"Please don't lick the sidewalk"

I was praying outside an abortion facility the other day with a friend, and Iliana tagged along (which deserves a post of its own). My little girl was (of course) a little bored, just hanging out while the big folks prayed (and chatted a bit, too). The title of this post is one of the amusing things that came out of my mouth. Other gems included:

"Don't drink water off of the street! Ewww!"

"Please don't lick the pole."

"Please don't walk on the umbrella. It's not ours."

Overall, she was actually very well behaved (I don't say 'please' when I get frustrated). Still, when she gets bored she backslides into the "oral" phase again, and everything goes into the mouth. Especially puddles. What is with this fascination with drinking from strange things, like gutters and bathtubs?

Lenora, on the other hand, was left at home for the day. *She* has been deciding not to sleep lately.

Last Thursday, Lenora was awake from 3:30 AM until 7:00 AM yelling for Mommy. Daddy went in multiple times to help her to bed, and each time she cheered up and happily went to bed and got kisses. Within five seconds of him leaving each time, she was back at the door yelling and fussing for me. I'm lying in bed, knowing I'll be exhausted at work the next day and thinking, "If she is this stubborn at 2 1/2, she'll have no problems resisting peer pressure when she's a teen."

Well, fortunately DH (Dear Husband) and I both have strong stubborn streaks as well, and we had no problem outlasting her . . . kind of. If you look at things right. Well, no, actually, we caved in. *Ahem*. See, since Lenora is allowed to get up at 7:00 AM, I went in then and talked her back into bed. Once she got what she wanted, she went back to sleep. Naturally, Iliana slept through the whole thing. It's probably the soundest sleeping I've ever seen her do. Hrmm . . . that makes me think - maybe Iliana would sleep better ALL the time if we played a recording of a screaming child at night?

I probably shouldn't try it. If we do that too much, the neighbors might call the cops.

Thursday night went fine (thank you, O Lord, for a good night's sleep to rest between our parently trials) and Lenora woke up much less sleepy on Friday, in time for Halloween. We went trick-or-treating at Microsoft and in our neighborhood, with the girls dressed as fairies and joined by a friend and her four children.

By the end of the night's excitement, the girls were covered in stickiness; I wanted to wash my hands every time I came in contact with them. Iliana, in particular, was sticky. This may have had something to do with her sucking on two lollipops at once, and then rubbing them all over her face just for the fun of the gloriously sticky messiness of it all.

My husband, in his great wisdom, ordered the girls to the bathtub shortly before we got home.

That night, Lenora screamed until after midnight. And again, I caved before she did. I really hope she doesn't ever give us the silent treatment when she gets older. If she does, it could be years before we hear her voice again. I can see the diagnosis now: "PVM, Parental Vicinity Muteness, caused by acute stubborness."

She did nap while Iliana and I were out, and now seems to be returning to a less stubborn pattern of sleep. That is to say, she has been keeping the screaming down to less than an hour before naps and bedtime and we have high hopes of her returning to her previously normal pattern of going to sleep happily after a small bribe of kisses and hugs. Please, don't anyone tell her we enjoy the kisses more than she does! She still seems to think she's coming out ahead with this deal.

Day 1 of mother-encouraged weaning

I just put my girls to bed without nursing for the first time in 3 or 4 months. Even though I came home 90 minutes before bed, and even though I was interacting closely with them most of that time, they still accepted my discouragement of nursing. First DH helped me distract them with dinner, and they accepted my refusal to nurse in exchange for extra cheese and frozen teething toys. Then when they started asking for milk again we moved to baths, and they were happy with that. Then stories and pajamas and one more story, and then Iliana climbed into bed without being asked - so I finished reading Lenora the story quickly, tucked them in, and started giving out kisses.

Finally Iliana realized she wanted milk and started to cry. We told her firmly but kindly that it was too late and we were going night-night, and then turned the light out and left. We know from experience that any attempts to calm and soothe this late in the bedtime routine usually backfire, as the other child gets upset and confused by the change. Iliana wasn't happy about it, but she didn't melt down either and quit complaining as soon as we left the room - and moved on to playing with her sister, rather cheerfully.

