A Trip Back East

Sarah and I flew back to M*ssachusetts to visit my family the week before Easter.  Unfortunately, she was sick with a cold most of the time, and the weather was awful, but we had a wonderful trip nonetheless.  She loved seeing Grammy, Auntie Heather ("Heshy"), Uncle B, Forrest, Sam, Kelley, Chelsey, and Uncle George. 

We visited my brother's new property, where he and his fiancee are rebuilding a 19th-Century farmhouse on 90 acres.  It will be beautiful when done -- they hope in time for their wedding this fall.  I'm so excited for them!

We also went to an historic merry-go-round, and Sarah LOVED it!  She laughed for most of the first ride and insisted on going twice more.  She's still talking about it.  She enjoyed helping Grammy feed the cows and continues to be enthralled by Uncle B's ability to harvest coins from behind her ears (she came home with quite a haul).

Sarah did great on the plane ride each way.  She's an experienced traveler these days.  The P*tette Plus was a lifesaver.  She was extremely stubborn and defiant the whole time, though.  I figure it was a combination of not feeling well, being sleep-deprived, and being out of her element and routine (and seeking control).  She pretty much ignored every request I made and insisted on doing EVERYTHING herself, which was difficult at first.  As time went by, though, we figured out how she could do most of the things she does at home, and life got easier.

As usual, she's very happy to be home.  She's been sleeping well and has stayed in her own bed all night three of the last four nights.  We'll see if it lasts....

Easter 2011

Photos from Last Weekend

It's been a busy week, and I haven't had a chance to post about our trip to see Emily, Omar, and Sophia last weekend.  This doesn't do it justice, but here are some fun photos.  We always have such a good time!

Potty Postscript

In my last post, I rather flippantly recounted Sarah's run-in with an automatic flush toilet.  I wrapped up the story declaring confidently that I was ready for the next interaction with said machine and would conquer it with a pad of P*st-It notes.  Oh, how wrong I was.

This past weekend, we made the trek to W*unakee to visit Emily, Omar, and Sophia.  It was a delightful trip, as usual, until Sarah announced on the drive back that she had to go potty.  Luckily (we thought), the next rest area was just a few miles down the road.  I was relieved to see it was an older building, which reduced the odds of the dreaded auto-flush.  That didn't seem to matter to Sarah, however, as she immediately started swearing she no longer had to go.

I carried her to the stall and, with great flourish, stuck a "magic paper" on the manual handle.  I figured it was a good chance to practice with the P*st Its, when there was no chance of failure.  Sarah didn't feel the magic, though.  She refused to sit on the seat and grew increasingly anxious, until she was screaming.  I pleaded and prodded for a few minutes, until it was obvious there was no way I could win.  We returned to the car, and I resigned myself to an accident.

A few miles down the road, Sarah indeed declared, "Wet."  We got off the next exit and pulled into the deserted parking lot of an office building.  When I took her pants off, however, she was dry.  Noticing the narrow lawn in front of the building, I decided it was worth a try to have her go in the grass.  I held her by the waist and told her to bend her knees, and she went right away.  Problem solved, for the moment.

Since it's finally spring and we live in a rural area, knowing Sarah can "use a tree" brings some relief.  We should be able to schedule our outings around her fear of public restrooms, with one notable exception.  This Friday, she and I are flying back to M*ss. to visit my family.  From the time we leave our house until we reach my mom's will be about nine hours.  That's a long time to go without a potty break.

So, yesterday, I got on the Internet in search of a fully portable potty chair.  Lo and behold, there is such a thing, called the K*lencom P*tette Plus, no less, and, wouldn't you know, I could get it shipped from W*lmart to arrive by tomorrow -- all at a not-too-exorbitant price.  It should fit into my backpack for the trip, and, I've rationalized, will come in handy in the car and boat this summer.

I can't tell you how discouraged I felt Sunday afternoon, when it was obvious something that had come so easily for Sarah (and me) had been taken away.  She was a breeze to potty train and always went without incident in public toilets.  It seems as though I spend every free minute researching and brainstorming ways to work with the latest challenge that she's presented me, and I couldn't believe that a notable achievement had just disintegrated.

