NEW DIGS

A few months back, I went about getting Miss Liv out of her crib and into a big girl bed. With all of the other kids this transition seemed to go without incident; so I was not too worried about her.

I happily took a few days to shop, find a quilt and some cute wall decor to match Ava's since the girls would be sharing a room. Once their room was all put together, I decided it was time for Liv to leave behind the crib.

The first night was pretty much par for the course. She got up about 15 times or so in order to explore the hallway and the other rooms upstairs she has seen thousands of times. I remember all the other kids doing this as well, they were all sort of in awe that they were free from the cages of the crib and had to get in and out and in and out of bed to see if it was real. To see if they really could get out of bed on their free will.

As with all the other kids at this stage, each time she got up I would calmly put her back into bed and tell her it was bedtime. Before I knew it she was fast asleep in her big girl bed. Mission accomplished. Well, until 4am when she decided to wake up and have a little party in her bed. She ripped down all of the flower and butterfly wallies on her side of the room; the ones I painstakingly put up one by one using a level to ensure they were applied in a straight line. She then managed to grab the lamp off of her bedside table and chuck it onto the floor. This part I was not aware of until I entered the room after hearing a loud thud, and stepped directly on it hearing a loud crunch. That being the lamp shade. Liv did not seem to be all to fazed by her late night destruction; Ava on the other hand started crying uncontrollably when she woke to find me next to her bed with a broken lamp at my feet. "My lamp Mom, Liv broke my lamp!!"

Trying to get Liv back to bed after this was a nightmare, she kept getting up, jumping on her bed, yelling, keeping Ava awake which would make her cry, and just being a plain old stinker. This late night crap was nothing I had experienced with my other 3, needless to say, this part of the first night in her big girl bed was not so "par for the course." So I gave up, and put her in the her crib for the rest of the night so that I could get a few more hours of sleep.

The next morning I was feeling a bit disappointed in myself for giving up so easily. So much so that I vowed to not have her go back to her crib for any reason that night.

That night I went to bring her to bed and instead of going into her new room, she literally ran as fast as her little legs would go to the room where I had stored the crib. She stood next to it saying "up! up!" with a look on her face that told me she was just going to die if she could not sleep in that crib. Naturally, I picked her up, placed her in her crib with Nuck and blanket in hand, and what do you know? She was as happy as could be - off to dreamland she went.

So much for not putting her in her crib for any reason whatsoever.

After a very peaceful night of sleep, I decided to give up on the big girl bed thing for a while as we did have quite some time before this new baby was coming. She just did not seem ready for the change; of course it had nothing to do with the fact that by the end of the day I was so utterly exhausted the last thing I wanted to do was fight her to sleep in a bed she did not want to sleep in. No, it had nothing to do with that.

So I let it all go, and she spent another month in that crib of hers happy as could be. Until last week when I decided it was time. And amazingly after one sort of sleep deprived night and one fight at nap time the next day, she was accustomed to her new digs. Alleluia!

Yesterday at nap time I decided to peek in on her to make sure she was actually sleeping on the bed, and not in front of the door or in the closet or something. Weird you say? Not for Liv, she is a busy little bee and I would not put it past her to explore her room, mid way through decided she was too tired to continue, and plop her little self down wherever she was to fall asleep.

Anyway, I quietly opened the door and found her peacefully sleeping. I think she is enjoying how spacious this big girl bed really is.

In my quest to get a picture of her cuteness, I woke her up. Oops. As she was rubbing her eyes in an attempt to wake up, wondering what the heck her Mom was doing standing in the doorway snapping pictures like the Paparazzi, I noticed her hands. Hmmmm. They were.... orange. Turns out she was not too sleepy when I had first put her to bed, so she had gone snooping around in big sisters drawers and had come across some markers. So why not color all over herself as a fun pass time, right?

I scooped her out of bed, washed her hands up and told her I would call it even. She colored all over herself (which Mommy hates,) but I was so rude as to wake her from her nap by taking pictures.

Last night, before I went to bed I stopped into everyone's rooms to check on them and give them one last kiss. Something I do every night. When I made my way into the girls room, I found this.

Turns out Liv must have gotten a little lonely in that big new bed of hers. To cure her loneliness she snuck on over to her big sisters bed, snuggled right up to her and fell asleep. Again, I had to take a picture; thinking this would be one the girls would love to see when they got older. Luckily my need to document every little part of their lives did not wake anyone up this time.

So I think I can say we are officially all settled in. Anthony and Lucas are happily sharing a room, Ava and Liv are now happily sharing a room, and we have one little empty room with a crib in it waiting to be filled by this sweet baby boy growing in my belly.

All is well.... For now at least.