Slip sliding away

We'll get to the sleep training update in a minute, but first, the fun stuff. We had a 3 day weekend, and nothing at all on the calendar- no birthday parties or parents groups, friends all out of town, no play dates, no big sales. We had a great time just hanging out with Petra. We spent one morning at the Pan Pacific park playground, where Petra indulged in her love of slides (and learned an important lesson about static electricity), and one morning at a playground by a farmers market in Santa Monica (where she rode the bouncy riding toy again). She had a great time everywhere we went. It's so nice to have a little girl who is so happy and playful. She meets, and plays with, other kids, and steals every toy she can get her hands on.

She is such the independent little girl! At one point she just took off from the playground, crossed a walkway and a big open field, just to steal a ball (her favorite toy) from a kid playing soccer with his dad. Half the time she picks the ball up, occasionally she throws it, and now she has started to kick it along. Is there any money in women's soccer?

Petra continues to amaze us in a thousand ways. Just a few include:
*A newfound love of animal crackers, which led to her adding "kakaa" to her vocabulary. Such a big smile she gets when I giver her one!
*Handwashing motions whenever she sees us wash our hands (or, for that matter, when she gets near a puddle).
*Endless chatting and babbling (sure, cute now, but wait until she's 2).

And now the sleep (or lack of sleep) update. Things are going pretty well. Worst night she woke up every hour on the hour, and took about 10 minutes to get back to sleep (lots of whining cries). Second worse was a night with a 2 hour block in the middle of the night when she would go to sleep, but wake crying 5-10 minutes later. The best night had a solid 4 hours without a peep! She doesn't really cry much at all now, just a cry out when she wakes, but she lays right down to go to sleep as soon as daddy comes and says everything is OK. She still wakes too often (4-6 times a night), but I think she is getting better about soothing herself back to sleep.

Tonight mommy put her down for the first time. Not quite as smooth as when daddy does it, but she went to bed in her crib yet again. We've even managed to completely avoid backsliding and bringing her to bed with us, as tempting as it has been a couple of times.

Don't forget to check the photo album for more pictures.