Second, I realized I did not say anything about Thanksgiving. We had a good family-filled Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving day was in Kent at Matt's parents house. It was all of Matt's family plus 5 exchange students. Then the next day all of Matt's family came over to our house so we could celebrate the Oct & Nov birthdays, and so Mike & Becka could see our new house. I managed to not get a single picture of the family gathering. But May took pictures, so here are a few of hers :)
Here is an update worth noting: Etta is no longer sleeping in her crib! She is currently on a mattress on the ground. Well, actually there are 2 mattresses she can choose from...
About a week and a half ago at bedtime she was really upset for some reason I can not remember. She had already tried sitting on the potty and tried other stall tactics. Matt was in the bathroom with Addie because Addie said she felt like she needed to throw up. Etta wanted Matt but I told her he was busy with Addie. This is not what Etta wanted to hear. I gave her choices but she was still throwing a fit so I just left her in her crib and walked out. I closed the door (I think) and went into the bathroom to check on Addie. Next thing I know, Etta is walking up to us like it is no big deal. I did a double take and said "how did you get out of your crib?" I actually stuck her back in because I wanted to see her do it again. It had never seemed to cross her mind before that. But she was mad and she wanted out and no crib was going to stop her! So I was surprised but not angry. But the cat was out of the bag. She knew she could do it, and so she did. Repeatedly at night. Then when she could not get her bedroom door open she would bang on it. Matt and I would plop her back in her crib and remind her that it was night time and time for everyone to sleep. But the next day I decided to take action. I put Addie's mattress on her floor and carried the toddler bed into Etta's room. I out Etta's mattress on it so she could take her nap there. She was excited at first but then refused. So I think she was back in her crib that time. She really did not seem interested in the toddler bed. We moved the crib out of its normal spot and just put her mattress on the ground. The first night she woke & wanted out of the room repeatedly. But we decided we would rather have her do it that way then climbing out of a crib each time. One of the first nights she was having a long stretch of not wanting to go back to sleep, so Matt pulled a spare twin mattress into her room for him to sleep on. He has only slept on it once or twice for half the night during this transition, but it is known as "daddy's mattress". So now she can basically choose between her mattress on the floor or daddy's. The crib is still in there but we are not giving it as an option. Matt is working on cutting some boards to size and painting them so we can remove the rail and convert the crib to a toddler bed (it came with a few board as a "conversion kit" but they got lost somewhere along the way). We had talked about maybe just moving Addie's bed to etta's room and getting bunk beds for Addie's room (she really wants them & she will need a twin size bed within the next couple years due to her length). But we decided to wait. Maybe for Christmas next year. For now, converting Etta's crib to a bed is cheap; and for now Addie sleeps all bunched up so it is not like she stretches long and hits the end of the bed.
We are also trying to get Etta to use the potty more. But it is a daily challenge to encourage it without making it into a power-struggle. Etta loves wearing undies, but she does not seem to really care when they get wet with pee. This laid-back approach doesn't seem to be working great though. It is not really child-led because sometimes we just tell her it is time to sit. But it is not a consistent potty schedule on our part and she is going between disposable diaper, cloth diaper, undies and pull-ups so there is confusion there too. So we should probably either let her be in control of it, and know it may take a while; or over Christmas break we should just have her in undies full-time and set the timer for potty visits until she gets the hang of consistently listening to her body.
In other, much sadder news: one of the moms from Etta's co-op class has a daughter slightly older than Etta and was pregnant with a boy. She had him right after Thanksgiving but he has been at Childrens Hospital due to heart and lung problems. He has been hooked up to a whole slew of machines and has been given all sorts of medication (including morphine). He is slowly making progress, but the doctors actually still do not know for sure what caused the original problems and then all the side affects. It is discouraging for the mom to constantly be at the hospital looking at her newborn baby who can not breast-feed, can only be held for short amounts of time, has tubes coming out of him everywhere, etc. On top of that, she is not getting much time with her 2 year old because she is at the hospital so much. And obviously it is hard to enjoy this holiday season. So their family has been on my heart and in my prayers a lot lately.
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