"She's so bright!" is a familiar comment we hear when people hang out with Rachel. And we're flattered. We do believe Rachel is a very verbal, bright girl who is too good at problem solving for her own good. She's 27 months old.
But in the middle of the night, she loses all intelligence and reminds us that she is a toddler through and through.
Let's back up a little. Remember she was getting up a LOT throughout the night? Last week improved minimally.
So when a cold snap moved in and rendered all of Colorado FREEZING COLD, we hummed and ha-ed about weekend plans. We had pre-booked a hotel in Silverthorne for Friday and Sat night and were committed to the cost of it. Temperatures during the day in the mountains were estimated to be highs of 3F (-16 C), with a little tiny bit of fresh snow and cold wind. Not our favorite ski conditions. Not easy to entertain a 2 year old. So, we decided adding more cost for gas and guaranteeing sleep issues was not worth it, and decided to stay home this weekend and catch up on sleep and housework.
Friday and Saturday nights were not so bad. Once Rachel got to sleep, she slept pretty well and we were happy. It seemed that locking her in her room and ignoring her screaming at the door for hours had paid off. She continued to get up at 5:15-5:30am but did not wake much at night. So we were hoping this phase was over.
Rachel has had some interesting habits in her room overnight over the last few weeks. Let's first explain that our house has one thermastat that controls the temperature for the whole house. At night, the temperature drops to 60 degrees F (15 C) in the house. We have put a space heater in Rachel's room and she sleeps with 4 warm fleecy blankets over her. She has one heat vent in her floor that allows the house heat to warm up her room. She sleeps in the dark. She has three light options in her room: the main ceiling light, controlled by a switch on the wall, a star shaped wall night light, controlled by a switch on the wall, and a noise maker that also has a light that sits on her little table. She can reach the latter with no help.
So in the last two weeks, Rachel has decided several things. 1) she doesn't like the dark 2) she does not like the space heater 3) she likes to cover up the heat vent on the floor, 4) she wants to put herself to bed without our help and 5) she wants to have access to her step stool in her room. This is so she can take it to the door, stand on it, and turn on her light switches, and then move her step stool back to her heat vent and cover it up.
Sunday night it was -5 F outside (-20 C). So she 'puts herself to bed'. This means we put toys away, change into pajamas and night time diaper, brush teeth, read stories, turn out lights, turn on space heater, turn on noise maker, and leave the room, locking the door. An intelligent person would lie down in bed with 4 warm blankets over her and go to sleep.
A 2 year old that loses all sense of things at 8pm onward would get up, poop, scream at her door, and wait for us to change her diaper. Repeat above process.
After we leave the room, Rachel does the following. 1) turns off and unplugs heater (this is a safety concern that we question at 1am) 2) turns off noise maker and on light on the table 3) gets step stool and turns on light switches and returns step stool to cover the heat vent 4) goes to door and cries for Mamma gently until she falls asleep without any blankets on at the door on the carpet.
At 1am, Rachel cries. One of us goes in. Rachel is wet and freezing cold and shivering, and we feel like terrible parents. It's super cold in her room. Turn house heat up to 66 F. Change her diaper, put on two pairs of pajamas, put on her dressing gown. Plug heater in again. Remove step stool from room and reduce lighting. Snuggle her up under blankets in chair for 30 min and hold her cold little hands, trying to warm them up. After 30 min she is barely awake. Lay her down in her bed with blankets on and leave the room. This process takes nearly an hour.
30 seconds later Rachel is screaming at her door for her step stool.
Fearful that she will seriously harm herself getting too cold, we bring her into our bed. She sleeps great from 2:30am until 7am, a sleep in time unheard of in our world. We sleep so-so, getting prodded and kicked and pushed throughout the night but better sleep than we had all last week. Jason had to get up at 5:45am to go to work, but I work late on Mondays so I enjoyed the sleep and snuggle.
7am a happy girl gets up and goes on with her happy 2 year old self.
Forecast for tonight: -1 F (-18C). Our only solution is to put her crib railing back on and hope she can't climb out of it so she can't get to heater to turn it off. We think she probably can climb out of her crib, though, so who knows what adventures await us tonight!
We leave for Mexico in 10 weeks for some heat and sunshine. Aunt Karen comes to town Thursday so we can take off on a 3 day, no child adventure. Thank goodness the temperatures are supposed to rise to normal again on Tuesday.
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