Who Rules?

Some days I find myself basking in the humor of my daughter, other days...not so much. Since turning 3 years old, Reina has learned that she can come out of her bedroom in the morning when she wakes up. In the past, she has always called for me or daddy and waited in bed until we arrive to give her the OK to get up. We have been really lucky that she has been very obedient with staying in bed til morning and when going down at night. Since Baelor has joined our family, I've told her that if she calls for me and I don't come, then to just go ahead and get up because I am nursing. She is always welcome to get up if she needs to go potty as well.We have really been trying to figure out why she is still waking up in the morning 4 out of 5 times wet. We have tried bribing her with 5 chocolate chips if she wakes up with a dry pull-up, but candy doesn't work on our kid....ideas? She has been potty-trained for a year, but still has to wear a pull-up at night. We've decreased her fluids at night, but I just can't NOT give a kid water when they ask for it. I would hate someone to limit MY water if I'm thirsty. I have a water by my bed AT ALL TIMES. So this is probably my fault since I allow her to have an inch of water in her sippy-cup by her bed.

The last couple of weeks we have noticed her bending the rules even more. She will wake up (now often before 7am), when it used to be between 7:30-8am. Reina will come into our room and say, "Mommy, it's time to wake up. I'm hungry." Wait a minute, before Baelor was born she would wait in bed until I gave the OK, then I could crawl back in bed until 8am while she was watching "Cat in the Hat" or whatever show was on PBS. Then at 8am when the show ended was my cue to get up and make her breakfast. I know things change when you bring in a new babe to the family, but I don't want confusion as to who rules the household....(we all know it's the mom, right?) :) So anyhow, I don't think myself, Paul, or even Reina realized this shift of "ruling" until this week! We have to nip this thing quickly because just this morning Reina woke up before 7am (probably due to a wet-through her jammies pull-up) and comes in our room. Paul gets up and changes her into new jammies and tells her it's not time to get up. (Thanks babe, I had fever and a headache all night.) About 40 minutes later she is back in our bedroom, this time completely naked telling us she wants to get up and get dressed. Ugh. I've already been up every 2-3 hours to nurse.

Okay, so the funny things she's said recently:
-"Do you like my bangs? They're so pretty."
-Instead of saying John the Baptist she calls him John the Breakfast.
-Reina also cracks us up with her dancing. She'll create a little routine complete with facial expressions, to any song or commercial...and do quite a decent job.
-She'll delay going to bed by making up excuses; "I want to give Baelor a hug goodnight." "I need to get lotion on my hands (for the 2nd time)."
-Just recently we were chatting in her bed (which I often lay next to her and do before bed), and I was teaching her how to say the letter "L" since she says "Y" sound like most toddlers do. It's not something I am working with her on as I do like the cuteness of saying things wrong like a toddler does. But just to be sure that she can say "L" I asked her to say "lake". Of course she said "yake". So I teach her how to thrust her tongue to make an "Llll" sound. She says, "lake". Okay, so now I have her say, "I put my leg in the lake." She says, "I put my yeg in the lake." We both start cracking up! SHE even realized how silly that sounded. I haven't had the "L" lesson again as I kind of smile every time I hear her say that she hurt her "yeg." It reminds me that she is still just my little baby.

As for Baelor, we had a BREAKTHROUGH today! He smiled at me on/off for 7 minutes! This was not a random 2-week old "tooting" smile, but rather an "I love you mommy and you take care of me and I know you" smile. Totally made the fussy times worth it. In between the smiles he was expelling breaths and really moving his arms and legs like he wanted to talk. I'll take it as us having a 7-minute conversation. He's 6 weeks old and has gained 3 pounds since he was born. I'd say he's packing it on pretty quick for a breastfed baby. I have been pumping once a day so that Baelor gets used to a bottle. He takes the bottle great, so we're set for when I go back to work part-time. Now if he could just sleep through the night I'd have quite the perfect baby!