This picture was 100% not staged, I actually asked her to smile at the camera and she did this instead.
I’ve been having a difficult time with Gwen & her naps recently. I thought I had found a groove where I’d take her for a walk in her stroller and she’d fall asleep, but she’s stopped falling asleep in her stroller unless we’ve been out for like… an hour, which just isn’t feasible. Also, when you are out walking around the city there are just so many things with the potential to be loud and wake her up. The other day there was a very loud cashier in a store, a barking dog tied up outside the store, a woman on a mobility scooter driving erratically all over the sidewalk and screaming into her cellphone, a person on a moped inexplicably blaring their horn, another dog barking in the park, and not one but TWO extremely noisy & smelly garbage trucks, all in the space of about 20 minutes while I was trying to get Gwen to sleep.
As a result she hasn’t had a proper afternoon nap in probably a week, and it is showing in her behaviour. She is cranky all the time, and in the late afternoons/early evening she descends into madness. She is so tired and grumpy by the time dinner rolls around, it’s almost impossible to get her to eat, and then make it through her bath without tears? SCOFF. Thankfully she’s been going to bed at night without any trouble, but the days are NOT EASY.
Yesterday she skipped her nap again, and since Taylor was at work so late I decided to let him sleep through the evening and give Gwen her dinner, bath and bedtime earlier than normal. I fed her as soon as I finished work and got her in bed and asleep by six, about an hour and a half earlier than normal. Everything seemed to be going well, until around 10pm, when she woke up. She’s recently learned how to work doorknobs, and won’t stay in her room. We let her get up, have some milk on the couch, then we brushed her teeth and put her back to bed.
Unfortunately she was way too awake to stay in bed and got up a couple more times, so I let her sleep in the bed with me, which was a literal nightmare and neither of us are rested today. I’m feeling very short-tempered and she has had half a dozen screaming meltdowns in as many hours. I’m really really hoping tonight is better, I’m going to go back to our regular schedule and just hope she doesn’t go too bananas this afternoon. We’ve ordered some doorknob covers that will hopefully thwart her from coming out of her room after bedtime, but they won’t get here until tomorrow and I don’t think either of us want another night like the last.