The next day, however, I set about overcoming the latest roadblock, and I think I have.  I've decided that being a mom later in life must be good for preventing Alzh*imer's disease.  Raising a child is a perpetual chess match, and I'm constantly plotting my next move.  I hope it's keeping my brain young, if not my body.  I'll have to admit I sometimes miss the simplicity of the N*w Y*ork Times Sunday crossword, though.

Breakfast with the Star

Putting the Fear of Flush Into Her

After spending many Sundays in the church nursery with Sarah and still having her freak out when I left, we decided a few months ago to keep her in the service with us.  She's remarkably well behaved and keeps busy with snacks, sorting the offering envelopes and membership brochures, and "reading" the Bible and hymnal.  She even goes up front for the children's message, as long as I tag along and sit on the sidelines.

She usually needs a potty break part-way through the sermon (don't we all?).  I take her downstairs to the kids' bathrooms so she has a chance to stretch her legs and use the shorter sink.  This morning, she wouldn't go before we left the house, so I was on alert.  When she gave the potty sign a few minutes before the children's message, I decided to go to the bathroom just outside the sanctuary, hoping we'd return in time. 

As I set her on the toilet and noticed the automatic flush mechanism, I had a moment of panic, knowing that it would be a bad scene if the toilet flushed beneath her.  The downstairs one never had, and I hoped this one was set conservatively as well.  No such luck.  Before she even got started, the sensor clicked, and a torrent of water roared below her bottom.  She erupted in tears and lept into my arms.

Once she was calmed down, I persuaded her to go downstairs to our usual commode.  She apprehensively took a seat, but she was too shaken up to go.  After about five minutes of reassuring her that nothing would happen until she was done (I've always had to push the button), the darn thing flushed.  Again, she screamed and dove into my embrace.

At this point, I remembered that there was a small toilet stall in the nursery with a manual flush.  Knowing that Sarah wasn't crazy about the place, I assured her that we would just use the potty and go back upstairs.  It was no use, though.  She refused to have a seat and insisted she no longer had to go.

We returned to the sanctuary, where the minister was in mid-sermon, and I spent the rest of the service praying we'd avoid wet pants (and pew).  Thankfully, Sarah has pretty good bladder control these days, and we made it all the way home without an accident.

Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to our next visit to an automatic toilet.  After a quick Google search, however, I'm ready to give it a shot.  It seems you can put a Post-It note over the sensor to disable the automatic flush, so I've added some to my bag of tricks.  Now I just have to convince Sarah to give it another try.

Bye Bye Naps, Hello Little Bed

Sleep has been our focus once again recently, and the crux of the problem is Sarah's drive to give up naps and my determination to hold onto them.  I've fought a good fight, but I've decided to let go for good, and I think it might all work out for the better.

The Elmo sticker and Play-Doh reward system worked for a while, but that had run its course by early February.  I could no longer read a few books and leave Sarah in bed to fall asleep on her own because she wouldn't -- she'd get out of bed and into mischief.  I started sitting in the rocking chair in her room so she'd lie quietly and fall asleep.  I'd give her 30 minutes, and most of the time, she'd nap. 

That lost its charm a week or so ago, and she began taunting me -- rolling around, sitting up, dangling her legs off the bed, whatever she could do to get a rise out of me.  I finally decided it was time to give up, and yesterday we "officially" switched to quiet time.  She has to stay in her room quietly reading books or playing with her stuffed animals (or anything, really, since I can't control what she does) for half an hour.  She did pretty well, calling me only a couple of times.  I hope we can work our way up to an hour so that I have a bit of a break to get things (like blogging) done.

Meanwhile, our nights have been challenging once again.  As a result of my sitting in her room at naptime (I believe), Sarah started wanting me there at bedtime, too.  I agreed to sit in the hall while she fell asleep, which often took 45 minutes or more.  Soon, she was waking and crying during the night and insisting I sleep with her.  Before I knew it, I was back in her bed most nights and feeling resentful.  [Probably some of you are thinking that we're letting Sarah manipulate us and we should put our foot down, close the door, and let her cry herself to sleep.  I won't say you're wrong; I'll only say that's not right for us (and you might agree if you could hear Sarah in hysterics behind the  closed door).]

