Yesterday, a few things happened that made me decide that it was time to start transitioning Cate to going to sleep on her own again.

1. I realized that we’ve been here for three weeks, which seems like a long enough time that she should be somewhat familiar and comfortable with her bedroom.
2. She only took a 15-minute nap (in the car on the way home from Target; she woke up when I was trying to move her from her car seat to her crib), so I knew she’d be too tired to put up much of a fight.
3. The previous two nights, she had woken up at some point in the middle of the night and spent the remainder of the night in between Dave and me in our bed, and that was like a flashback to her sleeping patterns when she was 10 months old, and we are not going back to that routine, no ma’am, no way.

So when she was obviously starting to fade at around 6:00 (remember, virtually no nap), I gave her a lightning-quick bath, put on her pj’s, and gave her a cup of milk. She fell asleep on her sippy cup, so I tried to quietly move her to her crib. As soon as her head touched the mattress, she woke up and started to scream. This is normally when I’d retrieve her, put her in our bed, wait for her to go back to sleep, then try to move her crib again. And lather, rinse, repeat until I finally managed to get her in bed without waking her.

Instead, this time I sat on the floor next to her crib, reached my arm through the slats to rub her legs, and talked very calmly to her about how much Mommy & Daddy love her, and I know she doesn’t like this, but it’s time to go night-night in her own bed like a big girl. She was standing up, biting on the crib railing and shrieking like her life depended on it. (I tried standing next to the crib so I could reach over and rub her back, but she grabbed my neck and tried to climb up me, so I figured that sitting next to her was better. But from that angle, the only part of her I could reach to rub reassuringly were her legs. Which, you know, whatever works, right?) I turned on her Baby Einstein lullaby CD, figuring that the music could only help her calm down – and if nothing else, it helped drown out the screaming.

She stood up in her crib and screamed for probably the first 20 minutes or so. Then she sat down and screamed for another 10 or 15 minutes. She spent the next several minutes sitting and just staring into space, tear-stained cheeks and pouty bottom lip. Finally her eyelids started to get heavy and she started swaying back and forth from the weight of her head wanting to nod off. A few minutes of that and she finally flopped forward with her head as close to the crib slats as possible. I kissed the top of her head through the slats, rubbed her back for a few minutes until I knew she was all the way asleep, and then left the room.

Of course, because she crashed before 7:00 p.m. and she’s used to going to bed around midnight, she woke up a little over an hour later. So after a diaper change and another cup of milk, we had to do it all over again. It sucked, and it took just as long, if not longer, to settle her down the second time. And I have marks on my forearms from reaching them through the crib slats as far as possible.

The thing is, even though not swooping in to pick her up when she cries goes against every single protective Mommy Instinct that I have, I know this is for the best. It’s not stressing me out like it did when we left her to cry it out. I mean, yes, she’s still screaming a lot, but I’m sitting right there next to her, comforting her as best I can without picking her up. She might not like it right now, but I don’t worry about her developing any abandonment issues since I’m sitting right there next to her the whole time.

Now I just have to commit to sticking with this, so I can get her back into the habit of going to sleep on her own.

Today, though, I loaded Cate into the stroller and walked to the grocery store, since it’s less than a ten-minute walk, and lord knows I need the exercise. We only needed a few things – enough that it would easily fit in the little storage compartment under the stroller. So we went and had fun, and Cate fell asleep in the stroller on the way home. I decided to just move the stroller into the dining room where I can keep an eye on her and let her take her nap there. No point in waking her up just to move her to her crib and do the 45-minute screamfest again. You have to pick your battles, right?

Cate is 19 months old today. I feel like I need to write a milestone recap, but at the same time, I think I’ve been writing an awful lot about her lately and how she’s been coping (or not) with the move. So instead, just a few quick & random funnies:

* She’s starting to put words together to make complete thoughts, which is pretty awesome. Like, when Dave picked her up and she wasn’t in the mood to be picked up, she said, “No no no! Go down!” And yesterday, I was buckling her into her car seat so we could go to the grocery store, and it was drizzling. She said, “Mommy, wa-wa!” I’m not sure if she was saying, “hey mommy, look at the water [rain]!” Or she might’ve been pointing out that mommy was getting covered in water, which I was. Either way, she was accurate and it was pretty cool.

* I mentioned a while ago the story about how Cate said “doggy” over and over when getting out of the bathtub, and I thought it was just some sort of imaginary play? Well, she’s been doing it every night after her bath, and she usually points at some empty space on the bathroom wall when she’s saying “doggy.” I couldn’t figure it out – imagination? a spot on the wallpaper that looks like a dog? can she hear one of the neighbors’ dogs outside?

Last night it clicked. She’s pointing at the toilet paper and saying doggy, because she loves the puppy on the toilet paper packaging. Every time she follows me into our bathroom, she always goes straight for the cellophane package of T.P. and talks to the little doggy on it. I was pretty impressed by the fact that she figured out that the roll of toilet paper on the wall comes out of the package with the puppy on it. Smart girl.

I mean, I’m not thrilled that the folks over at Kimberly-Clark Corporation have figured out how to market their products to toddlers, but you know, whatever. At least she isn’t asking me for Bratz dolls yet. (And if she ever does: sorry kiddo, no way.)

