How a Crib Escapee Has Stolen All My Blog Time

As you might have noticed, I’ve been away from the blog for an uncharacteristically long time lately. Things have been crazy around here, leaving little time to blog. Here’s a quick update:

First, about 10 days ago our Lima Bean figured out how to climb out of her crib. This was completely unexpected as she had never shown any sign of even thinking about climbing out of the crib before. She’s usually a great sleeper, but one night when she had a cold, she woke up in the middle of the night. I comforted her the best I could, but after a while I explained to her that she had to just try and go back to sleep. Well that was all the motivation she needed to figure out how to escape fast. “What?!? Mom won’t let me stay up with her at 2am?? Then I’m outta here!”

I must say it was extremely odd to see her little not-quite-2-year-old-self open the door of her room and just come walking down the hall. Completely freaked out by the unexpected escape, I put her back in there and hoped it wouldn’t happen again. No such luck. Lima was out in a flash and the days of crib sleeping were officially over, since I didn’t want to risk her falling and hurting herself now that she has figured out how to hoist herself over the crib’s side.

So, where to put Lima now? The crib is out and the playpen didn’t work either. I think one of those crib tents would freak her out and therefore not work. Normal people would just rush out and buy a toddler bed or a twin-size bed and have the child make the transition. This all happened at a very bad time for us though, with guests coming into town and little time for bed buying excursions. As such, Lima’s been sleeping on a makeshift bed (basically on the floor) until we can figure out what’s the safest, most practical next step for her. Some say it’s a toddler bed, some say it’s a twin bed…some say use guard rails on the bed, some say they are dangerous. Although I absolutely hate shopping for baby gear (researching strollers, high chairs, and the like gives me a huge headache), I’ve been diligently looking into all our options and vow that I will have something more official for her in place in the next few days. The trick will be getting her to STAY in the bed on her own, something she hasn’t been inclined to do for the past week.

So what does this have to do with my blog, you might ask? Well, here’s the catch to this whole bed thing. When Lima was in a crib, she was a perfectly independent sleeper. Put her in the crib, sing a couple short songs, say goodnight and she was fine to go to sleep on her own. No problem. With this horribly haphazard bed transition, Lima now requires much more effort to get to sleep and won’t fall asleep unless we’re in there. I know this is horrible and I need to break this cycle as soon as possible. But given all the craziness around the house the past week or so (she was sick, guests were in town, it was her birthday and she was excited about that), it’s been hard to achieve this goal. As such, the time I’d spend blogging each night is now being devoted to getting Lima to sleep. When I finally emerge from her room after getting her to succumb to sleep, it’s way later than I’d like and the rest of life’s work beckons; blogging has had to take a backseat for the past week.

We have more guests in town this week, so the craziness will continue for at least a few more days. As I mentioned though, my hope is to get tough on this whole thing by early next week and start us back on the right track with her sleeping.

So between Lima’s crazy sleep issues (hopefully extremely temporary), guests coming in and out, Lima’s birthday party, and other things, there has been little time to blog. Thanks to all who sent e-mails and left comments wondering where I was.

Some food notes: We went to Buona Terra again and I must continue to recommend it highly. This time we had 6 people at our table, plus Lima, so we were able to sample a wide variety of their offerings including fish, veal, chicken, pork chops, and pasta. Everyone raved about the appetizers and entrees and said they looked forward to a return visit. Service was excellent and very friendly…something that’s often tough to achieve with seven people at a table. So if you’re in Chicago and looking for delicious Italian, check out Buona Terra.

Buona Terra
2535 North California
Chicago, IL 60647
USA
Telephone: 773-289-3800

Lima’s birthday party was terrific and I’m now basking in the glow of party leftovers. Don’t you just love having leftover birthday cake, veggies, dips, fruits and pastries around? All the tastiness of the party, but you can eat these in your pajamas at 11pm if hunger strikes. All the food fun with no formality. As an aside, I served my peach marmalade with bagels at the party (it was a brunch) and people seemed to enjoy it. Glad it got such good feedback.

That’s it for now. Once our next round of visitors leaves and I get Lima’s sleep patterns back on track, I will be blogging more. I have several new restaurants I want to tell you about…

Thanks for reading and think good thoughts about Lima getting used to her new bed quickly and easily. Even though she’s still a really sweet, smart, basically obedient girl, she’s been uncharacteristically tough to transition thus far so I think I’m going to need all the help I can get.

Next time At Our Table: More food and restaurant talk---promise!