Katy Knievel

Katy is such a cheeky monkey as Tonton Yves would say. She LOVES to climb and she is a little daredevil as far as physical pursuits go. (Not so brave with small electrical appliances...)
Well, we've had a couple of scares recently. First, she got her left hand caught in the lift door at a friend's place. As in, not in between the doors but between the left door and the frame. In the tiny gap there.

There was a lot of screaming, mostly coming from the other Mummies and babies in the lift, but quite a lot of volume coming from Katy herself. My heart leapt and Katy's whole life flashed across my eyes. When I realised it was not a life threatening issue, Katy's whole potential future as a concert pianist flashed across my eyes, especially when I couldn't figure out how to get her hand out.

This hysteria lasted about 30 seconds until I realised one of the other women was pressing the Door Open button. After she switched to the Door Close button, Katy's hand was freed.

There followed more comical hysteria as Katy howled at the top of her lungs and we called the doctor. Our wonderful friend Heather insisted on driving us down to the doctor with her golf cart, but in wonderful Chinese fashion, also insisted that we bring some food down for Katy. By the time we got into the cart, Katy had calmed down a lot, was talking coherently, was asking to eat and enjoying her food (thanks Heather!) and was moving her hand on request.

By the time we arrived at the Doctor and met up with Dada, Katy was passed out fast asleep. This then caused more panic as she was totally out of it. Like when she had jetlag. I was sure she hadn't hit her head. The doctor came and examined her and she still didn't wake up. Finally at the end of it, after many attempts at rousing her, Katy did finally wake up. Dr Oliver said that this is not unusual - children reacting to hysteria do sometimes fall into a deep sleep. He also said that children are only 2 seconds away from disaster a lot of the time. How true!

So fast forward to yesterday...well, we all know Katy's deep dislike of going to bed, especially for naps. Since her last block of great sleep progress, she has been struggling with a long running cold and, as a result, her sleep has gone backwards. She takes ages to get to bed and she wants to be held. We've been a bit indulgent, but it is time to get back on track.

We tried yesterday again to restart sleep training for naps (we started for night sleeps a few days ago as this is easier for her). Katy did not like it one bit. She screamed and yelled. And did her usual jumping up and down furiously in her crib. Next minute, there was a loud thump and knocking on the door from insider her room. She managed to propel herself over the high end of the crib and fell on her face on the floor (she showed us) where there was no mattress to cushion her. The mattress was there of course because she managed to houdini it out of her crib once before a couple of months ago. But she got out at the uncushioned end because that end was propped up slightly higher to make it easier for her to breathe with her sinus congestion. She got the worst bruising ever on her right cheek and just above the eye.

Fortunately, the doctor confirmed that there was nothing worse.

We put ice, which she didn't like, and Tia used a peeled boiled egg on it (which helped a lot until Katy announced that eggs aren't for faces, they are for eating, and insisted on eating the egg).

Here are photos of her from this morning...


Yes, she's smiling! So fast forward to yesterday evening and that running around Mama and Dada's bed trick Katy is so fond of even though we try to get her not to. Well, so she trips, does a somersault off the bed (which is very high off the ground) and then hits her head on the top left side. This time, there was a lot of howling and asking Dada for hugs. We were so worried she had hit her head a few times that we snuck in to check on her overnight. I wish we had carpet!

Here's a photo of the spot this morning...


BUT the concern is that even after all that she was not at all worried about falling! She was just happy she achieved her objective which was getting out of her nap! The whole afternoon, she still insisted on climbing everything as usual. We did try to explain to her that she is not to jump and try to get out of her crib and she did seem to listen...she was quite shamefaced when Dr Siu gave her a little lecture about no more climbing in the crib...


And she seemed to know why we wanted to take photos this morning and was a bit "aw shucks" about it.
Today's nap was a bit better. She protested for 8 minutes at high volume but I don't think she was jumping up and down. I camped outside her door just in case. And we fortified our crib cushion moat (and of course removed the prop on the end).

Sigh. We need to move her into a big bed but I have been putting it off because I am concerned that this will really send her backwards sleep wise. No way to confine her into the bed! And I want to make sure the room (windows!) is iron clad accident proof before we switch her to a big girl bed...our little baby is growing up too fast! Katy loves getting her little stools out and using them to climb up inside the pantry, the cupboards, anywhere there is a little ledge for her little fingers and toes.