21 February 2014

Bobo outgrew his pack'n'play so we are working on transitioning him to the bottom bunk.  It has not been going smoothly, in part because a) he is child #3 and b) he is so independent-minded.  We tried letting him cry it out while holding the door shut, but he just screamed for two and a half hours so we gave that up.  We tried putting him back in bed consistently every time he got out of it, but gave up after about fifteen times.  At the moment, he stays up watching tv on mute with Mr. Brown until he falls asleep.  Then Mr. Brown puts him in bed.  Some nights he stays there, but usually he gets up at least once and comes and gets in bed with us.  He falls right asleep once he climbs in, and sometimes after a half hour or so I can put him back in his bed and he'll stay there.  Other times he wakes up again and comes right back to our bed.  The last couple nights we've skipped his afternoon nap on purpose, hoping to wear him out so he'd go to bed on time.  Last night he fell asleep at seven, but woke up at nine o'clock or so and was up for several hours before going back to bed.  Timing of this transition was maybe not the greatest, because we've been sick and now he's sick, but it has overall been very hard on his parents.  It seems like he's forgotten how to put himself to sleep, which he used to do just fine, and so he can't go to bed until he's completely exhausted.  We're thinking about buying a crib and starting sleep training all over again.

Last night Nut Brown asked me to play chess with him (we just inherited a second hand set from a friend).  After we were about five minutes into it, he said, 'Wouldn't this be more fun if they had spells?' and then he made up a bunch of spells for each piece to have, including summoning players back from the dead and dealing death to other players.  I opted out of the rest of the game, since a lot of other rules changed at the same time, but he was happy to play both sides until white had completely wiped out black.  'My armies are courageous,' he kept saying.