some more beach time

On Monday morning Tyler started summer camp. It's just 2 hours in the morning, but it's a nice break for me and of course Tyler loves anything that involves crafts and food. He went off for his first day with zero hesitation whatsoever. He had a great time with his craft, songs, playground time, snack, and playing in the sprinklers.

That afternoon we rushed home from camp to meet my cousin Kristen, her three kids, and my Aunt Marcia at the beach. Kristen brought pizza and we had a little picnic and watched the kids play. Tyler had a great time with the kids. He played on rafts and built castles with Brayden, and put on a "fashion show" with Annika (it's not as bad as it sounds, he was the grandmother and the wolf for their "little red riding hood fashion show"). Meanwhile Jason and Ada yelled at each other and tried to steal each other's toys. They also took naps next to each other in their strollers.




In the midst of our playtime Tyler had his "beach camp". He actually did fairly well that day with his group lessons. He didn't do what the other kids did, but the crying was minimal, if any. We were about to get all set for his first private lesson when they blew a whistle and closed the beach. After about 3 hours in and around the water we were ushered home after the water didn't pass inspection. Lovely, 3 hours with polluted water. I'm sure Kristen felt pretty happy about the water that Ada managed to drink while we were there. LOL.

Tuesday was summer camp, followed by lunch and "rest time". Then we packed up the car and went to the other beach for our lessons (due to the closure of our beach). Tyler cried during most of his lesson and refused to do what he was asked. He was pretty unpleasant during his private lesson as well.

Tuesday night I finally got brave and started some "sleep training" with Jason. I kept hoping if I were consistent with trying to get him in his crib then he'd magically start sleeping better. On Monday night he had been up 4 times before 10:00pm, so I finally accepted that he wasn't progressing very quickly on his own. So on Tuesday I did his whole bedtime routine and then put him to bed and let him cry. He cried for about 40 minutes and then fussed for a while. I never heard him after 63 minutes. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. The premise of this "method" is to work on bedtime training and, hopefully, as they learn to self-soothe, they wake up less at night. If he's still getting up often at night then I work on night time training in two weeks, but for now I am to do whatever I need to do to get him to sleep. He woke up every 2 hours and each time I nursed him and got him back in bed, until around 2:30 when I finally brought him in bed with me.

That night, after I was in bed, my mom finally returned from her work trip to San Diego. Tyler was so excited to see her Wednesday monring!