The Abraham Family’s Journey to Russia to Bring Home Their Daughter

February 5, 2009

Our crazy day

There was a lot of crying to be heard in our house earlier today. Mostly from Lexi. She started the day off with a leaking diaper that soaked through her pajama pants. Her poor little legs were wet and cold which woke her up two hours earlier than usual. In an effort to get her back to sleep, I changed her diaper and clothes and Martin prepared her a warm bottle of milk. But once she is awake, she is ready to get up. I brought her into our bed while she drank her milk which was nice for a little snuggling, but unfortunately, there is no sleeping when Ms. Busy Body in our bed. She has been known to do back flips off the sides.

So Martin headed for the shower while I drug myself from bed (before 7:00 a.m. mind you) and took her to the kitchen for breakfast. However, after drinking so much milk already, she was not interested in eating anything. She just smeared it in her hair and cried to get down. We move to the sofa to read some books. That didn't make her happy either. More tears. By this time two of her brothers were awake and wanted to play with her. She played for maybe ten minutes before getting out of sorts again. She begged for her juice cup, but it didn't have her "favorite" juice in it so she spit it out all over her shirt. And cried about it.

I plopped her into the bath tub and washed her hair. I just knew a warm bath and massage with her lotion would be the ticket to settling her down for an early morning nap. Man, the girl did not want to sleep. More tears. While she was supposed to be sleeping, I grabbed a quick shower. I came out of the bathroom to find Garrett pulling her out of bed. He thought she had just woke up for the day and had no idea that it was really a failed attempt at a nap. I can't even adequately describe the maniacal laugh she let out as she looked at me while her Garrett was rescuing her.

Now she has several brothers wanting to play with her. This would be the perfect opportunity to sneak up to the office and check e-mails right? Wrong! She found me immediately and more tears ensued. Now it is 10:30 a.m. - her normal nap time. Unfortunately, operation Get Lexi to Sleep #3 failed yet again. She screamed the moment I laid her down. I am terribly confused because this is really out of character for her.

Okaaaay, back to the family room we go. I tried to regroup and pull out a few toys she usually loves. Didn't help. More tears. Is she teething or something? I mean she is drooling all over her new clean shirt. Maybe that is the problem. I stick my finger in her mouth to check. Oh, really bad idea! More tears. This time from me. I did manage to feel 4 molars cutting their way through her gums before she almost amputated my right index finger.

At that point, I figured she's already mad and irritated so why not go ahead and trim her fingernails while we're on a roll. She didn't like it not one little
bit, but her lethal weapons have been eradicated. (I think she was secretly sharpening her nails to get even with the cat.) I tried to work from home a few more times, but she tracked me down within seconds. She's like a bloodhound! I really wasn't ignoring her or anything. 99.9% of the time she was attached to my hip... and still crying. On days like this, I feel like I am just barking orders at the boys, but they seemed to take it all in stride and managed to do their schoolwork relatively independently.

By lunch time I am counting down the minutes until Martin comes home so we can tag each other and I get to go to work (yes, I said "get to" not "have to") and he can deal with her foul mood. Skipping breakfast gave her a healthy appetite for lunch and I wanted her to keep hanging out in the highchair until I finished fixing her brothers' lunches. But of course, she was not happy in her highchair today, so I let her down to run around a bit. A nano-second later, she was in the bathroom throwing toy cars in the toilet. As I removed her from playing in said toilet, the tears were flowing freely.

Finally, Martin came home around 1:00. I prepared her a bottle of milk, rocked her for about 2 minutes, and put her to bed one last time. Then, I said "See Ya!" Actually, I peeked in on her a few minutes later and she hadn't moved a muscle and was fast asleep. So I was out of there in the blink of an eye!

Martin said she slept for FOUR
hours! Lucky dog! But I will say that by the time I got home at 6:15, my happy sweet Lexi was back and sitting happily in her daddy's lap reading books. And she went to bed right on time with no complaints. I have discovered a connection: leaking diaper in the morning = fussy baby all day. I'm wondering if we need to go up a size in the Pampers Cruisers at least for night time. She is growing pretty fast.



She gave us a few smiles this morning.
Have I mentioned that she loves these Hot Wheels slippers?
We call them the "Donut Store Shoes" but that's a story for another post.


Going for new look! Are Mohawks in or out?

Some of you have commented on her cute curls.
They really come out when her hair is freshly washed.




The dreaded toilet debacle...



There's my Daddy's Girl

4 comments:

Amy said...

I think I am in for the same kind of day today. Bibby Boy got up before 5 this morning. I have lunches packed and showered all before 6. I knew this day was coming since all week he slept passed 6:15 and we had great days. I guess we take the good with the "bad". 7 pm won't come fast enough

Amy said...

I think *I* would like to go back to bed most mornings!!

Dan and Alicia Marlowe said...

They definitely go through clingy stages. They see mama as a big 'comfort' insurance policy when they are feeling bad too and so there is no rest for us until it passes. You handled it so well though. PERSEVERANCE ... it is just steady plodding...in the same direction... until the horizon opens up on new scenery.

Janine said...

We had problems at nights with leaky diapers too. We always used Pampers with the boys but found that Pampers were leaking during the nighttime with our daughter. We switched to Huggie Overnights. We no longer have a leaking problem but I have noticed the dye used in the Mickey Mouse design on the front will come off onto the inside of her pjs, which is a little annoying. But much better than a cold, wet and awake child.