Our Wild One

She likes Daddy's rock music.  She has never complimented me on my music but as soon as we get in Keane's truck and he plays some of his style of music, she says, I like this song.  I wish I could spell the way she talks - she almost does so in a sing-song way.  The tone of her voice really fluctuates as she speaks.  She likes to ask Why?  She constantly is asking Hu? What you say?  She uses the word maybe like when we were at the Baskett's for the Superbowl, they brought out their big labradoodle and Farrah said, He maybe get me.  She says actually a lot.  When we were discussing the color of peas and she wanted them to be a different color, she said I like red actually.  I would say her favorite color currently is blue, and her favorite animal is a dog.  She calls us Mom and Dad a lot, but not exclusively.  She likes to chew gum.  She is very choosy with her pajamas at night and has to tell me which ones she wants to wear.  She says she doesn't like my boobies - that they are yucky.  The other night she whispered, Mommy, can you cover up your boobies so that I not have to touch them?  I had a shirt on but I had to cover them in enough covers that she couldn't notice them.  But last night she did tell me, I kind of like your boobies, Momma. But I not like them a lot.  She's learned some things from watching Peppa Pig a lot.  Some things like she wants to jump in muddy puddles and things like saying Ugck!  That's 'gusting!  She can also be so sweet.  She says, I love you soooo much in the whole world!

Keane says she's going to be our wild one.  There's no doubt about that.

She is pretty much completely potty trained.  I still put a diaper on her in long car rides and when she sleeps, but she has been pooping in the potty for about 3 weeks now.  I usually pick her up and dance and spin around the bathroom afterwards singing, "Farrah pooped in the potty!"  She loves the praise, and I love not dealing with poopy diapers -- for the time being of course.

We started a bad, bad thing. She started going through what I'm going to call a sleep regression.  I was spending far too much time trying to get her to go to sleep at night.  I would usually put her jammas on, she would brush her teeth, tell everyone good night, I would read her some books, and then rock her at her request, and she typically fell asleep fairly quickly, after a little chitchatting.  But when I would move her to her bed, she would awaken and ask that I not leave and that I pat her butt.  Then she just would not fall asleep.  She'd lay quietly and ever so often roll over, but when it was time for me to leave the bedroom, she would freak out.  Or she would cry and follow soon after.  And after all the time I just spent trying to do it all the right way, I didn't have a lot more time left in the evening.  No time to relax.  No time to spend with my husband - by this time he would usually be asleep or aggravated.  No time for a relaxing bath or hot shower.  No bedtime snack.

So we started to let her lay in Mommy-Daddy's bed while we wind down for the evening.  That way we could watch our show (Shameless), and she started falling asleep rather quickly.  I was to the point of wanting or needing more rest and sleep and sanity and time with my husband, so this was the better of the two options.

I typically take her back to her bed once I wake up after falling asleep, but around 4:00 a.m. give or take an hour, we hear her bedroom door open and slam shut, and soon thereafter she appears by my bedside, holding Lambie, Piggy, and blanket, and she waits for me to pick her up and lay her again by my side, and maybe after a few whispers, we're all back to sleep again.

This is getting us nowhere.  It is making me uncomfortable, squished, and sometimes irritable, especially being pregnant.  But I don't know how to reverse it.  I don't know how to get her to fall asleep in her bed again.  Do I rearrange her room again?  Do I force her and let her cry herself to sleep which I am currently refusing to do?  Do I spend an hour each evening working to get her to sleep?  Will she decide to sleep in her own bed on her own one day?