Marissa had another very bad day and then night on Tuesday and it all started around 11:45 am - it is important to recall from my last post that she was catching onto the joys of being held and cuddled. Well, after I put her down for a nap on Tuesday, I spent the next three hours trying to get her into a sleep that lasted more than ten minutes - the child faked me into believing she was truly asleep each time. I just ended up feeding her and starting the whole process over and this exercise in futility stretched into the evening, with Rob and I both on the same mission now. We crossed paths going between Marissa's and Lauren's rooms from 7:00-8:00, Lauren was having a hard time falling asleep too and wanted/needed several visits from us to convince her it really was the last time we were coming in, it was TIME TO GO TO SLEEP. We recognize that the concept is lost on Marissa, but Lauren is fully aware of the routines and rules of bedtime and she was pushing every limit and invoking every stall tactic known to the two-year-old population. Long story short, I spent the entire night going back and forth to Marissa's room, the ten minute sleep routine continuing until I was crying from exhaustion and helplessness. Finally, morning came and I was determined to find a solution to this problem or hire a sleep consultant to figure it out for me. I put a desperate cry to help on Facebook and got some good advice, Rob and I also hashed out everything that could possibly be contributing to the problem in an effort to fix it. Something worked because Marissa slept very well yesterday and then only woke up last night to eat and it was a good night for all. We swapped out the swaddle we had used for a different one plus Rob set up a space heater at the foot of her crib so that while we were feeding her, it could be warming the crib. I can only hope and pray that it continues to work, we are too old to function on three hours of broken sleep a night!
Then while we were fighting foggy heads from lack of sleep yesterday morning, Rob discovered a chunk of wood missing from the front rail of Lauren's crib with mysterious teeth marks around the missing chunk. Surely she did not take a bite out of her crib?? Yep, she sure did and owned up to it without a hint of remorse when confronted. Are you kidding me??? What on earth posseses one to EAT THEIR CRIB?? Then after school she claims she ate a magnet from the refridgerator - she came to tell me it tasted bad. We aren't sure exactly what she ate, but all of the magnets have been removed from my kitchen. Her plastic barrette also came home with noticeable teeth marks on it. I don't know how to threaten/scare/punish her enough to get through to her that she cannot eat anything that is not food. Besides the choking hazard, which is enough of a worry, I'm sure that two of the three things she's been gnawing on are made in China and God-only-knows what dangers that entails.
And to top it off, my normally sane and rational partner completely baffled me this week too: I have been making coffee for Rob in the mornings plus he bought an industrial sized box of the 5 Hour Energy Shots to drink at lunchtime in an effort to make it through the workday as alert as possible under the circumstances. As I was putting his coffee cup in the dishwasher the other day, I noticed the cup was still mostly full. I made a mental note to ask if he stopped at Starbucks on his way in since he barely touched the coffee, but of course I never got the chance to ask since all hell was breaking loose at my house which deemed any conversation outside of "How are we going to survive this?" out of the question. After he looked at me particularly pathetically between the girls' rooms at one point, I asked if he drank the energy shot and he said no and proceeded on. In my mush brain state, I remember vaguely thinking, "why aren't you helping this situation by self-caffeinating?", as if that would help this situation. But seriously, why wasn't he self-caffeinating? He hit the proverbial wall at 3:30, he said, why wouldn't he pull out the little bottle and chug it down? I will never know the answer to this, but I did send him an email yesterday with an update on Marissa and also instructions to drink his coffee and also his little energy drink at lunchtime. I can't believe I had to put that into an email, but in an effort to control something in this family, I did it. Rob looked much brighter last night and we managed to stay up for the American Idol final, which was well worth it since the one we wanted to win, did.
So seriously, whoever stole my family and replaced them with non-sleeping, crib-eating zombies, please give them back, I miss my sanity.
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