So this is John posting again, I spent my first day at home alone with both girls today because Emily had some training to do and as you might be able to tell from the title, it was less than perfect. Ok, the title is a little misleading as the day was for the most part pretty fun but there were a couple of parts of it that were exasperating.
To set the stage we have to go back to yesterday. My brother Dave and his family were passing through town on the way to Galveston and were going to stay at our house last night. We met them for a late dinner at Gringo's and then came back to the house. Since Annette had only seen her cousins two or three times we let her stay up late to play with them (well two of them since Taylour couldn't come as he is putting his nose to the grindstone working as a lifeguard at Hurrican Harbor this summer.). She had a lot of fun playing baseball and kickball in the living room with Will and Ryan. Then she went to bed, but not until after she had said "Nite nite boys" 10 or 12 times. So the point of all that is she went to bed really late at 10:30 which is 3 hours past her normal bedtime.
This morning Carolyn woke up at 6:30, so I went upstairs to get her and bring her down to eat so she would not wake up our guests. As I am going to Carolyn's room I hear Annette's little feet hit the floor in her room (she has recently learned how to get out of bed) and then I hear her crying. So I get Carolyn and start thinking about putting Annette back in her bed when I hear what I think is her door opening. I go out in the hallway to see Annette walking down the hall in her back is best sleeper. Yes, for the first time ever she had opened her door and was going to see her cousins. I picked her up and took her downstairs with Carolyn, thinking that maybe the door was not closed all the way or something and went on with my day.
We had a fun morning, playing with the cousins and aunt and uncle and then watching the last hour of "Up", then after lunch it was time for a nap. I figured this would be a pretty good time for me, since Annette had not slept much the night before she would take a long nap, then I could shower, check my email, feed Carolyn again, and maybe even take a nap myself before going out to pick up William's birthday present. Boy, was I wrong!!
I put Annette down to rest (after letting her pick up three books to "read" in her bed) and head out of her room. I have not even gotten to the stairs before she is out of the door screaming "DaaaaddEEEEE". So I pick her up and take her back into her room, reminding her that the rule is she has to stay in her bed. I put her down again, and leave again. She is out of the door just as quickly. So we try again. This time, I don't even get out of the room before she has hopped out of bed and headed out the door. We try a fourth time, and by this time Annette is in full on scream mode, face is red, tears are streaming. It is awful. I am quickly approaching the end of my rope. I pick her up and talk to her again, lay her down and say will you stay if Daddy lays with you? She says yes. This is quite possibly my worst idea ever. She lays down and closes her eyes, but every time I move she is up and moving toward the end of the bed. I am absolutely stuck, the only way I can get her to lay still is by laying on the bed with her and then as soon as I move she is up too. I even tried just putting my elbows and the bed while staying on my knees beside it, but that is also a no-go.
I eventually give up and take her downstairs with me. I lay her down in my bed and tell her to stay put while I shower. Through some miracle of modern science (or intervention of a friendly diety) she stays on the bed while I do a 1 minute shower and then we go on with our day without a nap. After several hours (including a trip to buy the child proof door handle thingies and a birthday dinner for Aunt Melissa, whose birthday is today and Uncle Will, whose birthday is tomorrow) we get back to attempt the bedtime thing.
Annette is perfect throughout our routine, until the time comes when Emily and I leave the room. She is immediately out of the bed and on the door, she tries and tries and tries, but we can just wait until she gets tired because of the door handle thingies, right? Wrong, she pulls it off the door and gets out. I put her back to bed twice like this, then tag in Mom, she goes upstairs puts on the door handle thingy again (apparently in a much better manner than I did) and puts Annette back to bed. Annette gets up again and goes to the door, but this time the door handle thingy works. We waited downstairs for quite awhile until she stopped crying for three minutes straight, then Emily put on her SuperMom cape and went upstairs and took care of business.
I got to watch on the monitor as Emily went to work. Let me just tell you she was impressive. While I was at my wits end downstairs, trying to get Carolyn to eat, Emily was upstairs calming the savage beast and explaining to Annette that if she needed to stay in bed. Honestly I wish you could have seen her, it gave me goosebumps just watching and I got super jealous watching her outparent me. But then I just realized that I was super lucky to have her here so she could handle these tricky parenting issues. I am so thankful she ended my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad couple of instances with Annette.
About to go under!!!
Little Monkey about to jump in.
