Bridget's First Day of Preschool

This fall was the first time since I started preschool myself many, many years ago that I haven't gone back to school as either a student or a teacher. It was kind of strange to me at first, so it's a good thing Bridget got to have her first of many first days of school this year.

She was so excited all summer for preschool to start, and it was no different when today arrived. I knew she would have no problem with me leaving her there because she's ready to learn and make new friends. She's definitely been needing the opportunity to get out of the house more and play with kids her age since Felicity was born.

The preschool she's attending is just two days a week for 2 hours each day with a lady who teaches out of her home. I wish it was a little longer or more days a week, but it's convenient and lots of people we know have taken their children to her.

Hooray for a successful and happy first day of school!

The Imagination of a 3-Year-Old

I LOVE this picture of Bridget. Man, I'm a lucky mom. Although she has her difficult and less than desirable moments like any child, she's such a great kid with a great personality. It's too bad you can't tell things like that from a picture.

Anyway, I had to take the time to post about this little girl because I want to remember things about this particular stage of life she's in. For the past few months, her imagination has been growing by leaps and bounds. I could easily say that at least half of my conversations with her every day are about things she imagines about.

It seemed to start a few months ago when I was still pregnant with Felicity. She would pretend she had a baby in her belly too. And her baby was also going to be named Felicity. For a little bit that was the extent of it. Everything she pretended was about babies, but over the summer it's evolved into much more than that.

For example, she likes to tell me about her "grandchildren." When she first told me about them they lived on Drury Lane (you know, by the Muffin Man). But depending on the day they may live somewhere else. They also seem to celebrate their birthdays quite often, and their ages can move in either direction. One day they're 5, then 15, and then 4. And there's 4 of them - all the same age.

She also likes to tell me about her pretend best friend, Mora. Mora is her same age, and does everything that Bridget does. Lately she's been talking about Mora more than anything or anyone else.

In her little imaginary world, she also has a job. She used to work at Flying J (just like her dad did) but now she works at Zions (just like her Dad does). And she also has some coworker named Kelly.

This is such a fun stage, and I love to hear all of her stories even if they aren't real.

Solving My Child's Sleep Problems...Again

Once again this book has saved my life and my sanity. As mentioned in previous posts, Felicity was a great sleeper until the beginning of July when she got her first cold. And since then, things got progressively worse. Last week, it was to the point that she was waking up 4-6 times a night, and even getting her to go to sleep and stay asleep was sometimes a difficult ordeal.

For some reason, I had it in my mind that I needed to wait until she was 6 months old to go through the sleep training process in this book, so as I skimmed the chapters I needed to for a refresher and was looking for something that stated that. I guess my memory was faulty because it didn't state that anywhere that I could see, and I was desperate for a good night's sleep so we started the process on Sunday night (the 14th). I figured that if it didn't work because she was too young, I wasn't really out anything since I wasn't getting much sleep anyway.

The positive thing about the first night was that it only took Felicity about 15 minutes of crying and me going in a couple of times before she cried herself to sleep. The rough part of that night was that she woke up 4 times during the night and Bridget woke up 3 times (and yes, I was the one to deal with each of them each time). Bridget usually sleeps through the night or maybe gets up once to go to the bathroom, so I'm not sure if Felicity's crying disturbed her that much or if I was just that unfortunate. Needless to say, I was one VERY tired mom the next day.

During the day that day, things actually went really well for her naps. She didn't fuss for very long, and she actually took longer naps than usual. I was just grateful to be able to put her down awake instead of spending a ton of time rocking her to sleep only for her to wake up when I laid her down.

The second night, a miracle happened - she only fussed for a few minutes and then slept through the night for 9 hours straight! It was the best night's sleep I'd had in a LONG time. Maybe it helped that Nate slept on the couch downstairs so I got the whole bed to myself too! I felt like a new woman and actually woke feeling rested.

Since those first two nights, she's continued to sleep through the night for 9-10 hours. If she does wake, she cries for less than 5 minutes and goes back to sleep on her own.

So life is good at our house again. What's kind of ironic though is that now that Felicity is sleeping great, Bridget has decided to give up naps. I knew it was bound to happen soon since she is 3 1/2, but I was hoping it would last just a little longer. So now I'm just working on getting her to have some quiet time in her room in the afternoon.

Kimberly's Birthday

It's true. I'm now another year older, and hopefully wiser too. My birthday ended up being pretty low-key, but it was great nonetheless.

Although I told Felicity that all I wanted for my birthday was for her to sleep through the night, she opted not to give me that gift. The kids did sleep in allowing me to as well, and that at least helped with my sleep deprivation. Then Nate and I made one of our favorite breakfasts - Crunchy French Toast. The morning and afternoon were spent doing typical Saturday activities which included Nate taking Bridget shopping with him for my birthday present - a flat panel TV for our bedroom.

As I debated about where I wanted to go to dinner, the place that sounded the best was Cafe Zupas. I know gourmet soups, salads, and sandwiches don't sound like a very exciting birthday dinner, but I love that place. Afterward we headed to Coldstone to pick up a birthday cake, and then took it home to eat it.

After getting the girls ready for bed, we just hung out waiting for it to get dark because I was fortunate enough to have my birthday fall on the night our city was putting on fireworks. I know this sounds crazy to some people, but this was actually Bridget's first time watching fireworks (at least the first time since she was an infant). Her sleep has always been more important to us than fireworks, and we would have let her stay up a couple of other times this summer for them, but she opted not to take naps those days. Anyway, she took a nap on my birthday, so she got to stay up and see them. She loved them, and I'm pretty sure she thinks they did them just because it was my birthday. It was a great way to end the day.

4 Months

I wish I could say that the last month was full of sleep-filled nights for all of us, but it ended up being quite the opposite. After the cold Felicity and I both had at the beginning of July, her sleep habits took a turn for the worse, and she only slept through the night twice all month. Her naps continued to be about the same too (45-60 minutes 3-5 times a day).

On a positive note, she learned to roll over at 3.5 months as mentioned in a previous post. That week she rolled over about 10 times but hasn't done it since. It was funny too because right after she learned to roll over, I'd find her sleeping on her side in her bed all the time, and then she stopped doing that too.

In desperation to try anything to help her sleep through the night, I tried giving her rice cereal mixed with milk in a bottle last night but it didn't help either. No surprise. I tried that when Bridget was a baby, and it didn't work with her either.

Here's the stats from her doctor's appointment:
Height: 25 3/4 inches (93rd percentile)
Weight: 16 lbs. 14 oz. (96th percentile)
Head: 16.1 inches (47th percentile)