Splendid Mayhem: Sleep Progress

Welcome To Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Sleep Progress

Thursday Night Adam & I decided that Logen HAS to learn to self-soothe and put himself to sleep. So, we explained to him what was going to happen and the "sleeping" reward system. We read books as a family in the living room and then tucked Logen into his bed. (instead of Adam laying down with him)

Thursday night: Logen cried for 1 hour 15 minutes and slept the ENTIRE night!
Friday night: Logen went to bed amazingly-- NO TEARS! Slept all night!
Saturday night: Logen cried for about 20 minutes and slept all night!
Sunday night: Logen didn't cry, but got out of bed 2x. Woke up once, came into our room w/o tears and went back to sleep in his room well.

His reward system: He has a sticker chart. He gets a sticker for no tears and a sticker for not getting out of bed. Last night, he only got one sticker. We use the same chart for potty training. He gets 1 sticker for going #1 and 2 stickers for going #2. I'm not 100% convinced he "gets" this, but he really enjoys putting stickers on his chart. After about 15 stickers- he gets to pick a prize from his "treasure chest" full of cars, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, stretchy slimy critters, bouncy balls, etc.

I'm hoping he continues to do well! It sure is nice to beable to sit on the couch with Adam and not have our children climbing all over us! Big-people time is great!! LOL