The Trixie Update

It sounds like I broke something in the page layout when I was ‘fixing’ the site this week. A couple of people have now told me the alignment is off on the top story. I’m trying to fix it, but in the meantime, any extra details are welcome. thanks-

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It’s my guess that if you ask any parent of a young toddler what the best time of the day is, the answer will be nap time. Previously it may have been happy hour, or when Must-See-TV starts, or that second coffee break, but that was before they had kids.

Four months ago, when Trixie was 14 months old, I could usually count on her to take a nap by about 10am, but I wasn’t real particular. If she acted tired, I would let her take a nap, even if it was 8 o’clock in the morning. As far as I was concerned, it was never too early for a nap. Not being a morning person, I needed Trixie’s first nap to shower, get dressed, and generally wake-up. If I was having a good day, I might even get a little work done, but that was usually left for the afternoon nap. She didn’t always take an afternoon nap, but it regular enough for me to believe that it existed. (See A)

Things began to change around 15 1/2 months (B). I still let Trixie go to sleep in the morning when she wanted to, but it became increasingly difficult to get her to take a second nap. We had horrible days where she took a short morning nap, and then spent the whole afternoon in a cranky, frustrated stupor, unwilling or unable to take a second one.

We wrestled with this for a month until we decided enough was enough. We decided to push her to stay up until nap time (1:00) and the payoff was immediate. (C) The following nine days were the most consistent sleep schedule Trixie ever had. Her schedule has fluctuated since then, but one the one-nap-a-day rule remains in effect.

So, now our only sleep problem is trying to get Trixie to stay in bed at bedtime. For instance, tonight it took over an hour of her jumping out of bed, running around her room in the dark, pulling out all her toys, banging into things and generally sounding like a raccoon going through the trash before we finally got her to sleep. Aside from reverting to the Pack’n'Play (which she still can’t climb out of) we don’t have a solution — unless going in there with a flashlight and banging on the garbage can lids would work.

Want to learn more about your child’s sleep patterns? Start today with Trixie Tracker sleep tracking software.

Other points of interest on this chart:
(D) First climbed out of her crib, just five days after we switched over to one nap a day.

(E) Christmas.

(F) After several weeks of successfully sleeping without the crib side, Trixie began rolling out of bed at night.

(G) Trixie was sick.

(H) Trixie wouldn’t stay in her crib when she was sick, so we switched her back to the Pack’n'Play for about a week and a half until she learned to stay in the crib again.

Thanks to dearsarah for reminding me to do this nap transition story

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We just swung from one end of the attention span to the other with a mention in the New York Times. Welcome! I like to point all new visitors to Trixie Update 101. It’s an overview of the site that includes, among other things, links to some of the better telemetry-based charts and graphs. Thanks for visiting!

*One small correction to the article. My last name is spelled with eight ‘L’s, not one. It’s MacNeillllllll.

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Thanks for stopping by. The last couple of posts have been about getting ready for the show, but beyond that there really are a lot of baby stories. If you’d like to see an overview of the site, please check out Trixie Update 101.

UPDATE 10:00pm Haha. Well, I was under the impression the piece was going to be a littttle bit longer. You wouldn’t believe how long they filmed here. It was about 6 hours, plus another at the hospital. I’m just glad we weren’t on the Oddball section. We weren’t, right? And yes, Trixie went bonkers when she appeared on TV.

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UPDATE 5pm I just got a confirmation that our piece airs tonight between 8 and 9pm EST.

We really appreciate all the support and well wishes. Thanks guys. We’re feeling a lot of excitement, stress and terror all rolled up into one. The shooting was fun, but it was a huge relief when it was over.
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Long time readers will remember some of our painful server crashes. It’s not a lot of fun for you, for me, for the hosting company, for anybody.
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This morning as I was washing dishes, Trixie came into the kitchen carrying a used diaper, flapping in her outstretched arms. I jumped to get it from her, not knowing where she had found it or what might be inside.

Upon closer inspection it wasn’t a used diaper at all. It appeared to be a brand new diaper that she had simply unfolded and brought in to show me. But where did she get it from? “Trixie, did you get this out of the diaper bag?” She nods. Mystery solved and I’ll move the diaper bag off the floor.

About 45 minutes later, I lift Trixie out of her high chair and realize her pajamas are sopping wet. Considering all she had in front of her was a pimento cheese sandwich and a sippy cup, I was pretty confused. What in the hell spilled? And why was it only on her backside and the highchair seat, and not in her lap??

I begin taking off her pajamas and discover her onesie is unsnapped. Then I discover she’s not wearing a diaper either! Trixie has gotten really, really good at zippers, buttons, snaps, locks and the like.

We constantly have to go in and zip her pajamas back up when putting her to bed. We thought she would learn to stop doing it. Instead, I think she learned that unzipped pajamas are a big red flag. Today she must have unzipped, unsnapped, taken off her diaper (sometime right after I changed her because it was totally clean) and zipped back up. It was the perfect crime. Then she even went so far as to bring the evidence directly to me. Diabolical.

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A bunch of people have been asking to hear Trixie’s voice. And Sarah had again suggested a story about our ‘typical’ day. How about we put those two together? There’s only one catch — it’s not going to be on the Trixie Update. Instead you’ll have to watch MSNBC.

We’re super excited to announce that a segment about the Trixie Update is currently scheduled to air this Friday on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann”.

Right now it’s scheduled to air Friday, Jan 28, 8pm EST. Countdown broadcasts live in all time zones, so that’s 5pm for the west coast. And we’re the second half of the show, so it will actually be 8:30-9:00 EST. This could all change at any time, but I’ll post an update here if it does.

We’ve had a camera crew in the house since 7:00am this morning up until a little while ago. Trixie just collapsed into a nap, dead tired from all the extra (and fun) stimulation. And I still can’t believe it, but I wanted to go ahead and share the news. Also, thanks to everyone for visiting and for all your comments. You helped make this happen

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I don’t have any new stories this week (so far), but there might be something interesting happening Wednesday or Thursday. In the meantime, since we’ve been talking so much about readers and how we’re growing, here’s a fun poll to pass the time. (Poll is to your left under Latest TTU Comments.)

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We’re growing. Comments are coming faster and more frequently than ever before. I think reader’s comments are very important and deserve to be seen. Eventually there might be a big change to the way comments are managed (like maybe moving to Scoop), but in the meantime I have a simple question. Would you guys like to see more than just the 10 latest comments in the left-hand column. Like maybe 15, 20, or 25 that would span more than just the last couple of hours? I’m just trying to find out how people are using the site. thanks for any input-

UPDATE [2pm] Again, thanks for all the feedback. A number of you suggested listing most recent stories instead of comments. I agree, and it was a pretty easy change to make. FrumDad’s suggestion is the ideal, but it’s going to take a little time (and as he mentioned, there’s some other coding I’m supposed to be working on.) Let me know if the new fix is good for now. thanks-

UPDATE [Sunday] One more thing. I liked being able to see who left the latest comment. Now when you roll over “Pop Comments” a little javascript ‘tool tip’ shows the last 10 people to comment on a story. That’s all the site improvements for now.

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