Nola's Chores

Nick and I have been beside ourselves with pride and exhaustion, as Nola clearly sees the crib as something that is "so last year." For the past two weeks, she's been "sleeping" in a bed, which means we (alright, I'll just admit it, it's Nick whose been carrying the load in this one, as anyone who's ever known me knows that I simply won't wake up for anything. Not even my own child. I'm awful, I know...) Anyhow, "we" have been waking up at 12, 2, 4, 6 and just about anytime in between that Nola deems necessary, as she has a whole new world opened up to her without the barrier of the four-sides of the crib. This, compounded by her new door-knob turning skills, has opened up a whole new nighttime world to her, and a whole new world of hurt for her parents.

Instead of taking a step backward, and averting the meltdown that returning to the crib would cause, we've decided to make a giant leap forward, and make this whole "bed thing" work for us.

Last night, before supper, we made a chart of "Nola's Chores," which pretty much just entailed sleeping in until 7 (the "Going on the potty" chore is thrown in just to make us look extra precocious). Note that there's an addendum that we had to tape to the bottom this morning... to the average layperson (read: those sane enough to not invite a toddler into their house) this little addendum may seem redundant, but sleeping through the night is not the same as sleeping until 7:00 (which is honestly just an arbitrary time that mommy selected, as it's only 3 hours earlier than mommy would prefer to wake up. Sadly, that's "so last year" for me too).

Nola slept in last night until 5:45, which is a vast improvement, and deserving a sticker. We have yet to determine what the stickers will earn our diligent little (almost) 2-year old, but her reward for today was to get to listen to mommy sing some Roberta Flack on the old karaoke machine. Oh, the things that are possible when you have a full night's sleep!