Night Time Crisis

Makenna has just come across a new reason to get out of bed shortly after we put her down…her fingernails. For the past two nights she’d get out of bed around five minutes after putting her down to have a fingernail cut. Somehow it’s keeping her up and she’s unable to sleep.

I got smart and cut them all last night. I can’t imagine that she’ll come back at me that her toenails will now keep her up but I wouldn’t be surprised either. She’s usually pretty good about going to bed, and usually staying in bed, but lately she’s been on this kick of needing to be covered up again. Even if it’s only been five to ten minutes since we last covered her up. She’s even gotten up in the middle of the night, come downstairs, in the dark, to inform us that she’s uncovered.

We’ve taught her how to cover herself up but it doesn’t seem to hold water in her opinion. Anymore I let Chris handle all night time crisis. He’s able to get right back into bed and sleep. I on the other hand start thinking about how much time is left before I have to get up, all the things that I have to do in the morning, how I can’t seem to fall asleep like Chris and the list goes on.

Plus with her needing to go potty in the middle of the night, I’m not sure if I’m in for a marathon poop session or if it’s just a quick trip to pee and I’m not willing to find out. I figure it’s quality time with daddy anyways.

Hopefully this explains her grumpiness this morning in trying to wake her up.  She was not willing to get up unless daddy came up to get her and I wasn't willing to wait that long.  I then had to go down and wake up my "second child" who was not to happy about how I woke him up.  I apologized and expressed my frustration.  I went back up to get my youngest child and told her in no uncertain terms were we waiting for her daddy to get her up.  This prompted shouts of "just leave me alone" and other unacceptable comments.

Off to the naughty step we went.  The rest of the morning went better after this initial hiccup.  She had a good day at pre-school and did fairly well at gymnastics.  Unfortunately the "mouth" came back as we left gymnastics so she lost all the pennies she had earned for the day.  We started giving her pennies for her piggy bank as a reward for being a good listener at pre-school and any time she is exceptional.

I figured I'd roll that reward over into gymnastics in trying to keep her focused.  I told her for every section that she does well in (meaning stays on task and pays attention and doesn't start fighting or arguing with the other kids,) then she'd earn a penny.  I planned on giving her the pennies until we started leaving and she again started being mouthy.  I had just told her that if she talked back to me again she was going to lose them and about a minute later she mouthed off - so she lost them.  She wasn't happy but accepting.

It was cute to later hear her say, as she was going to the bathroom, "Mom, leave me alone!"  I stayed back out of the room and then I heard her yell "Mom?"  Kind of like, a "where are you mom?" type yell.  So here she tells me to go away and then in the next breath she's yelling to see where I'm at.  Funny.

I forgot to mention that we got a letter from my brother Brant and unfortunately he had to return a couple of pictures that Makenna had made for him because of the sticky stuff that Makenna had put on it.  I thought this might happen.  Makenna's reaction was funny.  She said, in regards to Brant being in trouble, "Mom?, can he say he's sorry?"  If all of life's answers were just as easy as that.