To Sleep or not to Sleep...

We have had many challenges over the last 10 months with Buttons. Some are adoption related, some are new parent related and some are just plain everyday baby stuff. First there was the extraordinary attachment to her father, especially in China when we would be in the hotel room and I couldn't get anywhere near her. There has always been a challenge with diaper and clothing changes. She would prefer to go around with a poopy diaper than have a diaper change. We've worked through most of the early challenges with the exception of SLEEP.

We're fans of Attachment Parenting and have tried to follow it in varying degrees. We would give Buttons milk on demand day or night, practiced baby-wearing and did some co-sleeping as well. Ever since her first night with us, she has had (for lack of a better term) an addiction to hand-holding during her sleep. She's been waking up in the night every since she joined our family. (My guess is that she slept with her foster-mom in China.) Co-sleeping became difficult for any of us to get any sleep, so we worked on getting her used to her crib. We would have her just play in it with some toys for a few weeks, then she would take naps in it and finally she would sleep in her crib. Next step was getting her to stay asleep. We would rock her to sleep, put her in her crib and then we'd go in to hold her hand when she would wake. A few weeks ago she started waking up like 8 times a night and we were all getting pretty cranky. So, we started reading "Sleeping Throught the Night" by Jodi Mindell after a friend, who was also into "AP", had recommended it. Well, it worked but the crying (even the 5 or 10 minutes we allow) gives me nightmares. The thing is, she does sleep through the night except for the occasional nightmare. She wakes up pretty early (6:30) and then we bring her into our room for a morning snuggle and a few extra minutes of sleep.

I think this is working, but I have guilt about her crying and I'm having nightmares about it. I also feel selfish because I know that part of it is the fact that I really like to rock her to sleep although I am still able to do it for her nap. I also wonder if I'm torn about this because I like her to need me and this feels like she's really growing up? I guess I don't have an answer, but I figure this is a good place to post some thoughts about it. Any answers you have would be welcome!

Tag, I'm It.

Well, I was tagged by Stephanie from FORKS & CHOPSTICKS to come up with 6 weird facts about myself. Well, it's taken awhile to post this one. Not because I'm not weird, but I wasn't sure which weird facts would be interesting to anyone else. However, I believe we're supposed to blog for ourselves and not our "audience", so here goes...

1. I played the trombone in middle school, junior high and high school. I still own the trombone and it's at my mom's house. I don't know if I'd even remember how to play it. My piano is also at her house and I'm really aching to bring it to my place. (She lives about 12 hours from us and the cost of moving a piano is not small.)

2. I made my community theater stage debut at the age of 35 playing Sr. Margaretta in "The S*und of Music". I love to sing and sometimes do it fairly well.

3. I've had weight issues since I was about 3 years old. Not too weird, since many others do, too. After being on several diets, I try not to eat veggies or fruit with high calorie or high sodium accompaniments such as celery and peanut butter or green peppers with salt. Then, I'll eat chocolate or pretzels instead. Go figure.

4. I'm not a vegetarian but I prefer my pizzas and subs/hoagies to be veggies and cheese only. Oops, another food fact.

5. I dated my hubby's brother before dating my hubby. I promise you it's not as icky as it sounds. It was a loooong time ago and was never serious, if you know what I mean.

6.I know more trivia about movie and TV than anyone not in the "biz" really should. Along those same lines, I'm a sucker for any movie or TV show that deals with time travel.

There you have it, I'm a true weirdo. If you're reading this, consider yourself tagged!