Shortly before Maya’s second birthday, Sean took some photos of her in this wacky little giraffe-themed outfit that Lolli and Pop had given her. We needed a cute recent photo for her birthday party invitations. We’ve had several requests to post these online, and so, here they are. (Also, when Maya says “giraffe” it sounds like “jahwopp.”)

Maya – almost two years old

In real time, we’re settling in to our life as a family of four. Since we have an infant in the house, sleep is an often-discussed topic: how much we aren’t getting, how to get more of it, etc. Maya, as it happens, is also working through some sleep issues.

Maya belly!

Parents of toddlers will likely be nodding along as they read some of this. Maya often gets out of bed at night, takes all her stuff out of bed – pillow, blankets, stuffed animals – and sleeps on the floor by the door to her room. For Christmas, we gave her a clock that is yellow when she should stay in bed and turns green in the morning when she can get out of bed. For about a week, it worked! She’d stay in bed all night. Then it apparently occurred to her that the clock had no power over her, and she could get out of bed whenever she damn well pleased.

Who knows *what* she’s pointing at

Our pattern has been to ignore her till she falls asleep (because going into her room would only reinforce the behavior) and then one of us, usually Sean, sneaks in there and loads her back into bed where she then stays till morning. During nap time, we don’t bother at all. The house is warmer during the day and a 60-90 minute snooze on the hard floor isn’t quite as rough as an all night sleep.

Love those pigtails

More and more lately, nap time starts with a certain amount of Maya playing. Sometimes the entire time is filled with Maya playing. We could go in there and tell her to get back into bed, but it does very little good. We figure that even if she doesn’t sleep at all, she has some down time by herself while she plays with her books. All the furniture is anchored to the walls, so it’s a fairly safe place for her to be unsupervised.

Imagine my surprise when one day I heard a small crash. I was feeding Ian at the time, and there was no crying and plenty of shuffling noise after the fact, so I figured there were no injuries. By the time I went to check on her, she was asleep in front of the door, so it wasn’t till I woke her from her nap later that I saw what she had done.

I guess it could be worse

Every drawer she could reach had been emptied and the bottom drawer had then been used in an attempt to climb to the drawer she couldn’t reach. When I opened the door and saw the destruction, it took every ounce of my control to not laugh. I might have failed a bit, but I’m hoping Maya didn’t notice.

The dresser is a mid-grade Ikea model (mid-grade for Ikea, mind you), and of course, the drawer broke. The wood on the side panel is broken and the rail the drawer slides on is badly bend. We currently have that bottom drawer sitting in a different room while we figure out what to replace the drawers with.

I made Maya help me put the clothes away and we talked about how climbing the drawers breaks them. She hasn’t climbed again, but of course, she’s hasn’t had that bottom drawer to use, so that could be why. Do we replace it with the same cheap furniture, knowing it could get broken again? Or do we try to find something sturdier? Sturdier could still get broken. Plus, sturdier could allow her to scale the lofty peak of Mount Dresser, and that seems like a terrible idea.

If anyone has suggestions they’d like to offer, we’re happy to hear them. In the mean time, I think I’ll start keeping notes on whether Ian or Maya is ahead in the property damage race.