The Roll-Over Saga

Today she made me laugh. She compromised her sleeping arrangements with me. Nawww...actually she fell fast asleep mid-roll. This is the picture I got of her sleeping like this, she never even flinched as the flash went off.. Read below to learn why this was funny.




My little darling Hannah is now a roll-over machine. She started two days ago with my Mom and Dad here. She woke up and started making noise and both my parents went in to see what she needed. If her eyes are open she's awake, if she's making noise wit her eyes shut she is not. But Hannah had rolled-over and was sleeping on her back fussing. My Mom rolled her to her tummy and she promptly flipped herself over again. Now this is a girl who knows what she wants, I guess! Eric and I were still sleeping.

I got up about 30 mins later when I heard her fussing for food in earnest. My Mom had managed to get her to go back into a deep sleep on her tummy. I learned of the rolling and was excited (*note: how the 'excitement' wains as this goes on*). I really wanted to see her do it. And thus started our Saga.

Since then we've had two nights of increasingly difficult sleep, not only for us but for Hannah. You see, now that she can turn herself she does it in protest to tummy time every single time she is to go to sleep for the night, and sometimes naps. We wait until she is showing signs of getting tired after he last feeding. Rubbing her face, red rimmed eyes, and deep yawning are all sure signs of impending slumber.

Now, this was the way things used to go: Hannah is getting sleepy, hold her with binky until that glazed look happens, change her diaper, lie her in bed on tummy, apply binky and she's out!

Now it looks like this: Wait until she's ready to go to sleep as before, maybe wait until she's even more tired. Change her diaper, set her in her crib on her tummy, apply binky. Then apply pressure to her back by her shoulders and her butt, at the same time try and hold binky in with binky from the hand that's on her shoulders. Pat butt in attempt to distract her from her goal of rolling onto her back. This does not work, though we keep trying to find a magic combo of distraction and wrestling. Now we give up and think she's going to stay on her tummy. No. She flips herself over, spits out the binky and grins at us. We leave the room quickly and she either screams or plays or a combo of both.

The playing and crying goes on for some time, maybe 15 minutes. She's on her back, cant find her lost binky and I'm sure sometimes feels disoriented. I go in and try to roll her over,but its just a physical battle of wills and I'm not going to frustrate her like that...she's also so strong that if I force her over she's gonna get hurt fighting it. So, I've picked my battle there and chose to apply it to something else later.

Eventually she is tired enough to allow us to roll her onto her tummy and she does not fight it. Only then does she sleep. Last night I let her cry for over five minutes before going in, I listened to her tone and could tell when she was tired out. I gave her her binky and did not put her on her tummy. For the first time in months she slept on her back. She woke up two hours later and I thought we'd have to go thru the whole thing again, but since she was not fully awake I turned her tummy-side and gave the bink and she went back to sleep until 6AM. She used to sleep in until 8-9 every morning. I think I can kiss those days goodbye. *sniff,sniff* I feel quite sorry for myself. LOL!

I am happy to say that yesterday I got to see her turn for the first time. I felt like she just graduated college, I was sooo proud. Then later, not so much. I'd rather that she just went to sleep without the new accomplishment. And at the very same time I'm excited about it still because she's growing and changing so fast and every stage, even the bleary-eyed one we're in now is fun and interesting. I love every minute of it, even when I'd rather be sleeping than wrestling her to sleep.

Who's Problem is This?

I have three neighbors fairly close to my property. One is the Clover Valley Riding Center including their stable managers who live on property in their own house. The Stable Managers home is quite close to ours, but above our house on the bank slope. The other neighbors are the one's I've written about before with the two young boys. Then we have a new neighbor, just bought the property bordering ours on the West side of our land. I'm really liking her, she's an Equine Vet and just graduated from WSU. She's my age, nice and very friendly. She has two horses and a dog. All nice animals.

