My Dad always told me that I was Sleeping Beauty because I was so beautiful when I was asleep, and then...I would wake up and be grumpy. Yea, that's my Dad's sense of humor. But I know it is somewhat based on truth because I am not a morning person and love to stay in bed.
The older I get, the less I am able to sleep in because of the responsibilities that come with being an adult: work, kids, obligations,etc. I remember the day when I could sleep in until 10 on Saturday. Brad would tease me (he never slept in), but seriously, when you wake up early every other day, you have to have ONE day to sleep in.
As you can imagine, Tacy really ended sleeping in period. Babies are great, but they are horrible sleepers. As Tacy has gotten older, she started to sleep more, but she still needed help in the morning to change a diaper, go potty, eat food, play, etc. When Brad took down Tacy's crib and she started sleeping in a toddler bed, I was not very happy because she would wake up so early because she could get out of bed now and not have to be rescued. Then there was potty training which brought the joys of bed-wetting. We finally hit a great spot where Tacy slept 12 hours (7-7) with Tacy waking up and coming into our room to tell me that the sun was up so it was time to get up, or that she was hungry, needed to go potty and so on. She was always very sweet (Tacy is a morning person) and I could even tell her to give me a few more minutes and she would leave me alone and come back in 10 minutes. Not too bad, she was basically an alarm with a snooze.
Brad's rotations have thrown a kink into Tacy's sleep however. Because he has had to wake up early to make it to some rotations, Tacy hears him and wakes up (5:30 on she is a light sleeper, this is why I shower at night a lot because she sleeps through it then). Her waking up early, meant that I would then get woken up early. Brad tries to get her to go back to sleep by putting her back in bed and turning off the light, which causes her to cry and usually 15 minutes later, after Brad has left the house, Tacy is up again. Oh well.
But within the past few weeks, Tacy no longer wakes me up as soon as she is up. She will go potty on her own (I try not to think about whether she washes her hands or not), play quietly in her room, and now she even will go downstairs and get herself food. This is wonderful!!!! I can always sleep until my actual alarm, or sleep in until 8 on Saturdays. Seriously, she helps to make me a happy momma. Granted, Tacy fending for herself has caused some problems.
While I'm sleeping, Tacy has gotten into Christmas candy and all of the candy cane kisses out of everyone's stockings (Brad found all the wrappers and asked her about it, but she denied it). Tacy has started to use her stool around the kitchen to get anything she can that is up high. For a while, just the fruit fell victim to the stool, and I can't really complain that my child would wake up and eat fruit (although finding bananas or apples in the trash that only had one bite eaten from them is not fun and we had a talk about this). However, one Saturday Tacy somehow used her stool to help her be tall enough to get ice cream and her shake out of the freezer. She then scooped ice cream into a bowl with the ice cream scoop, but the ice cream and still very frozen shake into the fridge, and took her bowl of ice cream up to her room to eat. I was really impressed with her formal ice cream eating and that she used the ice cream scoop (I forget we have one and usually just use a spoon). The now melted ice cream in the fridge was just funny and we had a talk about how ice cream was not something she could eat without Mommy and Daddy saying it was ok.
Other than food, her toys that have been placed in hard to reach areas of the cupboard, are now things she can get to. The same saturday as the ice cream, I woke up to Tacy asking me if she could blow bubbles while holding an open bubble jar in her hand. She has also gotten out her kinetic sand toy that essentially is playdough that can float on water, that has molds and a little beach that you can fill with water. When I woke up I found all the colors of kinetic sand were now mixed together and water was on the table. So we had a talk about what toys she can only play with when Mom and Dad are around to supervise, and luckily bubbles and playdough have not been a problem since.
I really can't complain about the extra sleep I get now. Granted, I would prefer if Tacy slept past 6 so that she wasn't so grumpy by 5. Oh well, you win some you lose some.
It's hard to complain when I wake up to a happy toddler who has dressed herself, which simplifies my morning.
Now I just need to hide her Elsa dress so that we can stop fighting about how she needs to wear clothes under the dress because it is too cold to just wear the dress outside.
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