Finally an entry that’s not about how shitty I feel (which I still do, by the way. You know, in case you were wondering.)

After trying nearly everything short of spiking his milk with a shot of Codeine to get Christopher to go to sleep without hours upon hours of drama, we finally found a solution that works: We took the front rail off of his crib and replaced it with the toddler rail. It has been about two months now and the bedtime hysteria has gradually decreased from a 12 on the crazy scale to a mere 2.5. 

Bedtime is … (I really hesitate to put this in writing because the instant I hit ‘publish’ Christopher will instantaneously regress back to the maniacal, screaming, crib climbing child of days not long enough ago, as if the past two months had never happened … but here it goes … ) easy.

Now naptime, well, that’s a different story. There’s minimal screaming and crying (at least on his part) and he has all but given up on rattling the door and yelling, “Mama! Door locked!” relentlessly, only to hear me confirm his findings from the other side. Resigned to the fact that he will be stuck in his room for the next two hours, but still unwilling to actually go to sleep, he does whatever he can to occupy himself until I come to release him. And, since we had the forethought to remove all of the interesting toys (i.e. anything that wasn’t a stuffed animal) from his toy box so that he wouldn’t be tempted to get out of bed and play trains into the wee hours of morning, his choices are limited. Or so we thought.

Lately he has taken to rearranging the furniture. Yesterday he had pushed his bed into the middle of the room. The day before that he relocated the rocking chair to the left side of the room and emptied the contents of his drawers onto the floor (yes, they have child locks but he figured those out about a year ago).  

Another favorite pastime of his is dressing (or undressing) himself. A few weeks ago I went in to check on him and found this . Another afternoon found him lounging on the floor reading a book, dressed in only a t-shirt and snow boots. Michael discovered him asleep in his bed one night wearing his slippers (which were NOT on him when we put him to bed) and surrounded by every shoe that he owns, paired up and neatly placed at the foot of his bed.   

This afternoon I put him down for a nap around noon. I gave him a few books, turned on his CD player, gave him a kiss and closed the door behind me. All was quiet until about an hour later when I heard him start to scream. In a panic I ran in to his room to see what was the matter. And there he was, sitting in the middle of his floor, pissed of as all hell because he couldn’t get his jeans on over his sneakers and sweatpants. And to think, when I put him down for his nap he was wearing his pajamas.  

Comments

[Diana]

LMAO! That pic is great!
My little Man loooooves his naps, hates sleeping at night! It's like, "Hey I'll sleep when Mommy's not around, and when she thinks she will get some sleep I will whimper and cry so she has to stay up with me!"
Evil-doers...

[Leggy]

Love the picture- he is too funny. Good luck- my son pulls the "I'm so lonely" crap when we try to get him to go to bed without us staying there until he's out cold.

[SarahA]

What a hilarious little guy you have! Luckily Em hasn't figured out how to undress herself yet. Her older cousin once disrobed and streaked across the kitchen in front of my SIL and BIL and their lucky dinner guests, who happened to be my SIL's boss and his wife. Even worse, the little guy had persuaded the boss's son (who was a year older than him) to streak as well.

I fear Em will be genetically predisposed to the stripping.

[Dawn]

I tell Emily that I will take perverse pleasure in vaccuming, while singing "Cabaret" outside her room at 7 a.m. when she is 16.

It seems only fair.

And who can resist a nudie baby? Seriously?

[Colleen]

OMG!! I was laughing so hard reading this post. Laughing with you, not at you! Ha ha! I love that picture. That could win a contest of come sort. Well, at least he's staying in his room and keeping himself entertained. Too funny!

[Lassa]

Kelli, you doing okay? Just checking.

[-A-]

Hey, Kelli, how's it going? Haven't heard from you in a while.

[Diana]

Guess I'm not the only one who decided to pop in and check on you. Everything okay? Should I send for reinforcements?