I Take It Back

Parker has lost her big girl bed status, and we'll all so much better off! As I wrote before, she did great the first week. Then she figured out she could get out of bed and she started coming into our room earlier than we'd like, but still acceptable behavior. Then she had a cold and started getting up in the night and wandering around the house and coming into our room even earlier. One morning I woke up to her with two cookies in hand. Apparently she'd headed downstairs to check things out before coming in to see us this day. The final straw was that she didn't want to nap anymore, and not only got out of bed 32,000 times, she'd head into Payton's room and made sure that she couldn't sleep either. I dealt with this a few days and finally couldn't take it. After 2 hours of fighting her, begging her, and a few swats to the butt where she laughed at me I was done. I put her in her bed and made her sit there while I screwed the front panel back on. She pouted and pouted and when I was all done she said, "I want my PAYTON" with her cutest and biggest pout, bottom lip out and pathetic. BUT, as soon as I shut the door she slept like a baby. Ahhh, love the cage...I mean crib. We'll revisit when she's 12.

Big Girl Bed

Parker's graduated, sort of. About two weeks ago I got brave and took the front panel off of the crib turning it into a "toddler bed". Dumb concept, but it keeps us from having to buy another bed for the time being so I'm going with it. The first time I layed her down, I was amazed. She layed there and slept, even stayed in bed after waking until I went up to get her. Same thing that night, and for the next week. I was thinking that she was setting a new standard of greatness. Since then, she's figured out that she CAN get out (apparently she didn't get it at first) and she does. Boy, oh boy does she. Nap time is becoming more and more challenging as her FAVORITE place to veture off to is Payton's room. Now it's a good 30 minutes to get everyone settled for naps. The saving grace is that she is still staying in bed at night, and doesn't get up until 7:30 or so in the morning.

This picture is of her first nap in the bed minus rail. Following Payton's lead, she has to have a bed full of stuff to sleep.

We all know that kids say funny things, but of course I'm certain mine are the funniest. For example...

Driving down the road one recent afternoon, Payton shouts "MOM, LOOK! The sprinkler is in the sky!" It's summer time in Florida, so I assume she's trying to tell me she saw lightening maybe confusing sprinkler/sparkler/lightening, so I try to correct her asking if she means lightening as I'm making a u-turn to get where we're headed. "NO MOM, the sprinkler -SEE!" I look over to see a fountain in the lake we're passing. Sprinkler - fountain, it's pretty much the same.

Also in the car, we pass a community where one of our old friends, Lily, lives. I pointed out that we're passing Lily and Laura's house. To this she responds, "Does Lily have a daddy?" I'm certain now that this was an innocent question, but it startled me, because they are one of the few couples that we know that have divorced in the last year. I know that Payton has no concept of this, but I'm panicking in the front seat. What do I say, what do I say?? Back to reality, "Of course she has a daddy, remember her daddy is Mark!?" I think I've settled this, as she does know Mark and I assume we're all set. In fact, we saw him at a festival not too long ago with Lily. For some reason she still doubts me, but eventually I did convince her. Dodged THAT talk!

Recently I've been trying to get myself back to the gym, but for some reason the girls fight me on it every day. They have fun there, but just can't seem to motivate to get there (something about apples falling far from trees comes to mind). Anyway, today we're driving to the gym and Payton is questioning me as to WHY we have to go. I don't want to warp her mind telling her Mommy's fat, or needs to loose weight so I go with the healthy aspect. I'm trying to tell her that I'm taking care of my body, this is why we ask her to eat her dinner, and why we don't eat cookies and candy all of the time. We want to keep our bodies in good shape, so that we can be around for a long, long time. To this she responds, are you going to die Mommy? Ugh, another one of those questions a parent doesn't really want to get into. Luckily, once again it was an easy, "Not for a long time honey, what do you want to eat for lunch?" kind of answer that she fell for. Dodged another one!

Parker's conversations aren't quite as deep at this point, but still just as charming. My current favorite Parker-ism is the word NUGGLE. This is her version of snuggle, and I may just add this word to the family dictionary because I love, love, love to hear her say it. It's usually used at either bedtime (to avoid it), or when I'm exhausted and laying on the sofa and she wants to climb under the blanket with me. Either way, she usually wins.