siblings.

there is a lot of chaos at our house these days, and i'm a person that is easily overwhelmed.  control issues, what?  i am working on lightening up and living in the moment and embracing the magic that is happening all the time instead of just looking at where i'm falling short of the mark and flipping out about stupid stuff like dog hair all over the floors and how that load of laundry STILL hasn't been folded.  baby steps.

anyway...one thing that is amazing and pure awesome is the sibling relationship that ek and hollis are developing.  i have to give her credit in that, for the most part, she hasn't been super jealous with "sharing" her parents.  obviously, we have moments of poor choices like grabbing toys out of his hands, being too rough with his body, etc, but i think she is really a great, nurturing big sis and i love that.  i also love that as hollis gets older and more mobile and more talky, they are really playing with each other now.  the other day, i had their nap mats home to wash on the weekend.  ek grabbed hollis's nap mat and he laid down on it and she was dragging him around for a ride on it, then they would lay on it together and just giggle.  it was really sweet.  at whatever point (i really wish i'd gotten a pic of this), she put the nap mat over their heads like a harry potter invisibility cloak and they walked around bumping into things and just cackling with each other under there.  i hope i can help foster this sibling bond for the rest of their lives because i love it.

we continue to have sleep issues at the browne house these days.  em is up most nights and comes into our bed stealth-mode and snuggles up until morning.  i am not a co-sleeper (i think it's a fine idea, but i'm a terrible sleeper and babies in the bed make me even worse), but i'm also operating on lots of sleep deprivation, so mostly i've just let her sleep with me.  but...this has been going on for about a month, so it's time to start establishing new habits....a friend at work suggested i bribe her with candy - like, if you stay in your bed all night, i'll give you this special treat.  i have problems with that on a couple of levels: 1) if she needs that closeness/emotional connection because she's not getting it during the day, i want her to feel like we're accessible for it; and 2) i am kind of against bribing with food (even though i've definitely done it on many occasions) as i think it creates a bad dynamic of reward = food mental thing that i have battled my whole life.  so.  the other night i was desperate, so i offered to let her watch tv in the morning before school if she stayed in her bed all night (we have never watched tv during the week in our house).  this is how the conversation went:
me: if you wake up in your own bed in the morning, we can watch tv before school!
ek: but why?
me: well, it would be like a special treat!
ek: but mommy, sleeping in your bed is a special treat.
me: oh, sweetie - you can sleep in our bed!  this will be like a choice - which special treat do you want?

so that night she actually did make it the whole night in her bed.  that hasn't happened every night since, but some nights it works, and i suppose it's not the worst thing to let your kids have like 10-15 minutes of sesame street in the morning...right?