Back to sleep

Yesterday morning, Genea was up and ready to go at 5 am. Of course, she gets in huge trouble for this and she knows it. Both of the girls are supposed to wait until 7 am to get up. Genea in particular has had a terrible time. They have a clock in their room and were taught how to use it so there were no more excuses.

I cannot believe I have children like this. I could sleep the rest of my life! I love to sleep and always have. Even as a kid. Seriously this is payback for something I did to my parents. Take your pick, the list is long.

Anyway, The Husband and I had gone through every possible consequence for her and nothing worked for more than a week. We let her watch tv. We set up doll parties for her. Books in bed. Get up and play in your room. Get up and play in the living room. Get up and watch a movie. Eat.

Finally after a year of this, we decided to drop a ton of pull ups on Genea. Over a year of everyone in this house being disturbed every morning and unable to get adequate sleep, well it made us kind of cranky. The thing that got us sleep was the consequence of spending the day in her room on restriction for a full day of boredom therapy. Oh precious rest, it had done the trick for about 6 months and she only relapsed a few weeks ago. I posted on the ordeal as she was firing back up, and mostly people agreed with the strategy or offered supportive words. One person had a different idea and commented ...
"Is she after control, or attention or is she really scared and upset and frightened to be awake when everyone else is asleep? I'd try and figure that out, I guess. I was always fearful to be the only one awake".
Well folks you don't have to hit ME over the head with a sour sippy cup(anymore than 200 or so times). Even though I thought we had exhausted all of the 'kinder' sorts of ways to handle these early morning calls, that comment stuck in my head.
Fast forward to Beyond Consequences seminar, where the foundation of the paradigm is that all behavior originates as either love or fear. Again, no hurry, just knock me over with a diaper champ and stuff 2 pacifiers in my ears. La la la. So you take a behavior as an example and break it down until it either lands on one side or the other, love or fear. Then you can figure out the motivation and build back up from that perspective. Well anyway, that is my assessment of the process.
So what kind of enormous jackassed buttheaded parents does this poor kid have?
SHE IS SCARED
SHE HATES TO BE ALONE
SHE WAKES UP IN THE NIGHT AND THE HOUSE IS DARK AND QUIET AND SHE THINKS WE LEFT HER
WHAT THE HELL ELSE WOULD SHE BE THINKING
SHE JUST CANNOT HELP IT SOMETIMES SHE HAS TO REASSURE HERSELF WE ARE ALL STILL WITH HER
Oh man. Sigh. Heavy sigh.
So how do we make her feel more safe and secure. We talked with her, and empathized and asked her opinions and validated her fears. We are going to try something a little weird. When she wakes up and if she feels scared she is going to get up and come in my room and look at us so she will know we are still there. I don't know if it will work. It's a bit strange. And I am still using the boredom treatment until I find another thing that works better if she wakes us up. I am not beating myself up about it either. We have had such an unbelieveable excess of chaos to work through, well, if a few things went left at the ditch, it could have been worse.

So, to change the subject, I didn't see any famous people in Los Angeles. I don't know how I managed to pull that off since there seems to be a billion of 'em that multiply like wire closet hangers, especially with the Academy Awards going on. Now, I invited George Clooney and Brad Pitt over for an after hours party. I had decided that I would be willing to delay my sleep for both since they are both on my List of 5*. Since I was in the area and all. Sad to say, I was devastated neither of them showed. Jerks. They never even called!

*List of 5 is list of the 5 famous people you could ahem, pause, your marriage for if the opportunity were to present itself. It is from a sitcom called '' Friends''.