Kelly and Monica take a nap around 2:00 every day. They really don’t fight it. It’s siesta time and most of the population is drowsy after a big lunch.
Falling asleep at night is more of a battle. I thinking we’re 50/50 for full on meltdowns. Still, the stages of sleep are fascinating to observe.
The stages of sleep for Kelly: 1) She goes into bed with little effort. 2) Prayers. 3) She bugs Monica with her cute, chattering voice. Mami and Papi tell her to not talk. 4) She turns, tosses and kicks. 5) Eyes start to close. 6) Dead sleep. 7) Tiny twitches.
Two nights ago Mami left the room to check her email. We have a light outside our window that shines into the room. When Renee left she turned the hallway light off. The sudden darkness scared both the girls, but it completely terrified Kelly. She immediately started wailing and thrashing. It wasn’t until I put my face right next to hers that she calmed down. We now turn the light off after they fall asleep.
The stages of sleep for Monica: It varies. 1) She runs around every corner of the room trying to avoid getting in bed. 2) Papi picks her up and places her in bed. 3) Prayers. 4) Drink gobs of water. 5) Tells us she needs to pee one more time. 6) Pees a drop. 7) Leapfrogs over Mami and Papi’s bed to her own. 8) Talks to Kelly.
At this point she can go down 1 of 2 roads. Road number one (taken less often, thank God) is to get out of bed without asking for permission. This leads to a timein in the chair. This leads to a massive meltdown. Oh boy does this girl have some lungs! I gotta be honest, the first time this happened I felt totally unsure of myself…a big “OK, now what?”. Now we’ve done a pretty good job of shorting the meltdowns to around a minute. After calming down Monica always want to be picked up, hugged and cradled (what better way to end a temper tantrum?). She then usually goes into bed and closes her eyes. She doesn’t necessarily fall asleep right away (see point number 3 under Kelly), but it doesn’t take too long.
The second road she chooses is to close the eyes and just fall asleep. We really like it when this happens.
Once both girls are asleep, we’ve never had a problem. I did wake up this morning with Kelly’s head on my feet (not sure when that happened), but they’re deep sleepers. The mornings are the best. The climb into bed with Mami and Papi and just cuddle for 20 minutes or so. Eventually they starting giggling (Kelly) or bossing (Monica) and the morning starts!
All and all, it’s fun to see how we’re all learning from each other. You can definitely see the trust and comfort growing. I know it’s a process, but I never thought it would be so much fun. Sometimes I’m just so overwhelmed by how blessed we are to have gotten these girls.
