Sleep and Talking

Janey's sleep has been tough again.  It's the same pattern she shows a lot lately---going to sleep way too early and waking in the night for a long time.  It's a hard pattern to change.  We do all we can to keep her up later at night, but when a child is determined to go to sleep, after a while, keeping them awake is just not possible.  Maybe it's just her natural schedule, but we want very much for it not to be!

I've noticed a pattern, though.  It seems like Janey's sleep gets worse when her talking gets better.  I think maybe her mind is busy during these talking times, and when she wakes in the night, it's hard to settled it down.  The last few days have featured some great sentences!  The other day, she knocked a bunch of coffee pods around, and Tony was telling her not to do that, and I guess talked a little longer than she felt was necessary, and she said "Daddy, stop making all that noise!"  It's the kind of sentence I wouldn't believe if I wasn't right there hearing it, even though I trust Tony to tell me the truth---that's my level of skepticism, I guess!  Yesterday morning, there was a dusting on new snow on the ground, and Janey was delighted to run around in it.  She turned to me after a minute and said "I'm walking in a winter wonderland!"  Tonight, coming out of her school, there was a siren noise (not uncommon, as her school is in a pretty urban area) and she said "I see the ambulance!"  She didn't actually see it, she heard it, but still, not bad.  And just now, she asked Tony for noodles (dry Chinese noodles) and he told her we didn't have any more.  She pointed to where they used to be, in a bag hanging up, and said "They are right there!"  All four of those utterances are not at all common types for Janey.  To hear them all within a few days is just amazing.  And wonderful.

So maybe the sleep disturbances aren't all bad.  I can imagine what it would be like, if normally talking came very hard for someone, when for some reason for a few days it comes more easily.  You would want to take advantage of that, to wake up and savor every moment, until it went away again.  I hope it never goes away again, but it has always in the past.  I try to stay rooted in reality, but I do dream.  Boy, do I.