It’s Been A Whole Month

I’m cooked. My dear daughter is consistently skipping naps, just talking and singing for hours in her crib. Yesterday, I listened to her singing through the monitor … “Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top. When the sunshine comes out, the baby will wake up.” Who taught her that? When I casually asked the doctor about it at her half-yearly checkup trying not to show the beads of sweat on my forhead, she said, “You know, you’re lucky. My son wouldn’t nap after 18 months. She’s going to skip naps more frequently and will soon give it up all together.” What?

I napped till I was five. I have a little report card from nursery school somewhere in a box in the basement that says, “She’s such a wonderful child and such a great sleeper.”

Lolo has been skipping about once or twice a week, but now I am lucky if I get one or two naps from her a week. Eek. I can’t check my email, I can’t fold laundry because she always wants “to help”, I can’t put away the madness she creates in the living room. And, how am I ever going to shop on the Internet again? No one wants to hunt down their new winter coat at 8pm after she’s gone to bed. That’s when you pour yourself on the couch with a glass of wine and a new episode of Flipping Out.

Now instead of eating, cleaning and reading in peace, this is the reality of my weekdays at 2pm … her first manicure.

It’s not pink, it’s “drama violet”

Our Labor Day was indeed filled with, well, labor.

I said I would never do it again, and I meant it, until now I guess. The promise to never paint a room myself again has lasted for many years and many abodes. But, for my daughter, I picked up the blasted paint roller again. The last time Matt and I painted together was in Richmond when we decided that our kitchen walls needed to be orange and our kitchen cabinets needed to be blue. It was great until we moved out and had to paint it all over again to bring it back to white. And, did I mention that we had two blue bathrooms to paint over as well? Good times.

In order to make this large undertaking possible, my parents made the trek from good old VA to take care of the beanie while Matt and I overhauled the nursery. It’s been a task hanging over our heads since we moved in. The yellow hue the room came with had to go in order for us to give Lolo the kickin’ decor she deserves.

I’ve known all along that I wanted her room to incorporate some purple and green in avoidance of “the pink”. But, the hunt for fabric that would include those colors for her curtains has been problematic to say the least. Who knew? I’ve been going back and forth with the fabric for weeks and wanted to have the perfect swatch in hand before picking the wall color. But, at the last minute we chose a wildcard fabric and just went with the wall color that would seemingly make the pattern pop the most, and that would be “drama violet”.

We hit up Sherwin Williams for some Zero VOC paint and got to work.

My mom preps the walls.

Yes, I have chosen to paint in old pajamas that do not match and then go a step further by documenting it with a photo. Do you see anything wrong with that?

It took more than 12 hours in total, but we got it done in one day and even managed to paint the closet an awesome contrasting color (Matt’s idea!!).

I will post pictures of the finished room when I have a chance to take some shots.

I didn’t have time because we had to prep last minute for our roof to be torn off! Yes, after recuperating from the paint job, guess who gave us a call Monday night? The roofers that’s who!

When they said they would be ready to redo our roof this week, it turns out that they meant they would be at our house with 10 men on Tuesday morning at 7 am. They actually arrived at 6:55 and had the whole house tarped by 7:10. So much for trying to be out of the house for the morning.

I was really worried about Chloe being able to sleep through the noise but guess what, I apparently produced a miracle baby. She is currently sleeping as they tear, rip, saw and nail wooden materials on our house. Don’t ask me, man. It boggles my mind. I can only attribute this talent to her noise insensitivity training in Brooklyn.

It's pandemonium outside.

Oh, and, by the by, this is also the day the painters were scheduled to come and remove our back door so it could be stripped and painted offsite. No door with plastic sheeting covering the hole is nothing compared to our house feeling a construction war zone.

Sometimes …

Sometimes you just need to get up early when you’re visiting friends because they have a different exersaucer than you. And, what better time to try it out than the crack of dawn?

Documentation

I wanted to document this freak occurrence before future sleep deprivation leads me to believe that it never happened.

Last night on 3/30/08:
8:30 PM – 3 AM: Lolo slept in Pack N’ Play
3 AM until 4 AM: Lolo ate and rocked back to sleep with me
4 AM – 6:30 AM: Lolo slept in Pack N’ Play

I am stunned silly with rich sleep. I actually laid upon my own adult bed as opposed to the couch, the floor and the glider. Usually I don’t even bother climbing into bed. I just fall asleep on the couch knowing I’ll be up in 7 minutes. But, this time, no. I was allowed to experience true slumber.

Now, the previous night she was up from 2:30 AM until 6:30 AM just chillin’. But, I will concentrate on this huge victory and hope that it wasn’t just dumb luck, but more a combination of my deft sleep-inducing skill set.