I have had some issues with two of my neighbors in the recent past. Some of which are on-going. First of all my neighbors with the two boys let their kids out all day unsupervised, even to the smallest degree. Sometimes I don't even think they have a parent at home. They decided our driveway is the very best place to ride their bikes. Normally this would not be a problem at all, however, I do dog training with my own dogs (and am getting new clients right now) in my yard everyday. Not only are these kids too young to be polite about their riding habits, but Foenix does not like either kid. They've approached him with sticks and yelled at him, teasing him from a tree on many occasions. His dislike is warranted. So now I have to deal with the two boys riding up my long drive way on their bikes, interrupting on my dog training at all times of the day. Its a real nuisance to say the least. Yes, we've asked the kids nicely not to come all the way up our drive. Unfortunately the younger one (nearly four years old) is too young to really understand our reasoning or remember it for too long. Their parents are hardly ever home or visible for us to talk to. At one point I had to write out my concerns a couple years ago and pin it to a tree in their yard--that's how hard it is to get to speak to them at times.

I don't dislike these kids, they are two polite and sweet kids. But I think that we should be able to have our dogs out and generally do our thing on our property without the intrusion. They also like to leave their bikes on our drive, I have to fetch them all the time.

This brings me to my next, and more pressing, issue. D-O-G-S!!! The nearby barn has many clients. Those many clients all seem to have one or more dogs that they allow to run lose all over the barn property and incidentaly run our property as well. I'm getting really sick of all the strange dogs running up to our house (sometimes even on our porch). A couple days ago I was out with Hannah. She was on a blanket in the shade and Foenix, Zeke and I were playing and just enjoying the nice whether. I was alternately playing with Hannah and throwing a ball for the dogs, plus doing some training (at my house every play session also involves training of some sort). We were all having a great time until...I was about 10 feet from Hannah and had just thrown the ball for Foenix when I turned around and saw a large, aggressively moving dog coming up on me and Zeke. The dog rushed Zeke (only a 10# dog) and challenged him in his own yard.

What's more? I nearly had heart failure when I realized, very thankfully, that he had chosen to go after Zeke and not Hannah. I was livid and would have hurt this dog had he not ran away when I moved towards him. I just reacted, not really thinking and wanted the dog, well, to be honest to be dead. It scared me so badly that Hannah could have been attacked and damaged before I could have even intervened. My "Mother instinct" was on high alert. Needless to say that ruined my time outside. And now I constantly feel the need to be looking over my shoulder for this to happen again.

I think, as the laws say in my state, that I'm entitled to be able to enjoy my own yard without frequent threat from the neighbor's dogs. There is a leash law. I follow it. My dogs are either with me or in our securely fenced back yard. They are both trained very well and are under control 99% of the time. They have never, ever been allowed to roam about or escape our property. So why do I have to put up with this from others around me. I know that fencing our land is the only permanent solution to this problem and one we are planning on doing very soon. But in the mean time why should we put up with this?

We should be able to have our daughter out in our yard without worry that a dog is going to come in uninvited and interact with her, even on a friendly level. I DO NOT WANT STRANGE DOGS NEAR MY DAUGHTER OR MY DOGS, PERIOD.

Yesterday I went up to my other neighbors property (the horse Vet) to invited her to come and get some food, or even stay and visit if she was so inclined. She declined due to being on call. As I approached her to ask she was talking with another person who she introduced to me as a client from the barn, who rides there. The Vet asked me if I knew this dog, pointing to one in her pickup. I said "no, but it probably belongs to someone at the barn'. The barn client told me they had already asked and was not any one's dog from there. I said an off hand remark that the barn dogs are always in my yard and the barn client lady, said, in an exceedingly dismissive tone, that "that's they way barns are, everyone bring there dogs and they are not leashed." She went on to tell me, in not so many words, that I should get used to it. To chalk it up to the barn "style".

Ummmm really?? So I just have to put up with unknown temperamented dogs roaming my property and I should just deal with it because of their idea of how a barn is and does things? How would they like it if I were to call the humane societly on one, or worse have thier dog picked up by the pound for threatening my animals and child and tell them to 'deal' with it because that's my "style"? I have a feeling that would put a new spin on the situation.

The next step is to quit ranting about it and call the barn owner and speak to them about it. And believe me it will be done.