Hattie Talking

Just a little talk-to-cry video from our almost four-month old..

Aunt Deidra the Tennis Coach

Aunt Deidra was in town with her SVU Lady Knights tennis team, playing back-to-back endurance matches against Methodist and Meredith Colleges at the Meredith courts just down the street from us.  It gave us a chance for a quick visit in which Hattie met her aunt for the first time. 

Ever the coach, Deidra passed down to Clara a beginner tennis racket, used previously by cousins Sophie and Sadie Kay, and gave Clara a few tips on where to begin. She's already swinging hard, causing more damage to bystanders than the ball...but that piece will come with time.

Visit From BK and Little Katherine

Kate (BK) Morrison dropped in for a quick visit with Katherine in tow. It gave all the girls a chance to get reacquainted and for BK to meet Hattie for the first time. Clara forced Katherine to endure an hour or so of her toddler possessiveness before chilling out and demonstrating her well-rehearsed hostess skills. The two were fast friends by the end of the visit...just as their mothers expected.

Sister Act

The Girls...With Hattie In Onesie From Big Sister Party  

Just some pictures of the girls together along with a video of Clara entertaining Hattie with her three-year old shenanigans. Note in particular Clara making a sound reminiscent of a cat clearing a hairball from its throat. We've been hearing that a lot for a couple of weeks. Our older daughter says it's her monster impersonation (derived from another kid at mother's morning out, naturally). She uses it to get Hattie's attention and to watch her parents stiffen in exasperation. We ignore it in hopes of it going away. The sooner the better.

Sisters Sporting St. Patrick's Day Colors

Hattie Takes the Bottle & Flips

As we've documented, Hattie has not been a fan of the bottle. She treats it like some sort of waterboarding technique, screaming in torture the moment we press the artificial nipple to her lips. Since Kate returned to work, this has been a problem on those days. For the first couple weeks, we just endured the starvation and wailing that accompanied it. Clara escaped to her happy place while Hattie screamed in the house, the car, the yard. Then we had a week where Paul was able to bring Hattie into Kate's office for a quick feed between clients, providing a little relief.

If there's any question where Clara gets her tenacity, take a look at Kate. Mama would not give up on helping Hattie develop the bottle skill. She worked with her each day, taking into account her mood, her hunger, and a dozen other variable when deciding when to make a practice run with the bottle. It usually ended with screaming, but Kate did not flinch. She tried again, again, and again.

And it finally took. Hattie grabbed onto the bottle one morning, latched, and started gulping. Like it was old shoe. As if she could have done it at any time but decided this was the RIGHT time. 

We were all there for it. So Paul immediately grabbed Hattie and urged Kate to take a picture. He wanted all photographic evidence to insinuate that it was he that taught Hattie this important skill. Of course he did not. 

Bottle feeding has turned Hattie into a chow hound. All this milk has her packing on the chub and providing strength to boot! She's practically doing push-ups during her tummy time. She even did a few belly-to-back flips for us early in March (captured in the video below). It's not a frequent thing just yet, but she demonstrated she has the ability to do it.

Because That's What One Does When One Turns Three

Clara celebrated turning three with (appropriately) three distinct candle-blowing ceremonies: her formal birthday party with friends, over a blueberry pancake birthday breakfast, and in a small cupcake ceremony that night.  

Overkill? We think not. Three has brought an important milestone for Clara...sleeping through the night ALONE in her big girl bed. Indeed, in the weeks since, the parental units have enjoyed the best sleep of their parenting careers (despite a three-month old in that pack-and-play next to their bed). And it's because Clara has decided that sleeping in one's bed without assistance is simply what one does when one becomes three. 

Some context...

As we've documented exhaustively on this blog, sleep has not be Clara's cardinal strength. But we've never lost hope that she could do it. We just had to find the right tactic to help her get over the hump. We ultimately stumbled upon a two-prong approach.

First, Clara's addiction to videos led up to the gold star system. The promise of being awarded stars, and the awareness that stars can be cashed-in for videos and other goodies, somehow induces cooperative behavior much of the time. We have tried to avoid saturating the star effect by making it somewhat hard to earn them and doling out only a handful each day. She must earn two for a treat and five for a video. We have largely avoided star inflation, and we think that keeps her eager to take advantage of those rare opportunities to earn them.

A few weeks before her third birthday, we made a bold move. Clara, we promised, once you sleep through the night by yourself in your big girl bed, you will get five stars. All at once! It's up to you to do it. We're not forcing you. But when you're ready, know that you'll get five stars each time you do it. Now, do you remember what you can get with five stars?

She let that sink in for a while.

Second, we started talking up what a big deal it is to be three-years-old. And with that age comes great responsibility. A lot of three years, you should know, sleep by themselves all night long. We're not saying you have to do that, just food for thought...

Though it sounds manipulative (and is), we console ourselves by believing that it's beneficent manipulation...the ends justify the means...you know, all that slippery slope rationalization.

We made a point to avoid being heavy-handed. It was going to be Clara's choice.

On the evening of her birthday, we went through the usual nighttime routine of bath, followed by three stories, and prepared for one of us to lay down with her while she tried to fall asleep. Ga was at the house, and the understanding was that Ga would come up and sleep with her through the night.

Clara decided it would work differently starting this night. She declared that since she was now three, she didn't need our help going to sleep. We asked if Ga could come up and sleep with her later. No, she said. Because I'm three and I'm going to do it all-by-my-self. 

Okay. We turned out the lights and left her to her own devices. Paul bivouacked outside Clara's room, readying himself for her quick retreat and request for assistance falling asleep. Over the next several minutes, he heard her sigh deeply a few times, turn over again and gain, and then...heavy breathing. Huh?! Paul grabbed Kate and we walked in to check. Sure enough, for the first time in recorded history, Clara had put herself to sleep. She had willed herself beyond fears of the dark, of shadows, of being alone because, well, that's what one does when one turns three.

We kept waiting for the other shoe to fall. For the past few months, Clara would wake at some point each night and run into her parents' room demanding Daddy come back to bed with her. And it did happen this night, too. Her resolve couldn't prevail through a late-night groggy awakening. But she held off until 4 am. We paired her with Ga, and sent them both back to sleep.

Ga reported the next morning that Clara was thinking hard about sleeping on her own as they got back in her bed. "Maybe I'll sleep all by myself when I'm four," she said.

We're proud to announce that, in the weeks since passed, Clara has clung to her three-year-old resolve. Some nights she asks us to stay in bed to help her fall asleep, but she is now consistently sleeping all alone at night. She's sleeping past 7 am most mornings. We did not know if this day would ever come!

Add to it that Clara has also decided that three-year-olds don't wear pull-ups to bed. Initially, this made for a steep increase in our laundry turns. But no more. Clara has effectively night trained her potty habits now. 

The child possesses grit, no doubt.  But this is what one does when one is three.