the need for sleep

around our house there seems to be a real problem with sleep. we all want to stay awake too late and no one wants to wake up. no one but Phoebe. she wakes me every morning (3-4am) for the last week maybe and occasionally before that. depending on my mood, i either am annoyed or feel badly for her. she's been working on getting in her teeth for a while and she finally broke through yesterday. if you know what you are looking at, there is a tiny rice grain of a tooth poking through on the left there(her right side). we are all quite proud of her and hope to get more sleep in the future. unfortunately last night was not one of them. she doesn't cry, i'll give her that. if i don't go to her she loudly complains until i am afraid she will wake the neighborhood. but then she just wiggles so much that she won't allow me to go back to sleep.
(*more about teeth below.)

purely by accident we discovered that PO can wave. Will was saying his byes yesterday and PO was sitting there waving her arm around as if to say "bye". (she actually said the "buh" sound too so i thought i was seeing/hearing things but Will saw it too) later i was on the playground with B and we would stop occasionally to say "hi" to Phoebe sitting in the stroller. every time she would smile and wave her arm around with her hand in this little claw-like fashion. very fun.

on the camp front, V is having such a hard time waking up and getting going. it is almost impossible to get her to eat much for breakfast and then some days she is just in such a daze when we go to pick her up. i think part of that is the lack of sleep but it is also the no food thing. she perks up after lunch. she and her friends from the hood have become manic in the afternoons. running around, all crazy and trying to throw, smash and hit things. the kids are either on high speed or in a stupor. the parents all attribute it to the morning stimulation. it will be interesting to see how long it takes V to get into the swing of things come fall when she goes to pre-school.

a snapshot of our mornings since summer camp started....

this morning V was good about getting dressed but then wouldn't eat much. she and B started running around playing hide and seek.
B: "Vivi you hide in the red room."
B: "4, 6, 8,9,10...ready or not, here i come."
B: " i can't find her..."she starts to get sad until Will goes and spies V in the living room.

V is a very good hider. i won't at all be surprised when one day we find her in her hiding place napping since she hid so well everyone gave up looking and she fell asleep.

finally i talk V into eating a yogurt. then out the door. as Will gets her into the bike trailer, B stands on the porch yelling for the whole state to hear, "bye, Vivienne! see you later. see you later alligator. bye Vivienne!" this goes on in a warped loop until they leave and i have to go out and drag her inside.

*just looked up when the other two got their first teeth. V cut hers just before halloween so that makes it around 4 months and both her bottom two came in almost at once. she had 6 teeth by Christmas. B cut hers at the end of the year so it would be around 7 1/2 to 8 months. Phoebe by contrast has taken her time.