Showing posts with label Chunky Monkey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chunky Monkey. Show all posts

Monday, November 5, 2007

Sweet Slumber

In spite of my fear of being stricken by Murphy's Law, I am going to send out a big "Thank You" to my friends in my Bible Study group for their advise regarding Chunky Monkey's sleeping habits.

My girls, as I lovingly refer to them as, informed me that it was time to initiate some tough love with the little man so as to regain my own much needed sleep. He is rapidly approaching 15 months of age and even though he has had small (2-3 nights at a time) periods of sleeping through the night, he is ingrained in an "eat twice a night" routine.

So, taking their advice (read: pressure) to heart, I did (almost)all that they told me to do...

1. Turn off the monitor (Check)
2. Let him cry (Check)
3. Wear earplugs (No way)
4. Feed him more in the evening (Check)
5. Do not, under any circumstances, feed him in the night (Check)
6. Put Lula in her own bed so she doesn't hear him (Check...mostly)

I am pleased to announce that even though he has woken several times and cried for up to ten minutes, I have not caved and fed him and he has gone back to sleep on his own for 3 nights. I am hoping that we are past the night feedings now and within the next few nights, he will stop waking altogether.

Maybe if I am not waiting for the 11:00 feeding, I can break my own bad habit of staying up too late and go to bed at a more reasonable time, thereby decreasing the amount of EMS attacks.
(E vil M ommy S yndrome)

So again, THANKS, GIRLS! You know who you are!

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

What Am I Going To Do With That Boy?

I think the only thing I can do is pray. I pray that I can get that boy to the age of 2. When we get there, I'll pray for 3.

This child is absolutely fearless.

He has a bruise on his face from I don't even know what. He has a black eye from trying to climb on top of three paint cans that were stacked into a pyramid. Paint cans don't hold climbing babies. He has multiple scratches and scabs on his head in various places from all the falls and misjudgments made by new walkers.

I've been thinking of changing his name from LG to Chunky Monkey.

He would scale the entire house if I gave him the opportunity! I cannot keep him off of my kitchen table unless I take all the chairs and turn them over, legs up in the air. The fireplace is a continuous struggle as well; I have taken to piling toy bins up there so he doesn't have a square inch to occupy his chunky butt. The stairs are his Mecca.

But the worst is...the ladder.

I have been trying to remodel our entry hall (among other things) and need our ladder to complete the work. I have pulled him off the ladder many times, but usually I am right behind him, so it's no big deal. Yesterday he upped the annti.

I had the ladder in place and he was in the family room adjacent to the entry hall. I had a baricade constructed of a toy bin and Lula's art easel turned on its side, which had seemed to be effective at keeping him in the family room for the last thirty minutes. I needed to stop working on the entry to fix lunch, so I went to wash my hands in the nearby bathroom. I proceeded straight to the bathroom, washed and dried my hands efficiently, and immediately headed back toward the entry.

Then I saw him....on TOP of the six foot ladder!!! As if that weren't bad enough, he was holding the scissors I had been using to trim joint tape! I think my heart skipped a beat!

My first instinct was to run toward him and scoop him up into my arms, thereby snatching him from the dangerous fall that seemed imminent; but if you know anything about LG, you know that would have been a mistake. Surely he would have taken great joy in my obviuos panic and started bouncing up and down frantically---all the while squealing delightedly. This would have caused him to lose his balance and tumble to the ground at the speed of light cracking his head on every rung of the ladder on the way down and impaling himself with the scissors before I could take two steps.(Ok, so I'm a little dramatic...I was scared!) So I fought the urge and quietly. calmly. proceeded. SLOWLY. I tried not to make eye contact with him and to cover as much ground with the fewest steps possible before he figured out that I was moving.

I rescued my little daredevil successfully this time, but if that bathroom had been any further away from the ladder the story could have been very different. He would have seen me coming and attempted either a quick getaway or a happy dance, both of which would have probably resulted in a 911 call.

Chunky Monkey it is.