A little help from my friends

Mamas! Mamas!

Calling all mamas!

I need H E L P!

K, here is the scoop:

Chloe will not go to sleep until well after midnight. Usually closer to 1 am. She is completely wide awake, and plays and plays until she finally just succumbs to the sandman and closes those pretty little eyes of hers.

I can't keep staying up so late. I need (NEED) at least an hour to myself before I go to sleep. To decompress. Unwind. Just be quiet and read for a bit. But with C lo going to sleep at 1, I find myself staying away until 2 or 3 just to get that alone time in.

I have to find a way to get her to sleep earlier. I don't care if it is even 11:30, I just need it to be before midnight.

The pertinent info:

Chloe sleeps in bed with me. She hates HATES HATES her crib and will not even let me set her in it for a second, awake or asleep. She never used to mind sleeping in it when she was smaller, but with her reflux, ALTE history and everything, we just kept her in bed with us so we could keep an eye on her at all times. And then...well, I just liked having her in bed next to me. Now? Co-sleeping is what we do, and it is a-ok by me.

Wake up happens for us around 9 am. We wake up, we cuddle in bed and watch a video together while she has a bottle, and then we start our day.

Naptime takes place between 2-4 pm. Never any later, sometimes a little bit earlier or not as long. She sleeps wherever for her nap. The couch, chair, pack & play at grandmas. Yesterday she didn't even take a nap and she was still awake until after 12:30 am.

We actually go to bed around 10 pm. I make a warm bottle, change her into her pajamas and feed her with the lights off while cuddling with her. Sometimes she just lays next to me and eats quietly. Regardless, she'll pop right up after and start playing in bed. Even with the lights off. For 3 hours. Yeah. Sadface.

I think that's it. If you need any more info, please let me know.

Based upon all this info, what can you suggest for me to do to get her to sleep earlier? I'm getting frazzled, and have bad insomnia myself, so when I stay up *past* my natural bedtime, I have a very very hard time falling asleep.

I'll take whatever you've got. Just throw those ideas at me.

Thank you mamas!

Temper temper

My sweet little girl has turned into something that rivals the main character from the exorcist. Would that be the devil or the little girl possessed by the devil? Either way, it fits.

Not only is she teething up a storm, but she has learned that throwing a tantrum when she can't get what she wants is probably the best solution, as is hitting me. Oh, and the arching of the back thrown in with loud screams and thrashing seems to be a favorite, too.

The absolute BEST part about all this? When I reprimand her by saying a stern "no" ... she just laughs at me. And not just any laugh, a hysterical laugh. I almost feel like she is mocking me.

Maybe she is.

Anyways, I love this almost 1 year old so damn much, not of the temper or teething issues bother me one bit. Even after I reprimand her, and she laughs, I can't help but crack a smile and laugh a little bit myself. =) I know, not the best way to show her that I am serious, but what the heck. She's my kid. I love her to death and can never stay mad at her, even for a second.

I'm thinking this does not bode well for me in the years to come. =P

Can you say softie?

In other news, bf and I decided to get me/us a flip cam this weekend so I can record all of this nonsense (totally not nonsense) and put it up for you to see, and keep it for myself to look back on when I get old and senile. Like next year. =D

K, I made myself write. Job done. I'm going to try and post again this weekend.

Don't hold your breath.

Whee.

The post about not posting

I don't know how so many of you post something new every day. I guess you just have the writing gene. =) I have a different kind of writing gene. The nerdy kind. The one that allows me to write dozens and dozens of pages on the driest subjects ever, like Spinoza's mathematical proof of the existence of God. I actually had fun with that one.

But I just can't sit down and write for the sake of writing.

I feel like I should post more often, to chronicle certain events and milestones, but I just don't have the drive.

I attended Blog it Forward this past Thursday, a benefit for Anissa thrown by Chef's Widow. I should be writing about how Chef's Widow and I were best friends in grade school, lost contact with each other, and reconnected through twitter and blogs. Thursday was the first time I had seen her in almost 16 years. Yeah. But I just can't seem to find the time or energy to write about it.

I should be posting how this benefit raised over a thousand dollars for Anissa. Which is amazing, and makes me feel very proud of my city. And I'm a girl who really has very little pride in Cleveland. Well, I didn't. I'm learning to. Reading Chef's Widow's blog has a lot to do with that.

I should be writing posts about my baby girl. About how amazing she is. About how grown up she is already. How it makes me so happy and so sad at the same time to see her almost walking. WALKING!

But I have too much to do. SO much to do. I never find time to sit down and write about it.

And I'm afraid that I'm not going to remember.

One of the side effects of the anti-anxiety meds that I take is poor memory. I have SUCH an awful time remembering all sorts of things. Important things, silly thing, trivial things. But those little factoids are the things that I love to remember. That I fondly look back on...that help me to remember what something felt like...smelled like...all the emotions involved.

Sometimes I feel like my memory is getting worse and worse every day. I don't know if it is just me, or if it is the meds. Or maybe a combination of both.

It's fun when I can reread old books and still be surprised at the end, but I worry that I'm not going to remember these days with my baby girl. I have taken so many pictures so far, but with the move, my camera hasn't been charged, so I've not chronicled her life in the past few months, other than by cell phone.

I have asked the bf for a flip cam for xmas. I'm hoping that I get one so I can record all my favorite moments with my girl. Her cheesy smile. How she loves to kick and splash in the bathtub. The face she makes right before she sneezes. I even want to remember how she does a silent open mouthed cry in the middle of the night before the big WAHHHH! comes out. =)

She is my everything, and I don't want to forget even one second of one minute of one hour of one day with her.

I love her.

So I will try to write. I'll tell stories about our day. Our night. How she cried a big silent cry before the big WAHHHH! came out. And then we can both look back on the stories and smile.

Together.

A rose by any other name...

Chloe Kendall

also known as:

C lo

Clo Clo

Clovis, Clobie, baby girl,

beauty, thunderfoot,

my little Chichen Itza

Toots McGee.

I love her so.