Groovy Valentine's Day

Eliza and I spent some time tonight getting her valentine's ready for her after-school Montessori class' valentine's celebration tomorrow. It's not going to be anything big. The kids will get to exchange their valentines, and their teacher is serving some bread and fruit... but for Montessori kids it's BIG! haha...

Eliza demonstrated to me how she plans to pass out her valentine's to her classmates tomorrow. Hint: It involves mostly skipping around her trampoline... not sure how that will translate for tomorrow, but it looks super fun!

I just had a moment where I thought about last year when I tried to get Eliza to be "involved" in the Valentine card making by drawing/scribbling on the valentine, and maybe, if I was really lucky, coaxing a letter E out of her.

This year she wrote out her whole name. 22 times! She often turns her Z's into S's.

I also found out about a peculiar talent/skill of Eliza's... she can write her name backwards and upside down! Weird Da Vinci styled! I noted that when I wrote her friends' names on the valentine and then flipped it upside down for her to write her name on it, she would write hers backwards & upside down. So then I just had her write her name on the cards before I wrote the child's name.

(she wrote this upside down!!)

I was pretty pleased that Eliza ended up choosing some Tye-Dye Peace Valentines that came with little temporary tattoos (We're really into tattoos around here these days). We also got princess cards but didn't end up using them! (not yet at least).

I had trouble trying to explain to Eliza some of the phrases from her hippy valentines, such as... "You're groovy!"

"You're far Out!"

"Right On!"

"Your Out of Sight!"

"You're Way Out!"

All I could come up with is that they meant, "You're really cool..." So hopefully that's the message that Eliza wants to send out to her not-square Montessori friends.

Have a Groovy Valentine's everyone!

Home "sick!"

Eliza got pink eye this week, so I had to keep her home and torture her by inflicting her with eye drops and benadryl. She kinda looked like she had two black eyes. This picture doesn't capture just how PINK her eyes started out looking...

But by the time Tuesday around lunch time rolled around, she clearly was not feeling too sick...

She came up with this creative rock star costume/pose all herself!!

I will often say, "Eliza, you crack me up!"

and Eliza will say to me, "Mom, you crack ME up!"

I just love her creative spirit!

Thoughts on Sleep

I started reading the book, "The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Pre-schoolers." Something I really liked about the book is that the author starts out the book by saying that if the only "problem" that you and your child are having with sleep is that other people are telling you the way you do it is wrong, then you don't actually have a problem! I thought that was cool, and I definitely agree!

One of my daughter's struggles is that she seems overly sleepy some days at school, which her dad and I think might be more of a behavioral issue, as in, "Eliza it's time to clean up your toys," and Eliza's response is, "I'm sooo sleepy!"

The main thing I'm concerned about is that Eliza wakes up in the middle of the night crying in her sleep. This is REALLY sad to witness. I ask her what's wrong, and she cries that she doesn't know. I rub her back or stroke her legs, and she seems to calm down but wakes back up crying again after five minutes.

People keep telling me it's because she can't comfort herself at these times and that's why it's happening, but the wake-ups almost seem like a version of night terrors to me? Because she does not seem to be fully awake when it happens.

I think lots of times instead of crying like that she will get up and climb into bed with me, which I recently realized I'm okay with. Our issue, though, is that she lives at her dad's house too and doesn't climb into bed with him, so people tell me that I'm not being consistent and it's MY issue since apparently she doesn't do it at her dad's house... (and honestly I've told myself that too).

I'm going to try to continue to educate myself on the information that's out there, but I'm starting to feel like I will listen to other's opinions on children's sleep "must-do's," but continue to allow Eliza to come climb into bed with me if that's where she finds comfort.