I'm Not Going to Tell You

Every time I blog about how well anything is going, Elena will flip it on me…so…

I am not going to tell you how great Elena has been sleeping lately…I’ve phased out her afternoon nap…I started out by reducing it to only 1 hour, then no later than 2pm but after many nights of her being awake until 10 or 11pm, something had to give. Even staying up that late, she’d still be awake by 7-7:30am. As much as she seemed to need the rest of a nap, what was the point if she was only getting 8 hours of sleep at night? Without a nap, Elena is asleep by 7:30-8pm & will sleep until anywhere between 7-8am. Oh sure, she gets a wee bit grumpy come 6:30ish & bedtimes can still be challenging but I’ll take it since it affords me some much needed me time from 8pm until I head to bed about 10pm. The best part though is that she’s back to wanting to cuddle & have me rock her to sleep which I LOVE…selfish, I know.

I’m also not going to tell you how easy meals are now. Elena went through a phase recently where she would resist eating everything & anything…I tried giving her the chance to choose but that only worked half the time. She would fight & barely eat anything even her staples that she use to love. Thankfully she phased out of that & will now eat just about anything. She’s still not big on vegetables but I’d say she comes by that honestly since most of my family are not veggie eaters…she did however insist on trying some of my salad recently & liked it…now fruit…this girl cannot get enough fruit, she’ll eat just about any fruit & has even taken to not just eating Clementine oranges but peeling them herself!!

I am definitely not going to tell you that we seem to have a handle on tantrums lately. Elena definitely has her fair share of tantrums…she’s two after all…but using the Fast Food Rule & Toddler-ese from Happiest Toddler on the Block has made a world of difference & tantrums that use to run 5-10 minutes or longer can now be defused in moments…truly. The only time she has explosive tantrums is if I’m too lazy to employ these techniques…because I’m not going to lie to you, I feel pretty stupid doing it…especially if there are other people around. We’ve even gotten to the point that I don’t have to use Toddler-ese exactly, just verbalizing how she’s feeling seems to defuse the situation pretty quickly. And an added bonus, she prefers to curl up in my lap & let me hold her while she cries it out. A funny thing she does now, when she’s crying but no longer out of control upset, she’ll go to the mirror & look at herself crying, that cry turning into a dramatic, over the top fake cry…it’s hilarious!

What I am going to tell you…since it can’t be jinxed…is that I filed my taxes & thanks to having a dependent on a single income, I got a nice return…so I’ve rewarded us by purchasing another trip down south this winter…I got us a pretty good deal to Dominican Republic in November…I’m so excited! Anyone care to join us? Elena’s got her own seat this time so I’m hoping that will make the flight a bit easier. We’re also flying out of my town’s smaller airport so we won’t have to navigate a huge airport this time. It’s always nice to have something to look forward to!

Before that though, I am looking forward to this summer…if only we’d start getting some warmer weather!!!!