Through The Night!

Well, it would seem we've finally crossed the time zone barrier. Thursday, Friday and Saturday night= M. slept through each night. (And, therefore, so did Mom! whew. She's relieved.)

AND--BIG news with Thursday's bed-time: DAD put her to bed! Yup. J took M. with her to worship team, and then I put her to bed. WOW! She went easily. She fussed about an hour later and I went in to successfully comfort her.

Now that felt amazing. It's pretty wild. Every single day from the night we landed in CT on, I've been able to hold her. Now, she still prefers mom under stress, and will cry for her, but she will let me hold her in lots of situations.

Holding M.

Progress is being made in this area. This week I've been able to hold her when being very silly. When the silliness stops--so does the permission to hold.

Yesterday, I took M. into the family room to see our parakeets. I picked her up and put her on my lap. She was so fascinated by the birds she forgot to complain. :-) Then I just picked her up and walked around for a bit. She was quite content.....until we went into the other room and she saw mom holding G.

This morning she actually held her arms up signaling for me to hold her. I did a double-take, then picked her up and held her for a little while. WOW! We're getting there.

--R

Behind

We're more than a day behind on posts because of weird net problems yesterday +. Hopefully we'll get caught up this evening (while ya'll are worshiping the Lord.) Right now, J. is getting some much needed alone time--shopping on Shamian Island, M. is napping, and I was reading, napping, now blogging. She's had a good long nap, and while I'm nervous about the moment she wakes up and discovers the lack of her mother's presence--it's time to start opening the shades and letting her wake up. (Don't want to mess up bedtime--which has been STELLAR save one night with a rumbly stomach and the one night where she inexplicably woke up when the door clicked.)

sigh. Here it goes. My plan is to quickly show her her diaper then her shoes and hopefully she'll stay calm as we go looking for mom.

whew.

Still Glowing

OK.
I'm still glowing over the triple victory of an hour ago.

1) she went IN the toilet!!!! And she was pretty durn gleeful, cute and proud of herself when she did it!
2) she didn't even FLINCH when I lifted her up to stand there to do it.
3) she didn't even flich AGAIN when I lifted her into the tub and gave her a bath.

It was all soooooo much fun. She just smiled and giggled all the way through. wow. She's a hoot in the tub. You can just pour the water right over her head and then when it's time to rinse, she just flops back and lays in the water. It's GREAT! No whimpering. No grimacing. No refusal to get water in her eyes.

I know J. posted this all already, but YEE-HAAAWWWWWW!!!!

Bonding/Toddlerhood

While there are still a host of great moments the last couple of days have been kind of hard. It's hard to discern what reactions are "attachment/bonding" things and what things are simply being "two." Like usual, when parenting, even after "reading all the books" and talking to a host of people, in the end it's still hard to figure out what in the world to do sometimes. :-)

I (R) can only hold her to touch those lights in the play-room. I'll take it! :-) But I can still do a whole bunch with her---which is encouraging. She really does engage with me in a lot of other ways--I just can't comfort/hold her anymore. Curse that cup of noodles. (but, who knows--this could have happened anyway.)

M. fell asleep in her crib last night as usual. J. slipped quietly out of the room for a little "alone time." A few minutes later the door clicked shut and M.'s head shot up in the dark. She just stared toward the doorway. I froze. What's she going to do? She stayed like that for a couple of minutes. perfectly still. Staring. Then I heard it: "Mama?" Shoot. I'm doomed. Another minute or so of stillness. "Mama?" Then she started to cry. I got her up and tried to console her to no avail. She wanted nothing of it. She just stood staring down the hallway at the door and the light coming out of the bathroom. I could tell she wanted to see if Mom was in the bathroom. She just stood and cried and stared over my head and I'd gently stroke her back. Finally she inched toward the bathroom and looked inside. No mom. Slight increase in volume.
She backed against the wall and stared mournfully at the door.

I got my shoes and showed them to her. I got her little sandals and showed them to her. She stopped crying immediately and let me put them on. Then she held my hand as we walked slowly down the hall and then down to the lower levels to find mom. Mom got her back to the room and asleep in no-time. But poor mom didn't bet much of an excursion.

While that was pretty discouraging for me (not much help for a crying child) and for J. (when will she ever be alone again?!) there's also good news. She did let me put her shoes on and even hold my hand. She did stop crying then and there. She did find comfort in her mother.

Anyway. Despite the great pics and everything. This isn't easy. And probably won't be. (When is ANY parenting ever easy?!)