Reaching for the Animals

For $45, Kaylani has had nightly entertainment for the last 5 months. That turns out to be about 25 cents per night of entertainment (actually it turns out to be free since it was a gift from Madrina Maria). I'd say that's a pretty good deal and if I could have nightly entertainment at that price, I'd sign up right now (of course as adults, we're a bit pickier and anything that costs 25 cents per night or free probably isn't worth it). But soon, Kaylani's entertainment might get cancelled. Temporarily.

In case you're wondering, Kaylani's entertainment is her mobile. It's a wonderful array of 5 animals (rhino, giraffe, elephant, zebra, and chick) that just hang above her. Some nights she'll talk to them (we're unsure if they talk back when we're not here), other nights she'll just lay there and stare at them. On rare occasions they'll sing music to her, but that's only when we crank them up which is hardly ever. Watching her interact with them has been very touching, but lately, it's been that touching that causes us concern.

Some times when we look at Kaylani "sleeping" through her video monitor, we see her reaching high in the air trying to grab one of the animals. She's pretty smart about it too because she'll even roll onto one side so she can stretch her little arm that much higher. Although it's far away, we're pretty sure she can put her finger tips on at least one of them. And that's not a good thing.

Imagine if she reaches up and grabs an animal (let's use giraffe as an example because he's the tallest, even though all the animals are at the same height, but it would make the most sense for her to be able to grab the tallest one right?), gives it a good tug, and then the entire mobile comes crashing down on her. The possibility of that happening is enough to make us come up with an action plan. Unfortunately, action plans need time to work.

Our action plan is to lower her mattress. Upon further review, lowering the mattress requires taking the matress out, unscrewing 4 screws and rescrewing them back in. I know, it doesn't sound like a lot of work, but that has to be done between Daddy getting home from work and Kaylani going to bed, which is usually less than an hour, of which 30 minutes is used for dinner. So needless to say, that hasn't been done yet. The alternate plan is to remove the mobile for now, but our concern there is that without her nightly entertainment, she may not sleep as well as she does currently. And when 2 of the 3 past nights have involved her sleeping over 11 hours straight (last night was the 2nd time), it's hard to justify changing things now.

So for now, nothing's going to be done. Since she likes sleeping on her belly we're kinda just hoping she doesn't reach up for the animals and that the animals don't try and reach down to her. Maybe this weekend Daddy will stop making excuses and lower the crib. But until then, let's hope Kaylani listens to those famous words from Casey Casum: "Keep your hands on the ground and keep reaching for the floor." Well, something like that anyways.