Update on the Antics

So after a month or more of naughty nonsense, I am happy to say that things are going a tiny bit better in the world of should-be-sleeping.

Let me start by saying that we figured out it is indeed Anneliese causing most of the chaos.  Sure, Nathan partakes, and gladly so. But when we remove him from the equation (like when he sleeps in our room), she still wakes up at oh dark thirty; it's not him waking her. Even though he starts off in our bed to read every evening, she still disassembles the doorknob safety and creeps out into the hallway; it's not him tempting her out.

In short, she's the problem. (Well, Nathan isn't exactly part of the solution, so...)

The most important thing we did is buy this:

Yes, that is an alarm clock for a toddler. A thirty dollar alarm clock for a toddler. (I KNOW. But we were that desperate, and the twitterverse said it would work, so I dropped the moolah. I don't even know who I am anymore.)

It's kind of genius, actually. It's an alarm clock that instead of buzzing, turns green when it's time to get up. (Well, technically it does buzz if you want it to. And of course Anneliese has figured out how to set it to buzz at random times. Of course she has.) It's perfect for kids who are old enough to understand there are times when they need to stay in their rooms, but not old enough to understand the time itself. So basically we put thirty dollars (and all our hopes and dreams) into this thing.

And it mostly works. Sometimes she comes out when it's still white and I have to gently bring her back into her room and remind her to wait. She doesn't love it, but she does it. When she does finally get to come out of her room, she feels like it's on her own terms and she's happy to be a big girl about it.

(Step two would be finding better fancier doorknob safeties that she can't disable. They have been ordered. But it hasn't come to that yet.)

By the time she comes downstairs, Charlotte and I have had an extra hour of sleep, which sets the day off way better, obviously. And Nathan has had his own quiet time and is sufficiently awake enough himself for human interaction.

While Charlotte and I nurse and snuggle and wake up slowly, the big kids play a little together. Sometimes it's not awesome (like when they color on each other with markers or soak each other with the hose -- activities that are mostly harmless until they're not) but mostly it's completely adorable, like Nathan helping Anneliese open her yogurt or put her shirt on.

Oh those two. Cue heart melting.

sweet pic by emu

So, yeah. The moral of the story is everyone is less cranky when Anneliese falls asleep without distraction, then stays in her room a bit longer in the mornings.

And that's the update on the antics.

{Disclaimer 7/16: I wrote this last week so it's been sitting (waiting for pics) since *before* we had a terrible horrible no-good very bad morning involving more naughtiness than I can even put into a blog right now. Post for another day. Suffice it to say, it got worse before it got better, and I'm still just clinging to a thread of hope about that better part. There was marker. And there was magic eraser. And oh there were tears. Uggggggggh.}