On Monday morning I awoke at 7:00 a.m. to the sound of Justin's alarm. This is no different than any other morning except that I quickly realized I hadn't awoken to a baby fussing at her usual time of 4:00 a.m. After a quick "is she breathing?!" check to confirm that she was indeed just sleeping it was time to rejoice because Tessa slept through the night! She does five hour and even six hour stretches here and there but this was a full night of sleep from 11 p.m. until 7 a.m.! And she was still sleeping! I managed to pump and take a shower before her and Ben woke up and having a few minutes to gather myself in the morning instead of instantly springing into diaper changing and feeding mode makes a huge difference in my outlook for the day. It's downhill from here. The precious but crazy newborn phase is coming to an end.
This transition also means that it is time for Tessa to sleep in her room in the crib. She slept all night on Monday night (and again last night! Tee hee hee!) so it was time to get a twin bed for Ben. We don't have any twin sized sheets in the house so we also had to get him some sheets. We found this Thomas set on clearance at Target for $15.00. It is some strange microfiber material which is why it was on clearance I'm sure. There were many other characters to choose from. I consider myself someone who has good taste so I cringe at the idea of kids rooms plastered with cartoon and Disney characters but I actually think these are cute and if it helps a kid want to be in his bed I can't disapprove.
There is the big boy on his bed! The headboard was Justin's when he was a child.
If you remember from a prior post, Ben has been sleeping in the crib converted to a toddler bed. We turned it back into a crib and of course it became the most interesting climbing apparatus in the house.
He has climbed in and out of this crib countless times since last night. When I go to change his or Tessa's diaper he beats me down the hall and practically hurtles himself over the railing. I think that cylindrical railing thing at the top makes it easier for him to climb since he doesn't act like this when we visit people who have cribs and hasn't jumped out of those cribs.
Now it is time to do something with Tessa's room. It has been littered with a tornado of hand me downs to sort (which I finally dealt with over the weekend) and stacks of tubs where the baby stuff is stored. I envision a lavender theme with navy blue accents, the first of which is this sheet that I ordered from Pottery Barn Kids. I have the materials to make letters to spell her name on the wall but haven't started them yet. I also have a few old fashioned pictures of kittens that I need to find frames for but have been too cheap to buy because I can never find any at Hobby Lobby on sale.
I hoped to get a picture of her smiling in her crib but it wasn't happening today!
The first night went pretty well. Ben was really wound up because we did all this moving and rearranging right before he went to bed but he eventually went to sleep in his bed. I heard him fussing at 4 a.m. and he was standing in his room looking confused but I was able to get him back to sleep after a few minutes. I flaked and had Tessa sleep in the bassinet (just in case!) but I think it is time to move her to the crib.
In other "big boy" news, Ben has started being interested in wearing underwear. My mom gave him a three pack of briefs even though we haven't even started toilet training (I keep saying I should start and we have a little "potty" for him but it just seems so daunting it is hard to take the first step). When I was putting away the last of the Christmas gifts over the weekend he found the bag and opened it up and suddenly he was running up to me in just his snap crotch onesie clutching the underwear. He tried to unsnap his shirt until I did it for him and then tried to put on the underwear over his diaper (I helped him get them on).
I was impressed that he knew what to do with them. The next morning he took off his pajamas and put them back on. Maybe I should take this as a sign to get out his potty and give it a try. Eeek...
I thought about whether or not I should put pictures and stories about Ben in his underwear on here since I am aware that kids of today will have to deal with the long term implications of their parents sharing cute but potentially embarrassing pictures of them on the Internet as opposed to them being safely hidden in photo albums. I have pictures but I am going to keep those off but I thought it wasn't that bad to tell the story. I thought back to my years of communal living when I was a student, the times I spent in dorms and greek houses, the tales of locker room silliness from high school and even my days lifeguarding and babysitting and I honestly have rarely encountered a male of any age who cared one bit about being seen in their underwear or having their underwear seen by anyone. There was underwear laying on floors, various althetic support items strewn around in vehicles, and duffel bags and laundry baskets overflowing with underwear. Even in my all girl freshman dorm it would still happen because girls had visitors who would go in the hallway in underwear or wearing towels to go to the all girls bathroom. When I went to We-fest, where everyone camps and you have to wait outside in long lines for showers in primitive bathhouses, guys would casually wait in line for their turn in their underwear in the middle of the day. My old neighbor regularly walked around outside in his boxers and we lived on a busy street. I can think of various examples of men wearing underwear or speedo briefs as part of their Halloween costume. In college, there was fundraising pageant called Mr. NDSU which featured lip syncing as a main part of the scoring and I would say 75% of the performances included wearing not just men's underwear but cross dressing and wearing women's lingerie on stage in front of hundreds of people. And of course, you can point out the common scene in the sports world of a reporter interviewing an athlete in the locker room while the other guys casually stroll around in the background. So I assume this story wouldn't be that embarrassing for Ben in the future. But who knows. Maybe he will be the rare exception. Time will tell.
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