The Big Girl Bed

Audrey has become the tallest 2 2/3 year old we know and has definitely outgrown her crib. This, at least, had been transformed with the front face off and a toddler rail on to contain our little thrasher! At 40 inches tall, however, it was time to make a change.

Audrey has had some "issues," shall we say, going to sleep lately. For the last two months we have had an almost nightly battle over the actual act of going to sleep. No resistance to starting the bedtime routine - it's just finishing it that is the rub. We're not talking a half hour or even an hour. We're talking lights out at 8 pm and sometimes she's still going at 11 or 11:30 when we're so bleary eyed we can't even keep up. Every night I cross my fingers that her new-found ability to keep herself awake will be taken over by sheer exhaustion, but to no avail. This is a MAJOR change for our formerly 12 hour straight sleeper who dropped off flawlessly at 7:45 every night for the last 2 years. I know, I know, I shouldn't reveal how good our utopia was before we lost it but it just makes it all the harder to swallow this sleep depriving pill.

We've tried everything. Scolding, praising, "silent return to bed" (damn that Supernanny), the newly instated "sleep chart" where we focus on all the tasks she does well instead of this one GIANT thing for which she has gone berzerk. Nothing seems to be cracking the blood pressure raising habit of staying awake for hours after going to bed. We've gated the doorway of her room so that at least if we really wanted to just let her go we could, but this goes against all that I've read when it comes to sleep. I'm not wanting to start the "mom and dad let me play as long as I want" habit so I decided that it was time to try getting a big girl bed that was fun enough to make her want to stay in it.

In storage is a beautiful solid maple twin frame that is an heirloom from Bill's family. I very much want to refinish this to show off the gorgeous wood and purchase a good mattress and box spring to last through the teen years. Since this is not in the cards right now we opted to find a good buy on an interim solution. Yesterday we braved IKEA with G-ma Pat to make the purchase. Oh, IKEA.... It was Pat's first visit into the labyrinth so it's always fun to watch first-timer's eyes start to slowly glaze over the longer you walk. (And seriously, you probably walk a couple of miles easily before you're done.) Audrey had a fantastic time getting to see G-ma and we were happy to share this with her.

The end result once we got home was a 2 hour furniture assembly/room rearranging session. Audrey is in heaven! She loves the bed, of course, but on our first forray into how it would change the night-time routine we discovered that the massive change of the room alone was enough to entertain any kid for 2 1/2 hours. She finally caved at 10:30 pm.

Let's hope the novelty wears off and the desire for more stickers takes over so that we can fill up that pesky little "stay in bed" column on our sleep chart.

Halloweenie

Since we went to the pumpkin patch early we got excited and carved our pumpkins early too. Also to try to catch not only the weather but to do it during Grammy's visit. Gram took all these pictures...



Funny as it sounds, the new iPhone came in very handy for this project. (did I mention I got an iPhone...) There was an application that helped you make Jack-O-Lantern faces by letting you switch out the different eyes, noses and mouths! Two of our 4 pumpkins were dolled up this way.

Audrey loved every minute of the process even though touching the "goo" was totally out of the question! Bill and Audrey carved the biggest pumpkin. This was, of course, the one Audrey picked out. I wonder how many more years she'll be able to pick out a pumpkin that weighs more than she does!

We had quite a cast of characters this year! We had a pig, a pirate, a goofball and one totally classic model.

Audrey's new daycare (which we love) had a really great harvest (Halloween) party the week before. This was great because it spread the fun out a little and gave the kids a chance to dress up more than once. Audrey dressed as "Winnie the Pooh" and immediately turned into ferocious Pooh bear when she got one of her newest favorite acquisitions from the "find the toys in the haystack" game! The kids were all so excited - could it be the sugar?

They had really great games for the kids including pumpkin painting - which Audrey went nuts for. The kids also did everything they could to break open the pumpkin pinata. It takes a lot longer with 2-4 year olds!! We really had a good time.

Halloween night was a busy one for the whole family. I had a show that night with "The Floydian Slips" (more about that later) so G-ma Pat and Papa Doug graciously hosted us. It was a mad dash to make it from the eternally long sound check for the show to Audrey's daycare, and then up to Pat and Doug's. We made great time and beat the worst of the traffic. The house smelled of dinner and we were hungry. The best news was that Bill got off work early and met us there just a few minutes after our arrival. (On a side note, Bill will no longer be working nights as his shift has changed to 5 days a week getting off at 5. This is the beginning of a whole new era for our family!! I have to admit that Bill's four 10 hour shifts made me feel a little like a single parent 4 nights a week. So we're excited about the change and look forward to being together in the evenings.)

At the last minute Audrey decided she didn't want to be Winnie anymore and she wanted to stay in her pumpkin sweatshirt. Done and done, no argument here! After dinner I had to dash off again to get down to the show in time to get into costume and make-up. Bill and G-ma masterminded the trick-or-treat session. I started giving Audrey an occasional piece of candy over the month or so before Halloween just to be sure she wouldn't go into some sort of sugar crisis. Up to this point we could probably count on one had the pieces of candy that she has had in her life. Last year's trick or treating was to the houses of a completely controlled toddler group with things like Play-doh and recorder flutes. This year, it was the real deal. Audrey and the crew only went around the block, but her pumpkin bucket still came back more than half full! G-ma knows everyone in the neighborhood, and Bill grew up there too so between the two of them they had plenty of folks to show Audrey off to.

Oh, how I remember the longing for the bucket that I knew was full of glorious candy but was stowed away somewhere in it's secret hiding place by my ogre parents. Audrey has hers on top of the refrigerator and I think it will be a while before it's empty!


Tomorrow starts Bill's new work schedule. The change in daylight savings is working in our favor as now the whole gang has to get up an hour earlier. We are working hard to remind ourselves that nothing is changing - we're all getting up at the same time. Hopefully this will stave off the bulk of the painful groans at getting up before 6 am. This does not lend itself well to any sort of rock-n-roll life style at all and I now have to start prepping for almost a week to be able to be awake and alert past midnight. Then there's always the drive home post-show to muster. I think living in the country would be a whole lot easier if I had a "diva-copter." I'm sure that just having more family time on a daily basis will make it all worth while!

Time to get the Christmas tree picked out!