Sleep? What's sleep?

For ages, Libby has woken up quite happy between 7 and 7:30 each morning. A few weeks ago, she shifted to a 6 am wake-up. Yesterday, she woke up at 4:50. I haven't been awake that early since YM/YW Temple trips to Washington DC. I got online yesterday and Googled "toddler wakes up too early". All the articles I read agreed on one thing: I am the proud parent of a lark. A lark is a child who wakes up before the sun, but is perfectly happy and content when they awake. Also, larks don't take early naps, they take late ones (like Libby's 2-4:30 pm naps every day). My options - push Libby's bedtime back by an hour or two, or suck it up and go to bed earlier myself. Over Christmas, Libby was consistently going to bed after 8:30, and still waking up before 7, but was horribly cranky. So it sounds like early bedtime for me! "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a (wo)man healthy, wealthy, and wise." We'll be finding out soon enough if that old adage is true! John enjoys his time with her in the mornings.

*Side note* Libby just flipped over the front of her rocking-horse (she goes at it a little too rambunctiously) and smacked her forehead on the corner of our fireplace hearth. No blood, thank goodness, just a skid mark and a goose-egg above her right eye. A dose of Tylenol later (you know she's going to have a killer headache!), and after eating the baggy of frozen peas that she would not let me put on her head, she is sitting at the table cheerfully sucking on a cherry Dum-Dum from the credit union.

Back to the original post -

Last night Libby went to bed at her normal time, 7 pm. She had a runny nose all day yesterday, and when we checked on her before going to bed, she was having trouble breathing through her nose. At 9 pm, she started hollering. John checked on her, made sure she had her binky, and she went back to sleep. Screaming again at 10:30, 11:15, and 11:45. All three time she was sitting up in bed, unable to breathe through her nose. (The reason that is such a problem for her is that if she can't breathe through her nose, she can't have the binky in her mouth) I was finally able to fall asleep after that last waking. Until 2:30 that is, when she began screaming all over again, then wouldn't go back to sleep. I tried bringing her into bed with us, but she just wanted to play. After an hour of that mess, I stuck her back in her bed, and eventually she (and I) fell asleep. Once more at 4:30, then she slept until 6:30. All in all, I think I may have gotten 4 hours of sleep last night. Maybe less. It takes me forever to fall asleep after a night waking like that.

Today I feel fuzzy - slow and clumsy and stupid. My eyes feel hot and too big for their sockets. And Libby is snotting all over the place. I still have some decongestant/cold medicines from before the recall and am debating whether or not I want to give her some. They have always worked well in the past, kicking out her colds in a few days. Dilemma.

On a happier note, John felt the baby kick for the first time last night. Big, strong kicks that made his hand bounce, over and over again. We never had that with Libby because she spent the first 7 months lying on her back, then when she turned head-down, her back was against my belly. It's been so fun to feel all these kicks and punches, and I am glad John finally gets to enjoy them as well. Sappy sweet moment :)