Miss A was born 9 days late.  Most people would assume that last week of pregnancy was “the longest week of my life”, they’d be wrong.  We moved into our house during the blizzards of 2010-2011, during which time we had an ant infestation that movies are made of…leaving me stuck in the house for a week straight with thousands of ants on every floor surface with an 8 month old.  Some people would think THAT was “the longest week of my life”…wrong again.

The Friday before Labor Day we took away Miss A’s bobo…and THIS my friends has been the LONGEST WEEK OF MY LIFE.  This will continue to be the longest month of my life until she hits puberty…I’m sure of it.

The disappearance of these little F*ers has, in 1 week, reversed so many of the forward steps we’ve been making with Miss A over the last 2 months!  She has been angry…and sleepless…and that is a lethal combination!  For posterity…here’s how the last week went down.

We removed all bobos from the crib, house, car (that I could find) on Friday morning after she woke up.  We boxed them up & “sent them to the babies in the hospital”.  I started psyching her up for her trip to Toys R Us later that day where she was going to get a big reward for being so generous to babies in need…she could get ANYTHING she wanted in the store.  And we’d get her a donut too!  We then got the hell out of the house!  Distraction is key.  We walked around the block, ran some errands, went out to lunch…and somewhere on that afternoon drive, she fell asleep.  (She hasn’t napped in her crib since)  When she woke up, we went out for a donut to hold her off until Daddy got home and we went to the toy store…and took another 12 walks around the block to collect rocks and smell the flowers and look for more puppies!

When Daddy got home we went to the toy store…where she had the choice of anything in the store.  We pushed a bike, we pushed a hot wheels….she chose a bed.  A TODDLER BED!  A Minnie Mouse, made Mommy get hives from the plastic toddler bed.  After the 20th “are you sure you want THAT one?!” she finally told us to shut up.  And we did.  And home we went to take down the crib & put up the bed.  Thank you Mister LK.  Thank you & I’m sorry.

Stupidest decision ever.  In our defense, we thought it might make more sense to her that there were no bobo’s allowed in big girl beds….and so….we went to bed Friday night like this…

Can you spot the sneaky dog

She slept that night from 9pm to 7am.  Pretty darn good Miss A.  If only it would have lasted!  Her routine for the following 2 nights was to wake up at 2-3am, turn on her lights, walk out of her room to check that Mommy & Daddy weren’t having some secret party she wasn’t invited to.  She’d walk back into her room & play…loudly…until 5am…when she’d hop back into bed for an hour & come out to get us at 6am.  6AM?????? NOT A CHANCE!

Monday…the crib was back up & she was back in it.  Through trial and error we realized that she needs to learn how to self soothe herself back to sleep, but that won’t happen if she can get up and turn on her lights!  She’s been doing really great in her crib & although she’s been crying herself to sleep for longer than she used to, it’s been about 2 days since she’s mentioned the bobo & I am so proud of her!

This has been a really difficult change for Miss A & for Mommy.  I am glad we stuck with it & we’re working hard to get over this habit & help her to soothe herself from within!

This has definitely been the longest week of my life so far, but there’s a light at the end of this tunnel.  Miss A starts school tomorrow!  While I’m sad to see summer leave…I can’t wait for the fall & all the wonderful things coming our way … especially 3 days a week of school 9-3.  That sounds awesome to me 🙂