Playing to Their Strengths

She doesn't have the experience to know that nothing good comes of being awake at 6:00 am, so Alexis can nearly always be found prowling around the kitchen. Dishes clank, the microwave door slams, and little feet patter as she flips on the TV and sits down for her first breakfast of the day.

Nothing good comes of being awake at 6:00 am, so I pretend I'm not. Enveloped in the warmth of a down blanket, the darkness swallows any notion of motivation.

And then there's the other one.

The other one is continuing to flop and flip and flop some more on the issue of sleep. She's a great sleeper! Sometimes. The times when she's not a great sleeper, she's a dedicated little koala who really just needs to be near by. She's the little spoon to my big spoon, nuzzling her way into the just right spot.

Which, if you ever need to be totally and completely demotivated, there it is. The gentle sounds of a sleeping baby can suck all of the want and will out of you faster than any other thing on earth. Why would anyone in their right mind do anything other than quietly listen to those sounds? Add in the warm blankets and you have every bit of reason you need to always be late getting out of bed.

Always.

If Mila failed to sleep through the night, I failed to get out of bed in a timely manner. It's just fact.

All of that has me thinking about how I can harness the Tiny Human's powers for good. I've already got Alexis using her super fantastic waking skills to get her sister up in the morning, but can I do the reverse? If I put Mila in bed with Alexis on the weekends, will Alexis sleep past 6:00? Or at least stay in bed past 6:00? Because that's sounding like a pretty fantastic idea.

 

One of My Kids Knows How to Get Her Way.

There have been a few times in my professional life when I was absolutely convinced I was living in some sort of behavioral research project. There was simply no way the situation could be real. It was just a matter of time before Ahston Kutcher jumped out from behind a wall and yelled, "You've been punk'd!"

I'm in that place again. This time, though, it's not work that has me questioning everything. It's Mila.

Yes, THAT Mila. 

Is Mila adorable? Absolutely. Is she 422349328 shades of fantastic? Yes. She's also currently doing this thing where she sleeps through the night one night and then does the TOTAL opposite the next night. It's like she is trying to make absolutely sure that I know she CAN sleep through the night, but then she's yelling "I'M JUST NOT GOING TO DO IT, SUCKA!" the next.

How little sleep can I get and still function? How inconsistent can she be? We're finding out.

I mention all of that for one reason and one reason only -- karma. I owe that kid some karma. And yet, here I am admitting that I continue to be too nice and let the kid have her pacifier. It's all my fault that she still has it in bed at night and in the car. There are a bunch of reasons, but they all come down to me. I'm scared of her. And I want her to be happy.

Except this weekend I hit a wall and decided it was time to be done with it all. Because I'm crazy.

It took about 3 seconds in the car for Mila to confirm that she was indeed going to scream about not having a paci. She screamed all the way to daycare and back again. While I should have been gloating in the waves of karma finding their way to Mila, I was very not amused. At all. In fact, I was beyond grateful when we picked Alexis up halfway through that back again. I had help to tame the savage beast.

Alexis immediately set out to put on her Best Sister Ever pants and started soothing her little sister. She said all of the right things and she used the exact right tone and she was AMAZING. If she had been talking a terrorist into releasing hostages, it would have worked. I mean, WOW. She's a miracle worker.

While I'm certain it was the gentle tone that Alexis used that made all of the difference, her words were pretty fantastic. My favorites, though, were the ones she used to explain to Mila that fussing and carrying on were only going to convince me that taking the pacifier away was a good move. "Listen, Mila. You have to realize that the best way to get mom to let you have your way is to be good. If you're good, she can't say no, okay? Just use your manners and don't yell."

True story, that. TRUE STORY.

Waddle. Waddle. Waddle.

Somewhere between the 2-3 field trips per year and me dragging her as often as possible, Alexis grew sick of the zoo.

I KNOW. It seems impossible, but it happened. I'm not really willing to accept the blame, so I'm going to go with the theory that summer camps and school and all of the other things need to get more creative when they're planning field trips. I mean, the kid once went twice in a week because of bad scheduling by her school and after-school program.

But, WHATEVER. Guess who isn't sick of the zoo!

That big age gap thing comes in handy sometimes. While Alexis is over it, Mila is just starting to be all THE ZOO! ZOMG! AMAZING! Basically, Alexis can suck it because we're going. Often.

Especially when there is going to be a penguin parade.

While Mila would like a world that revolves around the monkeys and cheetahs, the penguins were a nice addition to her zoo addiction. She sat remarkably nicely while the penguins walked around outside. She didn't try even once to tackle one, even though they were just feet away. VICTORY!

Even better, the penguins made their mark on the Tiny Human. Ever since she saw the parade, she has been all about her penguin hat. Fortunately, it's finally cold enough for it because she is wearing it. Nonstop.

And she's waddling when she wears it.

I love you, Pittsburgh Zoo.