O Sleep, How I Miss Thee

As some of you are already aware, Sasha has decided that he doesn't need to sleep.  He's been staying up late, late, even later than us.  Why?  Because he's not tired!  Never mind the dark circles under his eyes, the stuttering and aphasia, the grinding of teeth to keep himself awake.  Definitely not tired!

As the days turned into weeks, Nerdy and I reached our limits of tolerance.  We've desperately sought out advice from books, from Google, from Facebook pleas for an answer.  We've tried a number of them: cajoling, ignoring, threatening, playing good cop/bad cop, etc.  One strategy in particular was widely recommended and considered ultimately fail-proof.  Take the child back to his bed, no yelling, no talking, no interaction, just pick him up and put him back in bed every time he gets out.  Apparently most kids will hate this enough that getting up time after time eventually loses its luster.

Unless you're the Bub.  Then the kid will think it's a fun game of chase, with the added bonus that he gets tossed into bed like a bouncy house.  (Oh, wait, that wasn't part of the strategy.  Just me losing my patience.)

So we tried yet another tactic: the sticker chart.  We didn't have much hope because he's never been big on stickers or charts.  This sticker chart, however, is a detailed map to a large and coveted toy.  There is a toy he desperately wants and asks for whenever he thinks of it.  It's a spaceship with aliens and "alien's friends."  We told him that if he can fill out this chart every day for 7 days, he would get little surprises every morning and on the seventh morning, a big surprise: the luxury spaceship.

 

The catch is he has to do everything on the chart without fighting or arguing.  The first four items listed are really just a ruse to get to the last one.  He absolutely must stay in bed when we tuck him in for the night.  Even with a lamp on and the door open, he can only fight sleep for so long when confined to his bed.  He's been asleep by 8:30 every night so far and we're on Day 4.

[Side story. Check out the hearts on the chart in the picture.  As he put them on, he announced that he was putting on 2 hearts because he loves Mamu and Mama.  The next morning, he place the third heart there because Mama and Mamu love him.  Our little sweetheart.

Tonight, he was about to put a fourth heart on "because Grandma loves me."  But then he noticed a new silly monster sticker in the bowl and changed his mind.  "I'm going to put a silly monster on because Grandma loves silly monsters."  And after moment's thought, "Because Grandma is silly."]

We are thrilled with the apparent success of this method, and even though we think bribing children with toys is not the best long-term strategy, we're willing in this case to buy whatever is necessary to get some sleep.

Little Drummer Boy

Here's a video from last weekend's visit to DC, featuring a child in heaven.  It took me a week to post it because I was trying really hard to filter out the audio of Nerdy's complaining over the sound of the drum clicks.  Unfortunately, I couldn't.  (She's letting me post it anyway.)

SuperWeekend in DC

We visited Aunt Margot in DC this weekend!  Sasha had a blast.  Traveling by Amtrak, helping Aunt Margot take Sri the Dog for a walk or two, staying up after everyone else was sleeping, cheering on marathoners, playing outside with the neighbors and their toys, inventing Hulk Handshakes with Margot's friends, sleeping all the way through his "special night with Aunt Margot and Eileen," playing drums, making waffles, visiting Smithsonian museums, playing Two-Headed Monster, haggling for more ice cream, and about 20 other awesome fun things.  He told us on no uncertain terms that we were not going home because he wants to stay and play in DC.  When we got off the train in NY, he acted like we had tricked him into going home. "Yew Nork? No! I want to GO TO D.C.!!"

These are my yogurt raisins and if you touch them I'll mess you up, kid.

Cheering on the runners.

Pirate bandaid...

 

...on the mysteriously bloody elbow...

...ice cream sandwich still intact.

Playing a quiz game with Eileen and Mamu at the Museum of the American Indian.

The correct answer is... A, B, and C!

Hanging out in the teepee.

Even Higher

Ever since the new Vanderbilt Playground opened a year and a half ago in our nabe, Sasha has been fascinated with "da spidahweb,"the big rope-and-steel structure pictured below.  He wanted desperately to climb it but couldn't even get his feet off the ground.  After months of determined effort and observation, he was finally able get his feet up.  Then, eventually, onto the first real level.  Then, this week, a big milestone.  With patient instruction from his good friend Emilio, he climbed halfway up, higher than my head.  (Emilio is his mentor, a beloved big boy, his best friend from school.  Sasha's amused and flattered that Emilio calls him "my buddy.")  That's him in the green shirt.

 

The height of his new achievement Sasha calls The Bicycle.  We asked him why he calls it that and he said, like we're dummies, "Because it has a seat.  And the poles."  He sat in the position pictured below for at least 20 minutes, just looking around, enjoying the view-- and pride in his impressive new accomplishment.

When the playground first opened, this structure got the most attention from the parents, too, who were concerned that it was going to send children to the hospital on a painfully regular basis.  To the surprise of many, however, this appears to be the safest piece of equipment in the whole playground.  I've seen far more kids cry on the baby swings.  

The genius of it is that it's almost impossible to fall off.  Even if you slip or lose your grip, you can't fall more than a foot.  The ropes are threaded in such a way that there's never a direct route down.  Even if a kid was hell-bent on jumping off, the poles are angled sufficiently away from the edges of the orb that even tossing yourself off is nearly impossible.