Lenora is actually still awake, almost an hour later, talking to herself quietly. They've been doing this at bedtime lately - playing, chatting, singing, and occasionally running around the room after we put them to bed and walk out. It's very cute, and the thing that really impresses me is that they will put themselves back to bed without any fuss when they get tired, with no help from us.

And now . . . silence. Wow.

Quit being cute so I can get some sleep!

Last night Iliana woke up, and then Lenora woke up shortly after. This isn't all that uncommon, but it's always a hassle since I need to wake up Bjorn, get his help getting the babies onto the nursing pillow before anyone gets too worked up, nurse, and then wake Bjorn up again to get his help returning the girls to their sleep spaces.

Well, we went through this routine last night, but when the girls returned to their cribs they didn't just fuss for a few seconds and fall asleep. No, instead they used their growing motor skills to stand up. Still, nothing that out of the ordinary - except that instead of crying at us to make it better (which usually means another trip back to the pillow for everyone) they started shrieking good-naturedly at each other! They were little attention-getting shrieks, like a game of baby Marco-Polo!

Very cute, and yet another sign of their rapidly growing sibling bond. Nonetheless, I was very relieved when Lenora climbed down, laid herself down, fussed a little, and went to sleep. Iliana continued to call at her a little more, than started crying. I got up and brought her back to bed with me, cuddled close, and let her nurse to sleep.

Cry it out with twins

I'm really not a fan of cry-it-out (CIO). However, I no longer believe it should be avoided at all costs, either. There are worse things than having your babies cry for a long period at bedtime until they go to sleep - and for us, one of those things is having your babies cry for long periods of time at night until they go to sleep because Mom is too exhausted to wake up and care for them. Oops.

We had another one of those "too exhausted to wake" nights recently, and it prompted me to do another round of CIO. We've done CIO before after two months of unsuccessfully working with no-cry methods, including the end of our cosleeping, when Iliana and Lenora were seven months old. I never felt comfortable with my decision to resort to CIO, though, and I got back into the habit of nursing them to drowsiness . . . and sometimes to sleep. Again. And the sleep associations redeveloped, and the nightwakings came back. Then I got sick - and realized that night wakings due to sleep associations are a luxury we can't afford. While I could handle their extra wakings when I was healthy, being sick and handling nightwakings pushed me past the point of being able to care for my children.

CIO with twins is a bit more complicated than CIO without twins. You have two temperaments to consider, not one. If you are in a small apartment, like we are, then they will hear each other crying and keep each other up to some extent.

And then there are all the questions about which version of CIO to use. I started with Ferber's method, just at bedtime, and over one week of CIO plus the last three days have ended up doing something very different. What I do is more hands-on when the babies are upset, and more hands-off when they are calming down. If they are worked up, I will do anything to calm them down again - even nurse them a little. The calmer they are, the less I interfere. Two nights ago and tonight it worked amazingly well. Last night I accidentally nursed them to sleep, oops.

I also see the brief visits to soothe differently now that I have more experience. Ferber says that they are there to reassure the parents that the child is OK and to reassure the child that the parent is there. I see them as a way to keep the baby from getting too worked up. Tonight, the girls seemed really upset when I first left the room, so I went back in after only a minute. But that was the only time I went in - after that, they slowly wound down, and then got quiet, and the whole CIO was over in less than ten minutes. Two nights ago CIO only took 15 minutes. That is much better than the 90 minutes scream-fest when I used Ferber's method for the first time two months ago. And much better than an hour or more of crying in the middle of the night while Mom and Dad, two feet away, sleep through it all - or, if I woke, fell asleep before actually getting up.

Something else is different this time around besides having more experience. I also have no guilt. I still consider myself an attached parent in spite of using CIO, and my babies seem attached as well. I actually had fun tonight when I went in to soothe them because I was so sure I am doing the right thing. Why? Well, it's because of how they acted the day after I was sleeping through their cries. They were MAD at me. They fussed whenever I was around, and quit only when I left. I gave them some extra attention that evening, and by the next day things seemed to be smoothed over and they seemed to have forgiven me. A couple days later we tried CIO - and they were fine the next day. Perfectly normal and cheerful. Of course, I did make sure I coslept with Iliana a little in the early morning since she is more sensitive emotionally, to help smoothe things out a little :-) I really like cosleeping, but these days it is a treat I enjoy less frequently since it leads to nursing to sleep which leads to - sleep association problems!