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| Abby's Vaseline-crusted hair. |
Just when you thought it was safe to celebrate a pacifier-free life.
Abby completely duped us into believing we were going to get off scot-free with the pacifier removal. We introduced Buzz, Woody and Jessie and she did pretty well at bedtime and naptime for the first two days.
Then came day three.
The craziness started after I attempted to put her down for a nap. She complied and stayed quiet in her room, but I suspect she didn't sleep even though she was in there for an hour. When I got her up, she turned into Crazy Abby.
I essentially turned into a raving lunatic chasing her around the room, grabbing things from her and placing them out of her reach. We ultimately ended up with a collection of ointments, lotions, pens, etc. in the center of our dining room table because it was a spot she couldn't reach.
It started when she removed Jack's blanket from him and looked at me coyly. I told her to put the blanket back. She did ... for a millisecond. Then she removed it again and repeated this three or four times. When I scolded her, she thought I was HILARIOUS.
Then she rocked Jack as hard as she could until I shooed her away from doing that. She quickly stole his pacifier and raced into the other room so I had to chase her down and remove it.
Don't worry, that didn't get her down!
She shoved the baby swing hard in what appeared to be an effort to break it before moving on to the DVDs.
She quickly cleared the shelf and began removing the discs from their cases. Then she wanted a snack, asking for cheese. I went to the kitchen to get said cheese and turned around to find her with her finger in a tub of Vaseline, looking at me mischievously.
I took that from her, so she moved on to the toys with small parts.
She grabbed a couple wooden toy sets (think nesting-doll-type things) and began putting the small pieces in her mouth. The second time she tried it, the entire thing went in her mouth. I quickly confiscated that and placed it on a high shelf.
I put her in her room for a couple minutes to collect myself and organize the room.
On the way back down from her room, she opted to go down on her stomach, head-first. Awesome.
Her reign of terror was just beginning. She opened the wipes box and tried to pull every one out of the box. She grabbed lotion and squirted it onto her hands and the floor.
Each time I removed what she had and turned to relocate it, she scurried off to find something else.
Tom came home and thought the entire thing was entertaining and attributed her behavior to being a typical two-year old. I wasn't angry with him for making this statement, but couldn't help but be satisfied when - in response to him asking Abby to bring him a heavy coaster she ran off with - she promptly threw it at him.
Don't worry ... no dads were harmed in the process.
The kicker to this awesome day came at bedtime. We gave her a bath and put her down to a chorus of screaming. SCREAMING. SCREAMING.
It reminded me of the sleep training days. It's been awhile since we've had to instill the cry-it-out method, but we had no choice. She was inconsolable and wouldn't calm down for an hour.
Finally, after repeated attempts at getting her to sleep, she fell silent. We breathed a sigh of relief at the fact that she was finally asleep.
Then more crying. Tom went in to investigate.
Suddenly I hear, "Chrissie? Do we have more sheets?"
"Great," I think. "She threw up." This is something she did regularly while we had trouble getting her to nap.
Turns out she didn't throw up at all.
Tom said he walked into the bedroom to find Abby on her bed, cross-legged and covered head to toe in Vaseline.
She had climbed up onto the changing table, grabbed the Vaseline and proceeded to spread it to her hair, her body and her bed.
I had to give her another bath, though I didn't do a good job of cleaning the stuff out of her hair, so she had a great look going today. She ultimately went to sleep after some time calming her down and we had a much easier night tonight, though it wasn't perfect.
I have to say, though ... the worst part about this entire ordeal is that Tom DIDN'T TAKE A PICTURE! Come on now! This stuff needs to be photo-documented!
Especially since it is going to take something big to top this performance. I'm sure Abby is up for the challenge.
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