I think Leilani’s main reason for not sleeping is fear of abandonment. She also still has a little cold, that is very stubborn, and coughs a few times per night.
Yesterday I laid down with her close to 90 minutes again – every time I wanted to leave she cried (loud enough to wake the neighbors) and every time I fell asleep she poked me and whispered “Wake up Mommy…”. After 90 minutes I just left. The howls of protest were surprisingly short, maybe less than a minute, and she slept from about 10:45 to shortly before 7am. That was slightly better than most of the week.
Today I did a timer evening. She wanted to watch Snowwhite, and agreed to obey the timer – set to 30 minutes. After 30 I let her watch another 5 minutes, because she had been to the potty twice during the movie. When the timer went of again I turned off the movie. She screamed, yelled and stomped for quite a while, I told her to stop or she’d go to bed alone again – she remembered from 3 days ago and immediately was a lot quieter – still sobbed and cried for a little while. She was very tired and went to bed almost right away, and I kept the timer, set to 15 minutes, and although she tried to start a discussion when it went off, (“Please 5 more minutes, Mommy please stay with me…”) fell asleep surprisingly fast after that, and I left after a total of 25 minutes – no more crying.
She still wants almost 100% attention, and is especially unpleasant when I am on the phone. Andy and I hardly get to talk, during the day he is at work, and in his spare hours Leilani is demanding all my attention… I also worked on 2 web projects (one done now and one at 90%) and a movie and while I tried to time it so Leilani is in preschool, sometimes there are business phone calls while she is not.
I also found tenants that I am happy about, they’ll bring the deposit check tomorrow. I had successfully dragged my legs with a dozen or so of other people that I felt were unsuitable (Coconut wireless said “No can do 1650” or whose mother thought that it wasn’t a good match or who asked on the phone if Wailua was close to Princeville or if it was further than 150 ft to the ocean…) It is a big relief now that I can slack off a little now about the level of cleanliness and neatness, I showed the house a few times on short notice, not easy with a Leilani… I should videotape the house as long as it is still in such a great shape…
