Archive for the “Challenges” Category
Blue Eyes and a Dirty Dress
One morning last week, Natalie woke up talking about eye color. She talked about her blue eyes, asked both Chris and I what color our eyes are and then announced, “I want to wear something blue today to match my blue eyes.” Chris and I looked at each other and shrugged, neither of us knowing where she came up with that notion.
We went into her room to choose an outfit. Natalie rejected a few things we suggested, then told us that she wanted to wear her “blue tank top with the flower on it.”
I said, “Sorry, honey, but that shirt is dirty. You wore it the other day and it’s in the laundry basket.”
“You mean my tank top is dirty?” Natalie hates it when we (or anyone) uses a general word to refer to something for which there is a more specific term. Heaven forbid you call her flip-flops “sandals.”
“Yes, your blue tank top with the flower on it is dirty. You’ll have to choose something else to wear.”
Natalie buried her face in my lap. Then she stood up, looking forlorn. “I really, really, really wanted to wear that tank top!”
I could empathize completely with having a specific, perfect thing in mind to wear, only to find that it’s dirty, or otherwise unavailable. “I know honey, it’s very disappointing when the thing you want to wear is dirty.” I really didn’t think that Natalie would be so emotional about clothes this young.
Natalie said again, “I really, really, really wanted to wear that tank top!” She looked like she might cry.
Chris also expressed his condolences about the tank top and promised to wash the it that night so that Natalie could wear it the next day.
Then I spotted a suitable replacement dress in Natalie’s drawer. “Look, Natalie! What about this dark blue dress with light blue flowers? It’s soooooo pretty!!”
Chris exclaimed, “Oh yeah, that dress perfectly matches your blue eyes!!”
Oh how we miss the days of pulling any old outfit out of the drawer and dressing Natalie without protest or hassle. Luckily, Natalie caught on to our enthusiasm for the blue dress and happily put it on.
As I looked at the dress more closely, I noticed there were some spots on it. I wondered why the spots didn’t come out in the wash, then touched one. Ew. I realized that the dress must have gotten back into the drawer instead of in the hamper after Natalie wore it last, because it had splotches of crusted yogurt on it. At this point, getting Natalie dressed had already taken 20 minutes. I knew that telling her that the dress was dirty would likely incite a tantrum and make both Chris and I late to work. As much as it pained me, I didn’t say a word. So, after all that fuss, Natalie ended up wearing something that was probably dirtier than the blue tank top that she wanted to wear in the first place. Oh, the irony.
Natalie’s First Nightmare
Natalie had her first (noticeable to us) nightmare(s) last night. First she woke up at 3 am crying and saying something about monsters. I told her it was just a dream and she went back to sleep (in our bed) easily. Then at 4 am she woke us up with a loud, BLOOD-CURDLING scream. For some reason I wasn’t all that startled, but Chris screamed, too. When I asked Natalie if she had a bad dream, she giggled and said that I tried to take her pillow. Go figure. This time she and I tossed and turned for about an hour before getting back to sleep.
Stubborn
In all fairness, Natalie has been going to sleep at night really well on her own. After we say goodnight in her room, she scurries into our room and falls asleep on our bed. She’s been sleeping so deeply that when we go to bed, we’re able to transfer her back into her own bed without much trouble. Usually, she stays in her bed until 4 am or so, when she sneaks into our bed and snuggles back to sleep. Sometimes, we wake up around 6 am to find her laying in between us and neither of us have any recollection of when or how she got there. Occasionally, she crawls into our bed around 1 or 2 am, and on very, very rarely, she sleeps all the way through until 7 or so.
But then she went through a stage when she would half-heartedly try to fall asleep for about 30 seconds before appearing at the gate at the top of the stairs and demanding that one of us come rub her back or lay down with her. We would oblige, but it really didn’t help her get to sleep any faster. She would often get really fidgety or would come back to the gate again as soon as we left. After about a week of this, we started telling her (from downstairs) that she needed to go back to sleep and then ignoring her. She would stand at the gate and whine, or sometimes we’d hear her going back and forth between her bed and our bed. Eventually, there would be silence.
Tonight (well, last night by the time anyone reads this) Natalie refused to go to bed. She just sat, and sat, and sat in front of the gate until finally she passed out:
