Thank goodness for the speaker phone function on cell phones!

Matt left town (again) for California on Friday, and seeing as he's been gone more than two days now Melanie has hit that lovely stage where she realizes he's gone and doesn't really know how to cope with not having daddy time each night, so bedtime is just kinda ugly. Pile on top of that a measly 45 minute nap (and that's a generous estimate) and it makes for a lovely evening ritual for mommy.

On the way home from a family dinner at my in-laws' house Melanie fell asleep, so I got her inside and laid her down, to which she woke up screaming. So I figured she just needed a bit of play/wind-down time in her own home (considering at that point it had been about 11 hours since she had been here last) so I let her out of her room to play. I put on a Baby Einstein video (she loves the music) and tried to get her to eat some fruit and a waffle, which she was not interested in. So we played a bit and I made a phone call. She then proceeded to get into stuff, and I'd have to stop her, which would result in her crying and me consoling her, and then her repeating the offense, and so on. So the phone conversation ended and we made a second attempt at eating the waffle. Still not interested. So I got out some yogurt. That was ok, but when I put the yogurt on the waffle that was exactly what she wanted. So the best meal I got out of Melanie today was a waffle with cherry yogurt on it. Whatever works. Tried to lay her down again, more screaming. Tried to have her lay down in bed with me. Still screaming. So we came out into the kitchen and called Matt on my cell phone. She seems intrigued by the whole cell phone/daddy's voice thing since I have a picture of Matt that pops up when I'm talking to him, so Melanie thinks she's talking to the picture and insists on looking at it any time Matt talks to her on the phone instead of actually holding the phone to her ear. So I finally put the speaker phone function on and Matt and I just had a conversation while Melanie sat with me and she finally fell asleep and stayed asleep.

I'm not sure if she just needed the reassurance of Matt's voice (he's the one that normally puts her to bed at night) or what the deal was, but for both of our sakes I'm glad it worked. I feel really badly for Melanie since her whole world is being turned upside down between her and I spending all day at my parents' house helping take care of mom and grandma, and then topping that off with Matt being out of town so much recently. And when all of this finally settles down and Melanie gets back in her groove (assuming she can remember what it is by that time) then an even bigger change will take place and she'll have to share the spotlight with a sibling. Oh, the life of an 18-month old!