With cat like reflexes

Last night in our never ending battle of going to bed Nicole was calling from her room "baby bottle" so that she could feed her baby while she was in bed. However, I have found that if I give into this request I can sometimes find this bottle within the confines of her sleeper so I don't typically give into this request. Last night however she was relentless in asking. I was eating my late supper while Gary was preparing something on the stove when we hear the pitter patter of little feet coming down the hallway and into the living room and shrieking "baby bottle". She picked up the bottle and Gary and I looked at each other with very surprised looks. Nicole headed back to her room and suddenly realized that she could not get back into her bed. Of course Gary was following her back to her room and promptly put her back into bed.

So needless to say I didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night just because I was terrified that she was going to come running out of her room at any second and into mine. That is how it started with Aimee, she would run into our room in the middle of the night when she woke up and stare right at me. Freaked me out so we gated her into her room. It can be argued that it isn't safe to do so, but it gave me a little peace of mind.

With Nicole though, I didn't hear a creak, thud or squeak as she got out of bed. She just ran down the hall looking for her baby's bottle like it was nothing. I think I have a future ninja on my hands. Luckily last week I had the premonition that she was nearing this accomplishment because she was putting her foot up on the rails while waiting for me to get her out of bed each morning. So I spent some time making sure that every outlet was covered, every piece of furniture was securely attached to the walls and that all extra items were tucked away and locked behind the closet door. She went down tonight without incident but I know when she figures out she can get out of her crib easily that is it and big girl bed here we come. Can she really be that old?

Home working

Yep, I decided that with the rain, my youngest daughter's inability to sleep through the night and the general blah ness that I feel today that I should work from home. I really think that working from home gets a bum rap. I love to work at home and I actally get 100 times more work done at home than when I am in the office. Since I am at 24 hours per week and lately I have had a lot of work outside the office at my different project sites that it has been quite a while since my butt has been inside the office walls. But honestly with the rainy day traffic to and from work adding another 3 hours onto my day how can working from home not be more productive. Even more so when the girls are at their regularly scheduled daycare day. Well, Aimee had nursery school first but then she gets picked up by her Daddy and he takes her to daycare where she meets up with Nicole.

So being home working and since it is technically my lunch hour of 12 o'clock I posted to keep going on this every day post thing.

Sleeping last night went better, Nicole slept until 3:15 AM and then I went into see her, changed her messy diaper and had hopes for a quick return to slumber. Didn't happen until almost 5:30 at which point I decided to let her cry it out and in 5 minutes she stopped and slept until almost 7:30. She was cranky this morning though from those few hours of lost sleep. Then again, so is her mama.

Lost a day

I am really trying to post everyday, but I just don't always have the energy to do it at night when I finally have the time. Yesterday was a long day. It started at 5:30 when Nicole decided that it would be fun to be up at that time. So on Tuesdays we take Aimee to nursery school and yesterday we also had to do two errands while Aimee was at school, vote and hit a toy store. So we dropped Aimee off, picked up my parents and took them to vote (they came so that we could take turns going in and not having to bring Nicole in since we heard horror stories about waiting in line...turned out to be untrue at our location) and then headed to the toy store. The local toy store from us was having a fund raiser for Aimee's school where if you bought toys and stated your affiliation with her school the school in turn got 20% of the proceeds of your sale. Apparently it is their biggest fundraiser and gift certificates even counted toward the totals. Bonus. So I picked up some Christmas presents for the girls and my nieces and they even gift wrapped them. This is the first time that I have even thought about shopping before Thanksgiving let alone be wrapped! Bonus.

Nicole however, fell alseep in the car while I went into the toy store while she was out in the car with her Papa so her nap was from 9:30 to 11:30 in her car seat. So our afternoon nap was taken quite early in the day. Then we picked Aimee up, hit Daddy's work to say hello, made a trip to Trader Joe's for some staple items including stickers and balloons and then went home to play in the yard. We also had a make up lesson for ballet so we were out again from 4-5. So needless to say by the time we got home everyone was exhausted including me since no nap equals no downtime for mom.

Our latest development in the battle of the sleep deprived is that Nicole has suddenly figured out how to put her foot up on the rail of the crib. I thought I had a few more months before I had to start worrying about her getting out of her crib. Apparently not. So we don't like to put her in there upset lest she tries to swan dive out of her crib like her big sister did. We already have sleep issues with Nicole, I can only imagine how awful it will be to deal with her in a big girl bed. I am seriously considering a crib tent. Anyone ever used one? Maybe it is the sleep deprivation talking. Aimee actually sleeps great lately -- it's Nicole that has been having issues. Unfortunately our solution was to bring her into bed with us and since last night Gary got a few toes in his face throughout the night, that must come to an end. So tonight is our test night. We are going to do some tough love with some good padding on the floor lest she tries her acrobats and hopefully she will sleep through the night. Wish us luck!