Then she fell in love with Dolly in a toy aisle at the store and she was added to the list of Must Haves.
Soon after Dolly was added, KayTar found Bunny in the depths of the toybox. Bunny was BubTar's as a baby. Bunny is a pull-string musical toy, who happens to be Peter Rabbit. It hung on BubTar's crib and played for him nightly, and then eventually was tied to his toddler bed where it continued to serenade him...poor Peter was discarded sometime around his move to the twin bed he now inhabits. KayTar decided Bunny was also a Must Have.
And thus, the Bedtime Brigade was born!
On day outings, we typically only bring Gee, because she always requires Gee. Bunny and Dolly can stay in the crib some days, other days they have to come along. We're never really sure how it will play out. We just make sure everyone gets tucked into bed at night and life runs smoothly for the most part.
Well, last night, KayTar used her burgeoning verbal skills to request additional bedtime friends, here is the guest list to the Party in her Crib:
Gee
Dolly
Bunny
Baby
That One Bunny (different from Bunny)
Chicken, the tiny Rooster from the top of her Little People farm
Duck
Fish
Chicken kept jumping out of the crib, causing KayTar to cry out, "Fall down! Mama! FALL DOWN!"
Baby kept crying, causing KayTar to shout, "Stop crying. Peep! Goo-night Baby."
Duck and Fish took turns hiding underneath Gee, causing KayTar to lament, "Duck?! DUUUUUUCK! Where? Where DUCK? Fiiiish! Where? Where FIIIISH?"
That One Bunny kept hopping onto the dresser, mysteriously, "That One Bunny? Geeet it!"
Gee wouldn't stay on her feet properly, "Gee! Peet! GEE! Mama! Peet! Peet!"
Thankfully, Dolly and Bunny were exhausted from their full day and went right to sleep. I can only imagine what mischief they might have gotten into.
And so, essentially, I went in and out of her room roughly 30 times between laying her down and the time she actually fell asleep.
While exhausting, I am getting a kick out of this sudden leap of cognitive and verbal skills. It is quite a window into her world, and I wonder how frustrating it has been for her to not have the skills to communicate these seemingly silly, but important to her things before now.
I think the late night also had quite a bit to do with the inhaler. While it is still proving helpful in avoiding the nightly coughing fits, it is not helping her sleep. I think it is making her feel jittery. I know my inhaler always does that to me. The first few days she slept like a champ, finally back to a normal bedtime, but I think that was pure exhaustion from not sleeping well for week prior. Now that her body has filled the reserves, she is having a rough time falling asleep. She takes a dose of her inhaler directly before nap, and it has taken her over an hour to fall asleep for 2-3 days at naptime, and a dose directly before bed and we've seen bedtime scoot back and hour or two as well. There is nothing to be done about it, really. With medicine every four hours, it doesn't leave much wiggle room. If she doesn't take the next dose on time before sleeping, she won't sleep anyway. She still sounds fairly awful when she gets to coughing or exerts herself too much, so dropping the meds isn't an option. She will adjust, as she does to all things, and until then the party will continue.
Care to join us?
Participants, clockwise: Duck, Baby, That One Bunny, Dolly, Gee, KayTar
Not pictured: Bunny (possibly hiding under Gee), Fish, Chicken (who likely jumped out of bed again)
Warning: All night partying may result in loss of pants.
Or maybe she just soaked through her diaper at 2am. ;)
****
We have her great big evaluation today, the entire therapy team comes here to evaluate at once...so wish us luck!