Through all of our sleep struggles, I've often heard from other adoptive families who co-slept with their children and believed it was the answer for them -- their kids felt secure, and everyone got a good night's sleep.  We had planned to do this with Sarah from the start, but she was such an active sleeper that Don and I would have gotten no rest with the three of us in our queen-sized bed.  Since a king-sized bed would barely fit in our room (and be a big expense), we've tried to comfort Sarah by my sleeping in her room whenever she needs me. 

When we moved Sarah to a full-sized bed in October, I devised a "nuclear option" for our sleep struggles.  I resolved to sleep with her when she needed until I started feeling resentful, then we would put her crib mattress on the floor of our room, and she could sleep there.  Having reached the resentment threshold, I hauled the mattress back upstairs and made a cozy nest between my side of the bed and the wall.  I showed it to Sarah and told her that, if she woke in the middle of the night, she could come in and sleep there.  You should have seen her eyes light up.

The first evening, she wanted to go to bed in the "little bed," but I held firm and told her she always has to go to sleep in her big bed first.  (I draw the line at putting her to bed in our room -- that's too disruptive for Don and me, and it seems as though it would only compound the difficulty of eventually getting her to spend the night in her own room.)  That night, she awoke crying at 4:15.  When I went in, she asked me to sit in the hall.  I asked if she wanted to sleep in the little bed, to which she responded, "YES!"  She settled into the nest and slept until 7:20.

Soon she was waking and crying between 11:00 and 12:00 each night.  I'd go in; she'd say, "Little bed;" and I'd escort her into our room.  After a while, I convinced her that she didn't need to cry (she was obviously faking it by then), so she now just calls for me.  I hope eventually she'll just quietly come in and go to sleep, but that might take a while.

Since the little bed appeared, Sarah is noticeably happier and more affectionate.  She is also less controlling and defiant.  I think she feels more secure.  She still has meltdowns and struggles to control her emotions, but she is improving there, too.  An unexpected perk of the little bed has been progress with potty training.  She's been good during the day for a couple of months but was still wet at night.  Now, she goes potty before coming to the little bed and is often dry all night.

With waking in the night handled, that just left sitting in the hall at bedtime to deal with.  While my iPad was a lifesaver for that situation, Sarah had become a wiseguy then as well and started challenging me by playing with her animals and getting out of bed.  She obviously was not ready for sleep at 7:30 if she'd had a nap.  The End of Napping has taken care of that.  I now turn out her light (after books, prayer, and massage) and go across the hall to our room, where I get ready for bed.  She's happy as long as our light is on, and she's usually asleep in about five minutes.  I can't tell you how refreshing that is.

I had really hoped that Sarah would nap until she was four.  I know naps are important for young brains and bodies, but I've tried everything I can think of, and I'm out of ideas.  With letting go comes relief.  I no longer have to structure my day so she doesn't nap too late, then spend 20 minutes on a pre-nap routine that was often followed by 30 more minutes of struggle, ending all-too-often in anger.  While Sarah can be a little whiny and testy by dinner time, she does surprisingly well without a nap, and bedtime is a breeze, which saves me another 45 minutes or more of sitting and waiting for her to fall asleep.  She sleeps 11-12 hours at night now, compared to about 10 when she was napping, which isn't bad, either.

And, finally, I can stop feeling like a hypocrite.  It was tough insisting that Sarah nap when I'm basically incapable of it.  I don't know how old I was when I stopped napping, but, as an adult, I've done it only a handful of times (when I was literally on a deserted island or remote peninsula).  Try as I might, I can't wind down during the day, no matter how tired I am.  I'm usually out like a light at bedtime, however, and, left to my own devices, good for 10 hours or more.  Sarah seems to be wired the same way.  Like mother, like daughter.  :)