Last week, Dave signed us up for a membership to our local YMCA. We both want to work out, plus they have a pool, and all kinds of classes (both for us and for Cate when she gets older). The gym also has a drop-in nursery, which is convenient so Dave and I can work out at the same time.

We decided to try it out last night, but based on how clingy and mommy-centric Cate’s been lately, I was fully expecting her to wig out the second we tried to leave her in the nursery. I told the ladies in charge of the nursery what part of the gym we’d be in, and we snuck out when Cate was distracted playing with some toy cars.

Dave walked on the treadmill while I did the elliptical cross-trainer, but the entire time I was working out, I kept looking around for gym employees (they wear red t-shirts, easy to spot). I was sure that they were going to come find us and tell us to collect our inconsolable, distraught toddler. They never did.

After our workout, we went back to the nursery, and although Cate was obviously really happy to see us, they said that she had been totally happy and fine the entire time. Not a single tear was shed when she realized we were gone. Huh. Whaddya know. I guess the combination of other kids plus unfamiliar toys plus pretty, young nursery attendants (have I mentioned that Cate has a fetish for teenage girls? It’s kind of hilarious) equaled one heck of a good time for her.

Oh, as for me, this was the first time I’d worked out in a gym since I was pregnant, and I am soooore today. Carrying Cate up and down the stairs is probably going to kill me before the day is over. But I’m proud of myself for doing as much as I did. Now let’s see if I keep it up.

I think yesterday we saw the worst of Cate’s cold. She was basically having one continuous asthma attack all day long, poor kiddo. We were giving her the maximum amount of albuterol that we could, and she was still miserable. She seems a lot better today; she’s still a little wheezy, but she’s been playing and laughing and acting more like her normal self.

There’s something I want to ask you guys, just to see if there’s any knowledge out there that can help: has anyone ever experienced toddler panic attacks? That appears to be what we’re dealing with in regards to Cate’s sleeping issues. If I walk anywhere close to her crib while I’m holding her, she starts whimpering and shaking, and she clamps onto me as if her life depends on it. I used to be able to put her down while she was still awake, turn on her CD and leave the room, and she didn’t make even a peep of objection. Now, she can be all the way asleep, but when I move her to her crib, if she wakes up enough to realize that she’s in the crib, she will force herself to wake up all the way and WIG. OUT.

I don’t know how to describe it, this goes way beyond normal crying or a standard-issue tantrum. She shakes with terror, she tries to climb the rails of her crib and she howls like she’s scared to death. It tears my heart out, I can’t stand to listen to it. A coupe of times we’ve tried to let her cry it out, but either Dave or I always cave and end up going to get her. (I do realize that going to get her totally defeats the purpose, because all we’re doing is teaching her that if she screams long enough, Mommy or Daddy will eventually come get her, but I challenge you to come sit in my house and try to listen to that screaming for more than 10 minutes.)

Stuff I’ve tried: I’ve made sure that a good portion of her toys are in her room, and we spend a fair amount of time in there playing, trying to get her more comfortable in her new room. Also, she has a nightlight and an air filter for white noise, same as she had at the old house.

I’ve noticed that this doesn’t only apply to her crib. She’s also now terrified of the vacuum cleaner, which is a new development. (And seriously, she’s never had any traumatic encounters with the vacuum, so I can’t imagine where this came from.) The other night we got the vacuum out, and she started shaking and saying, “all done! all done!!” over and over, before I had even plugged the thing in. When she realized I was the one who was going to use the vacuum, she reached for Dave and basically tried to climb up him. She’s like one of the cats.

We met with a new pediatrician on Thursday, and when I mentioned this, he kind of brushed me off with the “yeah, all kids are different, takes them different amounts of time to adjust to new environments, blah blah blah”. I don’t think he really “got” how bad it is.

It’s upsetting to me because she’s always been a very cautious child, the type who needs to think something over for a while before she’ll decide to try it. But she seems to have gone from cautious to outright fearful, and it kills me because I feel like this is our fault for uprooting her world and causing all of this insecurity. Of course, there isn’t anything we can do about it now. I suppose I’m just wishing that we had made this move a year ago, before she was quite so aware of her environment. But I don’t really know where to go from here, so if any of y’all have any advice, let me have it.

A few days ago, I was chatting with my across-the-street neighbor and I asked her if she knew of any good pediatricians nearby. I was really thinking that it would be good to have a name handy in case Cate had an asthma flare-up, but I guess my psychic abilities were kicking in. Because Cate is now sick. Again.

The drippy nose started on Tuesday, and I started her steroid inhaler that day as a preventative (which is what the pediatrician back in Washington told us to do). She hasn’t had any asthma attacks and seems overall to be in pretty good spirits. But the congestion is now at “good grief, child, how did that much gunk come out of that tiny little nose??” levels, so I’m glad we have an appointment this afternoon. She’s rubbed her ears a couple of times, which might just be congestion, but with her history of ear infections, I’d like to get that checked out to be safe.

Oh, and I woke up with a scratchy throat today too. Gah.