Turn taking

Nikko woke up at 6:00a. I could tell that he was not going to go back to sleep, so I joined him in his bed. We'd get up at 7 anyway and I saw no point in making him tantrum just to keep him in his room at that time of the morning. At school they played outside and I had sent Nikko's snow pants in his backpack. He was wearing this on the bus when I came to unbuckle him, and for the 4th time this week he was sleeping on the way home. His snowpants and the warm bus made him really sweaty underneath his coat and hat, so it was no wonder that the cocoon-ness made him sleepy. It's a less than 20 minute ride home, so I think that counted toward his daily nap because for the past few days he has not taken a nap from preschool to the end of the day. That leads him to be super sleepy by bedtime, which is fine by me. I am worried, however, that tomorrow he will not be super tired by bedtime and when we tuck him in and close the door tomorrow night, he will erupt in wails and cries. I'm almost certain this will happen, but I'll have to don my cloak of steely resolve again.

Maria came at 1p to play with Nikko. Downstairs he gave me a kiss when it was time to leave him, and he watched Ronin and me go up the stairs - but no tears. :) Toward the end of the session, Maria came up and invited Ronin to come play Play Doh with Nikko. It was a lesson in turn-taking, which Maria said Nikko was not very good at (but Ronin was a dream, very politely asking Nikko for the rolling pin. OH REALLY??) Nikko has been "off" according to Maria for the last two sessions she's had, but she pointed out that he seems to be in a phase where he's challenging their authority by refusing to color by throwing his crayons, throwing his schedule, and apparently during the family picture identification drill he purposely picked the wrong picture, picking Ronin, when asked where Mommy was, all the while looking at my picture. Probably that, coupled with crabbiness from sleep training, is throwing Nikko off. Much later in the evening, when I was dressing Audrey for bed, the boys were running wildly around me. Suddenly Nikko figured out that he could climb the two rubbermaids at the base of the crib and possibly get into the crib. I stopped him in mid-climb and then dragged the rubbermaids to the center of the room so that he couldn't scale anything. Ronin jumped on top of the rubbermaids and then jumped off of it onto the floor with a BOOM. Nikko watched and copied Ronin. They were both scrambling on top and then jumped off the rubbermaid. I watched them for a minute and then decided to see if Nikko could take turns. "Ronin's turn!" I announced. After Ronin jumped, I said, "Nikko's turn!" Nikko looked excitedly at me and took his turn. I repeated Ronin, then Nikko, and Nikko was pausing while Ronin climbed on top of the rubbermaid, waiting for his turn. I thought it was a good example of turn taking because Nikko seemed to recognize that he had to wait before he could go.