Transitions

My transition back to school yesterday went more smoothly than Nadia's. When I left Sarah's, Nadia was screaming and reaching her arms toward me. It was really hard for me to leave. I was hoping to find out she only cried 1-2 minutes, but when Paul picked her up Sarah told him that she had cried for the first 15 minutes. I am not sure if it's a stage she's going through or if it's because she hadn't seen Sarah in 4 weeks, but I hope this doesn't become a pattern. The ironic thing is that over the 11 weeks this summer that she went to Sarah's she never cried. In fact almost every time she would squeal with delight when we pulled into her driveway, and she always greeted Sarah with big smiles and happy sounds. It was much easier to leave under those circumstances!

My graduate language arts class went well last night. Thirty-four of the thirty-five students enrolled showed up. Only two of the students have a bachelor's degree in education. It was interesting to hear what all the rest majored in for their undergrad degrees - art history, marketing, English, Spanish, anthropology, etc. Some just recently graduated from college, and others earned their bachelor's degree a long time ago. I taught until 7:30pm and got home around 8:15pm.

Yesterday we began the transition to one nap a day. It was very hard to keep her up until noon. She kept lying down and sucking her thumb - even on the linolium in the kitchen! I put her down at 12pm, and she fell asleep at 12:15 and slept until 1:40. Her two naps usually came to 2-3 hours of sleep a day so I am hoping her afternoon nap will eventually lengthen to 2 hours. Since she seemed more inclined to drop her afternoon rather than morning nap, we decided to see if a later bedtime would help her sleep in longer which would make it easier for her to stay awake until noon. Last night she went to sleep at 7:15 instead of 7:00pm. We were thinking of gradually moving toward a 7:30 bedtime. She had a 6pm bedtime for months and then the last few months has had a 7pm bedtime. An AMAZING thing happened this morning. The latest I ever recall Nadia sleeping in was 6:55am. For most of her life she has awakened between 5-6am. It has only been recently that she's been moving closer to 7am. She slept 13.25 hours straight last night! She didn't start stirring until 8:30am. WOW! I am not sure if she was actually going to wake up then, but I went in and got her at that time. AMAZING!! I was only trying to move her wake up time to 7am not 8:30, LOL. I think that the reason she slept so late this morning was because she had lost 1-2 hours of sleep a day for one week. I don't expect her to start sleeping 13 hours straight each night. I am just hoping maybe she'll sleep from 7:30pm to 7:00am. I think if she gets up at 7:00 it will be easier for her to stay up until noon. She shouldn't have ANY trouble today since she slept until 8:30!

P.S. I added a very short video to yesterday's post of Nadia playing the piano in her bedroom.