The best part, in my opinion, is its old-school thrill.  Virtually every kid in the playground wants at least to try it.  And it requires such a range of abilities, that it will take literally years for a tot like Sasha to eventually make it to the top.  There's pride of accomplishment at each level, kids inspire and teach each other, and physically it's very difficult.  Great for physical and mental fitness.

Castle

A short tour of Sasha's Lego castle.

Dinner, With Opinions

Nerdy was away last night, so I thought I'd take Sasha for dinner at our local terrible diner.  We walked there from school, but Sasha was only willing to walk as far as his classmate was with us.  Once she went her separate way, he wanted me to carry him.

"You can walk. It's only 2 blocks."

"I can't walk.  My legs hurt."
"Why do your legs hurt?"
"My feet hurt."
"Okay, then sit in the stroller. That's why I have it, so you can ride in it."
"I can't sit. My tushie hurts."
"Your tushie hurts? Why?"
"Carry me, Mamu."
"You can ride in the stroller."

He proceeded to sit, complaining loudly the whole way about how his feet and tushie hurt.

"I don't want to eat at the diner."
"They have a TV on the wall.  Maybe there will be cartoons.  Or maybe it will be sports, I don't know."
"Well, if it's sports, I don't want to stay.  But if it's cartoons, then I will stay."
"Fine."

After ordering his dinner, he got served a juice in a paper coffee-to-go cup with a straw jammed through the top.

"WHAT?! That's a coffee straw! How silly."
"There's juice inside it."
"Oh."

The TV played no sports or cartoons, only a car fix-it show.  Still, I had to force him to sit at a table rather than at his chosen seat at the bar directly in front of the TV screen.  Starved for conversation with the zombie sitting across from me, I commented on the show.

"Wow. Look how greasy his hands are."
"Where?"
"Right there, that guy working on the car."
"Those aren't hands!  Those are gloves.  His hands are inside the gloves."
"Hmm. That's true."

More zombie.

"Sasha, we're here to eat food, not watch TV.  Now eat your dinner."
"If you ever. Say. That. Again. I will never eat at this restaurant again."
"Really?"
"Never."

A few more grudging bites of French toast.

Jumping out of his chair, he yells, "Mamu! I have to poop!"
"OK let's go. The bathroom is right behind you."
"Oh, wait.  It was just a fart."

Afterward, we leave the restaurant and walk 5 feet. "Mamu! I have to poop!"
"Can you wait until we get home?  The toilet seat here is the kind you don't like with the split in the middle."
"No, I want to go here."
"That's someone's house. Let's go back inside the restaurant."
[Inside, approaching the bathroom:] "Uh oh! I already pooped!"
"Oh god.  Are you serious? Let's get in the bathroom."

"Oh look, I guess I didn't."
"Awesome."

We left the restaurant again and he complained for a block about how his feet and tushie still hurt, making him unable to walk or sit in the stroller.  I ignored it until I noticed our bus coming a block away.  I said we'd better hurry up and catch our bus because that's it across the street.

"Oh! I'll race you, Mamu! C'mon, Mamu, hurry up!!"

Sleeping on the Floor: An Explanation

OK, OK!  Many of you are upset by the picture of Bub sleeping on the floor.  So I feel the need to explain it.  Perhaps he appears to be a sad and forsaken child searching for some small comfort on the hard wood floor with his stuffed animal friends.

Such is not the case.  Or at least, it's not the full story.

One of the most challenging things about traveling across the world is adjusting to the time change.  Exactly 13 hours different, so day is night and night is day.  Not surprisingly, our dear son who was never the best sleeper on the planet has had a hard time adjusting upon returning from Hong Kong.  To help him, we let him sleep in our bed.  This was no problem when neither he nor Nerdy could keep their eyes open past 6 pm.  They passed out together and I went elsewhere to find light.  But as Nadya acclimated, her bedtime went back to normal which is 2 or 3 hours later than Sasha's.  As a result, we told him that he had to fall asleep in his bed though he was welcome to come in ours as soon as the lights were out.

He didn't argue too much since he was still too tired at bedtime to put up much of a fight.  But now that he finally seems adjusted to the time change, we're encountering resistance.  Not outright.  He has to get up to use the bathroom at least 3 times, turn the light on and off, and each time move the rheostat to achieve the best possible lighting for pretending to pee.  Often he'll hold a race between his two index fingers as they zoom around the floor-tile grout to an invented finish line.  Did I mention that he demands company for each of these activities?  We can be indulgent parents when we want, but we have to eat our dinner sometime before midnight.  So we refused to accompany him in his dalliances.

Denied an audience, he thought he'd challenge us by toeing the line of acceptable bedtime behavior.  He wouldn't leave his room because that's the rule.  Instead, he would line up himself and all his bedtime accoutrements right at the very edge of the room.  But before he got bored, he fell asleep.

He might also have suspected (correctly) that we wouldn't let him sleep on the floor and would instead take him to our bed if he fell asleep there.  But either way, you can all rest assured that he did not remain on the floor for long.  But long enough for us to laugh and take a picture.

And here's a happier picture for you to enjoy.  Blueblerries.  Notice the red envelope behind him.  I took him on an errand to the paper store and he picked one out to mail to himself.  The next day he was delighted with his surprise to himself.