Beautiful Brooke: Admitting Defeat. And the first week of school.

If I'm being honest, I might as well start this post with a confession. We're all friends, here, right? So I can admit when I've been wrong, apologize when I've said something crazy, or rant when I feel the need to rant.
So, I confess. I admit defeat.
The crib is back together. No more big girl bed. No more morning celebrations.

Although the big girl bed seemed to be the greatest thing, and Brooke seemed to love the change and attention for such a big accomplishment, she suddenly began veto-ing her sleep again...

She wasn't napping, wouldn't settle, and would only scream hysterically when in the big girl bed, and the major difference between the crib and toddler bed is that SHE CAN GET OUT OF THE BIG GIRL BED. It was almost as if Brooke sensed that life was about to change as I got ready to head back to work last Monday. She could feel that something was different. And 'she'd be darned' if she was going to sleep and miss something!!

So, last Sunday, Brooke hadn't taken much of a nap in her big girl bed. Therefore, she was ready for bed much earlier than usual. This was actually a good thing because we wanted her in bed at more of a 'school night' time anyway. After a little bit of fussing, she went to bed just fine on her own.
Monday morning, I woke her up at 6:30am and she was in a GREAT mood! She was excited to spend the day with Nana and wanted to get going as soon as she was awake! I was so excited! Maybe this school year was going to go as well this year as it did last year!

Or. Maybe not.
Since Brooke wouldn't sleep unless my Mom was holding her all day Monday.

Monday night. Early bed time. Hysterics about the big girl bed. Screamed. Fought. Hit. Until she finally just collapsed. Around 10pm. Only to be awake again around midnight. Luckily, she went back to sleep...but no one was quite as rested as they had been the night before.

Tuesday night. The night before the first day of school. The night that I needed the most rest and peaceful sleep in order to prepare for the 125 new faces I would meet the next day.
Absolute hysterics at bed time. She clung to our necks and screamed as if she'd never see us again. It was horrible. I think I cried as much as she did - knowing how much sleep I WASN'T going to get...and feeling so helpless.

After 4 attempts at laying her down, only to have her throw everything out of the bed and run to the door and claw her way out, we decided to just let her scream it out. She had only screamed for a few minutes until the room had been trashed and she was clawing at the door again. This time, when we went back in, she had vomitted all over her bed, the bed rail, her blankets, and herself. It was nearly 11:30pm on a school night. I seriously thought I was going to lose it. So, we changed the sheets, her PJ's and scrubbed everything that we could. At 11:30. PM. I was definitely losing it.

Zig, seeing my level of anxiety nearing its peak, decided that he would lay down with her in her room. She layed in her bed and he on the floor until she was fast asleep. She was so tired... but it wasn't over.
At 2:00am she was up screaming again. Screaming for me. I brought her into our bed and settled her down. Knowing that we didn't want her sleeping in our bed, Zig took her back over to her room and set up a bed on the floor where they both slept for the next few hours.

On Wednesday morning, I opened her door to find them huddled together on the floor under blankets...but not very well rested. It had only been a few hours.

In my six years of teaching, this was the first year that I was actually EXHAUSTED before the year even started. As I was driving to school, I knew...we would be putting the crib back together that evening.

And that's exactly what we did. We know that Brooke can NOT escape from her crib...and if she decides to throw all of her binks and blankets and comforting things out of the crib, then so be it.

And Wednesday night...that's exactly what she did. When it was time for bed, she had fallen fast asleep in my arms before I layed her down. When I took her upstairs, she started screaming as soon as we walked in to her room. I hugged and kissed her, told her how much I loved her, and said goodnight before placing her in the crib. Before I had even closed her door, she had tossed every bink to the floor. Leaving her with none. Zig and I sat outside of her door and listened to her throw everything else to the floor and scream for the next 25 minutes. She called for me, for Zig, for the binks, for her blankie. It was horrible. Ripped my heart out. And then it just stopped. She had fallen asleep. Thank the good Lord.

I waited about 30 minutes. I finished my seating charts for the next day of school. And then, I went back in. I quietly placed all of her animals and binks back in the crib and covered her with her favorite pink blanket. And she was quiet until 2:30. I listened to her cry from her monitor, but she went back to sleep in a few minutes.

I woke her up for the second day of school and I could tell that she was exhausted. She didn't want to go to Nana's, she just wanted to sleep. But she needed to learn that sleeping is what we do at night, and if she chose NOT TO, she'd have to suffer through the next day... sounds cruel, but it's a fact.

The next morning, Zig used his lunch break to head my Mom's to put the crib back together at her house too. My Mom hates to let Brooke cry and has never been very good at letting her scream it out, but that's only because she adores this child so much...and no one likes to hear a baby scream that way. But, my Mom agreed to give it a try...and it only took about 30 minutes of screaming before Brooke took a decent nap for the first time in a long time at Nan and Pap's.

Since then, she's been napping and sleeping through the night in her cribs again. Sometimes there's a little big of whimpering before laying down, but she's getting more rest and is safe inside those 4 walls of each crib. And Mommy and Daddy are a little more rested too!

We were so thankful to enjoy some time recently with the Hertzler clan! We haven't been together since our beach trip - and Brooke missed Halle and Max so much!

These sleeping bag pictures make me flash forward to their elementary school days when they'll beg to have each other over to spend the night!

The first week of school also means BURNHAM DAYS and the FIRST PENN STATE GAME OF THE SEASON!

Saturday morning was a gorgeous morning, and we spent the whole day at Grammy Joyce's and the streets of Burnham! We shopped, ate yummy snacks, and watched all of the people go by!