Katharine Lange: Arwyn Week 22: Little A Turns 5 Months

Our sweet little Arwyn turned 5 months old this week. It's so hard because I'm excited to see her personality develop more and more, but I don't want her to get a day older because having such a sweet little baby is just the best! Arwyn was still really sick all week with a low fever, congestion, and a little cough, so of course she still wasn't sleeping well. However, I got really tired of her new found bad sleep habits, so after her fever broke and I could tell she was at least a little better, I went back to the sleep training...no more rocking to sleep! She was still crying, but I would set my alarm for 5 minutes, and if she was still upset, I would go in and cuddle, then set my alarm for 10 minutes. She always fell asleep before the 10 minutes was up, and often before the first 5. So that part is better, but she's still up 2-3 times at night needing milk. And while I'm totally exhausted and frustrated at this backwards progress, I also know that it's actually very normal and I was up this much or more with Leia until 6 months, so oh well.

Leia has been doing really well with her potty training this week, thanks to her Grandma and MumMum, and has a body full of tattoos to show for it. Sometimes she even when multiple times in a row just to get more "stickers;" it's quite amazing what she will do when she really wants something! She was so funny the other night when we tried to all sit down for a family dinner. She decided she wanted to wear a pretty dress for the occasion, and then insisted that I dress up as well. She dragged me all the way upstairs and then picked out an outfit for me to wear.

I had a discipline victory this week. She got some new Christmas ornaments from MumMum and wouldn't put them down and wanted to bring them to bed with her too. I said no, mostly because I thought they would break, but also because they could have been dangerous I suppose. Anyway, she was pissed, of course, but I finally got them away from her and hung them up so she could at least see them. Well, she changed her freak out tune and got really sweet and asked politely if she could just hold them while we did our singing. She was so polite that I had to say yes, but made sure she understood that we would hang them back up after singing. Well of course she renigged on the deal, and I couldn't snatch them back without breakage. So I calmly put her down in her bed and explained that she did not keep her end of the deal, so now I was not going to keep mine, i.e. no blanket covering or body rubbies, and I walked out of the room. Oh man was she upset! She only cried for a minute or two before she called out "Ok Mommy, here, hang up the Christmas!" I hung them up where she could see them and she got her rubbies. Problem solved.

And you might recall from last week that Leia's been working on understanding emotions in her class at school. So the other day she says to Josh, "Mommy yelled at me, and it made me mad and sad and scared." Of course I don't even remember yelling, but now Josh won't leave me alone about it. At least we know she's learning!