Big girl beds

Fair warning: this post is long and kind of boring, but there's a semi-cute video at the end. :)

Yooooooooou guys. It's been a while since I feel like I've really blogged. Really talked about something going on without just posting a bunch of pictures and calling it good. Today's post is going to have a lot of writing it in. What am I writing about? Cribs and the fact that we don't have them in our house anymore.

About two(ish) weeks ago, I went to get the girls from their nap, only to discover that Sophie was out of her pack 'n play. I had been testing out them being in the same room, but since the cribs were in different rooms, I used the pack 'n play as a temporary solution to see if they could handle being in the same room or not. When I saw Sophie out of the pack 'n play I muttered a 4 letter word that started with "s"... I knew we were in for it. I knew that the time of getting toddler/twin beds was right around the corner and I knew how hard of a transition it was for some kids. I also knew how I wasn't blessed with the world's greatest sleepers (didn't sleep through the night until 9  months and even now only do it 80% of the time)so I knew it was going to be a hard transition.

I decided to put Sophie back in her bed, crack the door open and see if she would do it again. Sure enough, she hoisted one leg over the edge, pulled her body up to high center the side and flopped to the floor. She was sooo proud of herself and ran around the room giggling. So, that night I put Lillian in the pack 'n play and Sophie in the crib and prayed that they would stay put. Luckily, they did. I was really, really hoping this whole thing was just a fluke and we had a few more months of cribs.

The next day during nap time, we did the same thing. Sophie in the crib and Lillian in the pack 'n play. Josh ended up getting them up this time and he called me upstairs. What did he find? Both girls out of their beds and playing with their toy kitchen. So they both could get out of their beds now. Josh was pretty freaked out by the whole thing because kids can get really hurt by climbing out of cribs. He wanted to take the cribs down that afternoon, but I wouldn't let him. He was working a graveyard shift that night and we had church the next day and I really didn't want to do that on my own, the night before we had somewhere to be. So I stuck them in their beds and let them be.

Luckily, we were somehow able to buy and extra few days of them being in their cribs. We split them up so they wouldn't egg each other on and they stayed put until the 4th of July. Lillian climbed out of her crib and fell. She got a pretty good rug burn on her shoulder and that was the final straw for Josh, so down came the cribs.

The next couple of days were awful. Every time we'd lay the girls on their mattresses, they'd immediately get up and run around. I stripped the room from everything but their mattresses, blankets and two stuffed animals. They would run around, scream, dance, flip their mattresses over and take hours to fall asleep. Literally, hours. They went from sleeping about 12 hours each day (including naps) to about 8. It sucked.

Josh made the comment that every time we put them down, it was like they were having a slumber party. It hit me that this is why a lot of parents oppose sleepovers. Kids don't sleep and they're grumpy when they don't sleep. I was losing it, Josh was losing it and the girls had definitely lost it. We thought about splitting them up, but the task seemed so daunting since the other room was now filled with toys, old clothes and a box of my crap that had been sitting there since the day we moved it.

With the help of my neighbor (who really is much, much more than a "just" neighbor at this point. She's pretty much my hero) we got the clothes organized and I sorted through the toys. The room was almost fully cleared out. But yesterday at nap time, I completely lost it. Like I was balled up in the hall crying while said neighbor/best friend took care of my girls. She was eventually able to get the girls to sleep, all while I laid on the floor and cried. One of my finer parenting moments I should say....

So, last night I took everything else out of that second bedroom and split the girls up. I apparently should have done that days and day before, but for whatever reason, I didn't want to. I guess I just have this dream that they'll be able to share a room and sleep through the night. Sadly, that hasn't really happened more than a handful of times in their entire life. The girls fell right to sleep (with the exception of Lillian, but I went in and used some of Jenny's lines and didn't hear a peep from her again) and they slept until morning (well again, with the exception of Lillian who woke up at 4, but I was able to turn on her frog night light/music player and that worked like a charm).

So now, I have a laundry room filled with toys and a box of junk, but two well rested girls. I feel slightly defeated though because I really wanted them to be able to share a room. Maybe someday, but not today and not in the foreseeable future. So now, we need to decide on which beds to get them and face reality and buy them. Until then, we've found a pretty good solution, I hope.

The cribs coming down... 

The girls standing and reading on the pile of wood that used to be their crib 

This was this past Sunday after two hours of running around. They finally fell asleep.

And in case you ever wanted to know what spending 3 minutes and 49 seconds with my girls is like, here's a pretty good representation. This is what would go on for at least a hour and a half every night before they'd fall asleep. It's cute, but the repercussion of it the next morning definitely was NOT cute...

See? They're crazy. 

Here's to a better sleeping situation!