Double Ear Infection

This started Thursday with a runny nose. She would not go to sleep in her bed and actually fell asleep sitting up on the couch. When I tried to put her in her bed, she screamed, and I had to take her back to the couch. The Motrin, I gave her helped her sleep, but, by morning, she was pointing to her right ear and telling me ouchy. When her dad took her to the doctor, her doctor said that both her ears were infected, but we caught it early this time. Her nose is still running and she has a cough, but Reese seems to be on the mend.

She actually went back to sleep in her own bed last night. Tonight she went to bed right after dinner at 8pm. I was not expecting her to go to bed, but then she called for me from her bed and asked me to bring her dog. She found a dog, Kipper, at school, and had taken a liking to it. The school let her have it since it did not belong to anyone, and now, she sleeps with it. I brought her the dog, and she asked for juice, please. I went and got her milk and her medicine and brought it back to her in her already darkened room. She took her medicine and hugged her milk. I pulled up her blanket and said good night. She said bye, bye, luv you, tosh (close) the door. We didn't hear from her again.

Potty Training

About the same time as we did the crying it out, Reese also started to pee in the potty or toilet. She had started the process at school, but did not do it at home until Saturday, March 21st. I was in my bedroom cleaning up, and I asked Riley what Reese was doing. He said that she was sitting on the potty. I come out into the living room, and Reese is sitting on the potty chair with her pants around her ankles, and there is pee in the potty. I was so proud of her, and she was so proud of herself. We called YaiYai, PaPa, and Daddy to tell him about it.

Reese continues to pee in the potty/toilet and will even tell me when we are out, and we will go to the public restroom. If sat on the toilet, she will pee in it. She has not gotten the hang of pooping in the potty yet, but will immediately take off her pull-up when she poops and then sit on the potty. This morning she took off her poopy diaper and was carrying it around until I caught her and took it from her.

Crying It Out

I was getting tired of Reese staying up until 11pm because she needed to go to bed with me and I was not ready to go to bed. I needed the time to myself, she needed to go to bed earlier, and her dad wanted to sleep in his own bed again. We decided to try the crying it out and just put her in her bedroom, shut the door, and let Reese cry herself to sleep. I was totally against this theory, but it seemed to be the quickest method to get to our goal. After all, she is two and a half years old now, it does not seem as cruel as when she was younger.

The first night Reese cried and pounded on the door for about an hour until she gave up and went to sleep. I put her to bed on her Dora couch on the floor of her room. I made the mistake of going and getting her at 3:30am that first night. The second night, Reese cried for about 20 minutes before she gave up, but then cried, yelled, and pounded from 3-4:30am because that was the time that I went to get her the night before. I was okay with the crying and the pounding, but what pulled at my heartstrings was her calling to me, "Mommy, come Weesh, pleash!" (Mommy, come Reese, please!)

By the third night we seem to have the new routine down. Reese started to go to bed in her own bed instead of going to the Dora couch. She would cry and wave me bye bye and let me close the door to her room. She normally does not cry for more than 10 minutes and has gotten use to her new bedtime of 9pm. She gets about 11 hours of sleep, but does have a tendency to get up earlier now that she goes to bed earlier.

Tonight is the first night that she has not said anything about me turning out the lights. My, my, she is growing up!