crack monkey came to visit...

No, I am not referring to the fact that Aunt Tracey and Great Aunt Jan (or Jan, the Great as she prefers to be called) were in town. I am referring to my normally lovely daughter that went off the rails sometime Saturday morning. I'm still not entirely sure what was going on with Molly, but she woke up in a rather delicate mood on Saturday morning. This delicate state continued through Sunday afternoon.

Molly's fake cry has escalated to full on tears and she was pulling it out left and right all weekend long. First my sister and N walked down to Starbucks with her Saturday morning. This is normally an outing Molly really enjoys. Well, the more they walked the more she had a meltdown. Everything subsided once at Starbucks and she saw another little kid to say hi to, but then the meltdown continued as soon as they left for the walk back. Molly got a good nap in and we had hoped that was the end of it. That night we headed over to my parents for dinner. My Aunt Jan had flown out from Canada that day and was staying with them. Molly was pretty good... at first. Then the fake cry was pulled out. She just wanted daddy to hold her and would bust out the fake cry whenever he put her down. Usually when Molly just wants to be held by N she's not feeling well, but we had no indications whatsoever that she was sick or coming down with something.

My sis spent Saturday night at our place because NORMALLY mornings are a great time to spend with Molly. Saturday morning (pre-Starbucks run) Molly crawled into bed with my sister to watch Sesame Street and then they had a great time chasing each other around the house. We put Molly down around 8:30 and she went down with out any fuss. Her bed time routine is usually started around 7:30 or so and she's usually left alone by 7:45/8:00. She had also gone down late on Friday (a little after 9:00) as N said she wasn't acting tired and thought he would just keep her to say hi to Tracey when she got in. Now I'm wondering if the slightly later bed time was a contributing factor.

The rest of us head to bed just after 11:00 and we hear Molly. She is crying a little and very whiny. N goes in to check on her and she does NOT want to stay in her room and does NOT want N to put her down. So she ended up our room watching Sesame Street until about 12:30. She had been saying Ah-bah-gabba-gool all day and at some point N deciphered that to mean Abby's Flying Fairy School. N put her down and then I was aware he was up with her a few more times, but didn't fully wake up myself until around 2:30 when I heard him start to run a bath. I go in and he's pretty much been up with her the entire time. He got about 20 minutes in bed, but then heard her get up again. I go back to bed, but I can hear them through the wall (her bathroom is on the other side of our bedroom wall) and can hear that she's starting to wind up Up UP. I go in and relieve N and get Molly in her pjs and try to relax her. I finally end up reclined in the rocking chair in her room and she eventually falls asleep on me. I wait for another 30 minutes or so before I put her back down and it's 4:30 by the time I crawl in bed.

N's up with her at 6:30 and brings her back to our room to watch Sesame Street as my sister is camped out in the living room trying to sleep through the chaos. Molly wants to be held and only held by N. And only wants to be sitting in his lap. I feed the dogs and cats and then take care of Bree and Jon's cat (they were out of town) that's diabetic and needs a shot twice a day. I get back and Molly's still up. They both finally fall asleep sitting up (propped up with every pillow we had) and I transfer Molly to bed around 9:30.

My sis and I go meet my parents and aunt for lunch leaving N at home with Molly who slept until about 12:30. She was less crack monkey like when she woke up from her nap, but still pulling out the fake cry an awful lot. We've been trying to nip that in the bud by stressing she needs to use her words. N will not pick her up if she just starts crying and walks over to him with her arms up. We tell her she needs to calm down and say, "Up please" before he'll hold her. So far that seems to be working.

I'm still not entirely sure what the hell her deal was. She did have a slight temp of 99 something when N got up with her at 6:30, but that was completely gone post nap. We've poked and prodded looking for her second molars, but don't feel or see anything. They might be working their way down, but so far nothing has poked through.

Slightly bummed the crack monkey made a visit while family was in town. My sis did get to spend some quality time with her before she became daddy's girl, but it was still annoying.