for her to play in, so I'm hoping that for her birthday we will at least be on our way to that goal. My dad is working on putting up a nice sturdy iron fence around a little portion of our backyard, and we have a contractor who is going to do some concrete work for us. For her birthday, we bought her a little slide and a sandbox. I think they're going to be a big hit with her. Sometime down the road I want to build her a playhouse (and by "I" I mean Jonny and my dad), but that's also for another day.

Work gloves on and ready to go!

Well it's likely that when writing my next post I'll be the proud parent of a 2 year old! Can't believe it's almost time to print off volume 2 of the blog book.