Tori has decided that she'll sleep for 11 hours or so at night. They're just the wrong 11 hours. She is ready to go to sleep by 7pm. She will wake up by about 5:15am, on average. Now, I know I can't really complain too much because my kid sleeps NONSTOP for 11 hours...but I will anyway. Dani was always a great sleeper too (still is) but when she was little, I would "top her off" and change her diaper around 10pm, give her a bottle and put her back to sleep. This move re-set the clock, essentially, so that she would sleep through the night and later into morning. And, the morning wake up was stretched out with the pacifier--my friend Gail mentioned that when her kids would first wake up at the crack of dawn, she'd give them their pacifier, and they'd often go back to sleep or just chill...but it helped lengthen the time they went between bottles and helped them to be better sleepers. That worked for Dani, as she looooved the pacifier, until she found her thumb. And she still looooooves her thumb--it actually has a callus on her suckin' thumb--I'm guessing from sleeping as she doesn't do it much during the day.
Tori's never used a pacifier--she spits them out--and she doesn't suck her thumb. She kind of chews on her hand, but that's because she's teething. So, she's going to wake up when she's going to wake up. And she lets us know she's up. First with little noises and then, if I wait long enough, with all out crying. (It doesn't usually get to that, but at 5am, I don't exactly rush out of bed, I usually say a little prayer that she will fall back to sleep--sometimes it buys me another 20 minutes or so.)
We're all programmed differently. Some are earlybirds, some night owls. I can handle lots of things. I am really good and productive in the mornings--as long as it's after about 6am or 6:30am. No matter how early I go to sleep, 5am always kicks my ass.
There are literally mornings where I hear Tori, and I promised Big Man that I would get up with her, and I lay in bed justifying waking him up to do it, and/or being pissed that he gets to sleep. (yes, resenting my saint of a husband who raises our girls all day and fights crime all night on about 4.5 hours of sleep). I'm just not at my best at 5am.
The only thing that makes it bearable is this little cutie. She is literally smiling and giggly the second I pick her up, and so, tired and grumpy makes way for tired and happy for my little snuggle pup.
And, Big Man took this cute one of Dani, who will sit still for approximately .003 minutes for me to do her hair, sat still so "Wuth" could give her cute little ponytails!
Here's a video of Tori, just being Tori. As Dani likes to say "spit bubbuws".
Expect more posts this week--Big Man heads back to work tonight. :>(
Also, Grandma Deb bought the girls a Radio Flyer wagon with canopy. Tori's a little small for it, but Dani and I will test it out tomorrow!
Fun day with the kiddos! We carved pumpkins and played all day! Dani is still loving her bunny ears...she likes to be "bunny Pete" from a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode. So cute!
As Tori gets bigger and more interactive, Dani and she are having more fun together. Here, they are snuggling on the couch.
Tori is trying hard to crawl. She can crawl backward, but not forward yet. But, she can do military pushups--no lie! As you can see, she pushes up on her tippy toes and her hands...and she does up and downs. Not bad for my little chubby mcdubbs. 
When Dani sees Tori on the floor, she tries to climb on Tori and says Giddybup! It's pretty cute, but means that now we can no longer leave Dani in the room with Tori on the floor alone, lest Tori get smooshed by her loving sister.
Yes, bad mommy had to take a picture as it was happening---I figured Dani was on Tori's calves, so it's not like Dani could do any harm, so I took a picture!
Our city has a huge Halloween parade every year. The parade, like most. runs along our street--we live in the old historic part of town, and it works well for those types of things.
And somebody named Tori started crawling...backwards!
She would have taken them all home if we'd have let her.
Caught some video of the kids being silly yesterday.
