We've had a crazy month here at our house. It all started a couple weeks ago when I awoke in the middle of the night to Lillie silently hovering over me. It was slightly scary, I must admit. She said that she was scared and that she couldn't go back to sleep. In my half awake state, I told her to get her blanket and sleep on the floor beside my bed. Well, she laid down and tossed and turned for a good hour, keeping me up in the process before finally falling asleep. We talked to her that day about how there was nothing to be afraid of and that all she needed to do was pray and then go back to sleep. That next night she didn't come in, and the next morning she said that she'd woken up and said a prayer and was able to go back to sleep. So, I thought that our problem was solved.
The following night I woke up to a hovering body and she asked if she could sleep on the floor again. Eric woke up this time and told her that she had to sleep in her bed. So he took her to her bed, said a prayer with her, and came back to our room. Well, we were almost asleep when we hear loud crying coming from her room (she shares the room with Henry, they sleep in bunk beds where she sleeps on the top). Eric went into her room again and told her to turn on a little led light and read books until she got tired and came back to bed. A few minutes went by before we hear loud crying again. By this time we were frustrated and just didn't want her to make it a habit of going into our room and so Eric went to tell her to go downstairs and watch 1 show and then go to bed. Well she goes down and turns on a cartoon but the volume is REALLY LOUD, so loud that it wakes up Henry and he starts heading downstairs to watch TV (that's what they do in the morning, so I think he thought it must be morning). So we head down and turn off their show and force them back into bed, which after a few minutes of crying and me laying by their beds, they both dozed off. That day we were all grumpy because we didn't get enough sleep. I told Lillie that she wasn't allowed to watch any TV or play any games on the Ipad for the night's shenanigans. That day I also found out that Lillie was scared because she was hearing noises that she thought were wild animals trying to get into our house (Eric used to watch the Turtle Man show where a man would capture wild animals that had gotten into houses and release them in the wild so that they wouldn't get killed, but I guess she shouldn't have been watching it). So we talked her through that fear and thought that we had gotten to the root of the problem and that all would be ok now.
But she still woke up the next night and so we decided to move her bed into the play room so that when she woke up at night she could turn on the light and read books and cry if she wanted to, with out waking up her brother. We told her she could do anything in that room, but couldn't leave it and couldn't wake up anyone else. She stayed in her room that night and read books for a while during the middle of the night. She spent about 5 nights in the playroom. We'd find her asleep with her light on and books on her bed when we went upstairs to sleep. She stayed in her room all five of those nights, although she did say that she woke up every one of those nights. And going to bed was never easy, one night we found Lillie downstair on a chair sleeping after we put her to bed, another night she and Henry came down freaking out because the air from the vent was too hot, etc.
Her bed was taking up most of the floor space in the playroom and so I was anxious to get her back in her room. She didn't want to sleep on the top bunk anymore and she refused to sleep in the same bed as her brother, so our compromise was to take the bunk bed apart and put the beds side by side. So far (2 nights) this has worked although she still won't go to bed without getting out at least once.
I hate that we now have to have the hall light on all night in addition to the dream light that they use when going to bed. But I feel that I have to pick my battles. We went 5 years with Lillie only sleeping in our bed a couple of times as an infant, but now we're having all these struggles and Henry is being influenced and is now afraid of the dark and everything else.
I know that I did this to my parents all the time. I hated sleeping. I dreaded night time. I had irrational fears that if I woke up during the night that I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep and would be up for hours and hours all by myself in the dark. I remember whispering "Mom" through my parents door to try and get the chance to sleep on the floor of their room, but most of the time I was told to go back to my bed. I remember doing this a lot and crying a lot. Ugh, my poor parents.
So, we'll see where this goes, but I just thought it was something that I should probably journal.
3/6/13
MLK Jr. Day
The hottest day in January also happened to be a holiday and so we were able to spend the day with Eric and friends at Pismo Beach! With a stop at the Pismo Beach Butterfly Preserve beforehand. The weather was amazing and the company was superb! We are so grateful for our friends. Keep an eye out for a picture of Eric with a crab pinching his finger. It left his finger tip without feeling for hours. Ha!
Valentine's Day 2013
Valentine's Day was a great day! The weather was so warm and Eric was awesome enough to request that day off, so we spent the whole day together. We started off the day by working out, then we took Eric to Nojoqui Falls since he hadn't been there. Because it had been so warm, the "falls" wasn't more than a trickle. It was still fun. We then drove up to Santa Ynez and ate lunch at a fancy Mexican restaurant. On our way back, we stopped at the Santa Ynez Mission in Solvang to check out the scenery and play. It was a perfect day.
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