What Does It Mean to Be Quiet?

When Joshua was really little he slept so well in his crib. I could even lay him down awake and he would go right to sleep without a fuss for bed and naps. Last winter we dealt with lots of teething and sickness (colds and stomach virus) that forced us to get out of bed more for Joshua since he was feeling miserable. As a result, the transition back to sleeping on his own did not go well at all. He would cry when I put him down, wake 2-4 times in the night wanting to nurse, and I got into the habit of rocking and nursing him to sleep. It became a vicious cycle.

We finally had to start letting Joshua cry in his crib. We were mostly concerned for Rebekah because his crying would keep her awake, but once we stuck with it the crying quickly dissipated and Joshua hasn't even wimpered the last two nights when I put him down. And yes, he was awake when I laid him in his crib.

Naps are another story. If I let Joshua cry during the day he will cry until he is wide awake, and it's another 2-3 hours before he'll even think about sleep again. Many times Joshua falls asleep in the car while we're out, so even if we had no plans to be out we have to take him on a car ride to settle him down to sleep. He then takes a nice nap in the basement where it's comfortable. Otherwise, if he does nap in his crib it's no more than about 30 minutes. And he only takes one nap.

Today Joshua fought taking a nap in his crib, and we had only 30 minutes before I had to pick up Rebekah from preschool. I had thought about heading out early and letting Joshua konk out in the car, but as I held him in the kitchen while the nearby washer and dryer were running he drifted off to sleep in my arms. I took him down to the car and he woke briefly and settled down to sleep. Wow! If I could only get him to do that in his crib! (Darrin just put up some black-out shades in Joshua's room, so I hope and pray it works.)

When I picked Rebekah up from preschool I told her that she needed to be really quiet because Joshua was sleeping in the car. I bribed her with some candy, too. Normally on the ride home Rebekah either is so tired that she doesn't talk the whole way home or she is really happy and wants to talk about her friends and teachers and what she did in her class. Today was the latter.

The ENTIRE ride home Rebekah whispered about everyone and everything. She would ask questions constantly. "Is _______ going home?" She repeated the same question with a different person in the blank multiple times. If I turned right she would ask what was in the opposite direction. She talked about all her friends, her teachers, and asked what they were doing. All of this continued in a whisper. A couple times she got excited and forgot to whisper and I had to remind her to not speak loudly, but for the most part she constantly whispered until we arrived home. When she ran out of things about preschool she switched the subject. She began to ask rhetorical questions. Questions to which she knows the answers, but she likes to ask them anyway. "Mommy, what color is your hair?" Then she asked funny questions like, "What is my name?" "What is Joshua's name?"

Don't you know, none of Rebekah's whispering bothered Joshua at all, but once we pulled into the driveway he started to wake. Rebekah got excited and shouted, "Joshua's awake!" Once his eyes began to open she considered that a green light to let her lungs loose.