Happy New Year!

Happy Near Year, folks! We had a good Christmas and it was definitely more fun this Christmas than the year before. Ava understood how to open presents and had fun with that. So far she has loved and played with every single present she got from grandparents and her own parents. I'm glad because I'd put careful thought into it and I'm thankful for the cooperation of grandparents to get her things that we can take overseas. We all enjoyed spending time with family over the season.

Ava started a cute thing in the last few days. If she hurts herself, she runs to me to kiss her boo-boo, even if she barely tapped herself on the hand, foot, head, or whatever. Greg rolls his eyes and calls her a drama queen but I enjoy it and told him not to discourage it. I guess if she does become overly ridiculous about it, I'll put a stop to it. 

Ava has been doing well with reading the alphabet. She gets P and R confused sometimes and will say "mmmm" when she sees M, instead of saying "em." She knows how to sign E if I ask her what the sign is for E but if she reads E, she thinks it's a sideways W and will sign W. Sometimes she'll get J and U confused and sometimes when she sees J, she'll say "jump." It's the same with H - "house!" She still tries to sign the letters while reading the letters which I appreciate very much. I can't tell if she says T or C and if she doesn't sign the letter, I have to prompt her and see if she read the letter correctly.

The rest of this post is mainly for me because I want to remember what's been happening and what we did. You don't have to read the following if you don't want to.

Ava has been having sleep issues for over a week now. She started off waking up during the night which isn't unusual in itself. Everyone wakes up, babies included. She knows how to put herself back to sleep and usually does. This time, though, she was crying persistently for over an hour which was strange. We went in and got her back to sleep. It happened twice more that same night. The next night was like the night before. In the following days with continuing night waking, she began to fight bedtime and naps, crying persistently and clinging fiercely. After ruling out night terrors, sleep deprivation, ear infection, illness, and second year molars, we began realizing that she wasn't fighting sleep; she was fighting being left alone. We tried getting her to overcome her aversion to being alone for two nights. She was so averse to it that she started climbing out of her crib. In the space of one hour, she climbed out five times. We were obliged to put away the crib, put the crib mattress on the floor, and put up her bed tent that she got for Christmas over the mattress. She loves the tent. We noticed that she will get in her bed and go to sleep as long as we were in the room with her. 

We have racked our brains for reasons she was behaving like this (or at least I have been because I'm the one dealing with a very crabby, fatigued toddler all day. After so many days of that, my nerves were getting shredded). I think it's separation anxiety. She went through separation anxiety from about 9 months to 12 months and it disappeared. I thought it was odd that it was starting again about 2 months ago when we were dropping her off in different childcare settings (the Y, at meetings, ch'rch, etc). She'd previously enjoyed these settings and got excited when she saw other kids. She became clingy even at home, always hanging onto my legs, cuddling with me, asking for me. I read recently the separation anxiety has two peaks; the second peak being in the second half of the second year. BINGO.  I read further that it can cause sleep difficulties. BINGO again. My mom has said Ava is probably picking up on our emotions, conversations about moving, etc and has anxiety from that also. 

We made sure she understood that she was expected to stay in bed and then we tried training her in a couple of ways to stay in bed. We tried spanking and ignoring. We can't tell if she is being downright rebellious or she is desperate for assurance and comfort of her parents. She comes straight for us; she doesn't get out and start playing. For now, we will assume that this is part of her development and she needs her parents and that it will eventually pass. We will keep putting her to sleep, sitting by her side until she falls asleep and slowly wean her from that by sitting further and further way over a succession of nights. I have hope because she woke up last night about 11 pm and put herself back to sleep. She is currently napping as I write this, longer than she has been in the last two or three weeks, which means she at least cycles out of sleep once, rouses temporarily, and cycles back in without needing me there. Progress, progress.

We need to remember that she will be going through some major transitions this year, developmentally and environmentally. We must be compassionate and patient. We also know that her language will improve and that will help a lot. I hope that once we get on the field and we're settled, she will be able to sleep alone again. 

Pictures to come soon.