He's a biiiiiig boy!

Luke has recently started noticing trucks. "Tuck, mama, tuck! Big tuck!" And the "big" thing is new, too. And just for your information (because I know somewhere along the line this will come in handy) there are three types of trucks. Tucks, big tucks, and BIIIIIIIIIIIG TUCKs. Oh, and there are also "grandpa tucks". His favorite thing to do while we are driving down the road is point out all the trucks. And sometimes vans. But they still count, right? As long as they're BIIIIIIIG.

This weekend Luke got something new to add to his "BIIIIG" repertoire: a bed.

It all started on Thursday. Luke and Emily only get their pacifiers when they are in bed. Not around bed, not around bedtime. In bed. Which means it sometimes takes Luke half an hour to get out of bed...he just doesn't want to give up the pa-pa. So on Thursday, when he unearthed from the secret hiding place underneath his crib picked up the beloved pa-pa, I picked him up and plopped him in bed. Where he stayed for 20 minutes. By this time I left the room and resumed whatever it was I was doing. THUD. I turn around just in time to see Luke walking down the hallway, saying "all done! all done!" with the biggest, proudest grin you can imagine on his little face. I sighed, called Scott, and said "Houston, we have a problem."

The next day, after naps, I got Emily out of bed and went to get Luke out. Em started pulling at my leg, so I picked her up, turned around and set her in the rocking chair, and turned back around just in time to see Luke's little legs kicking in the air. Meaning he had fallen, HEAD FIRST, out of the crib. Boom. HEAD FIRST.  "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!! Owie, mama, BIIIIIG OWIE!!!!" You get the picture. I mean, literally, I had turned around for .37 seconds. Yikes. Houston, we have a problem indeed.

So on Saturday morning, we converted the crib to a toddler bed. Luke was very excited...as was Em, and they spent lots of time getting on and off the bed, saying "nigh-night! nigh-night!" Nap time came, went very well, and when Luke woke up he very politely knocked on the door for us to let him out.

SWEET!!!! We have survived the toddler-bed transition!!! We are NOT those people who let our kids stay in the crib and get injured, because we are obviously AWESOME at getting our super-smart-genius kid to transition seamlessly to his toddler bed! I was actually excited (even more than usual, heh) for bedtime!!!

Uh...not so much.

At nap time, we always close the door to the nursery all the way. At night, we leave it cracked a little, because Em doesn't like the dark so much. (Luke does. So nightlights don't work. Thus one of the MANY twins-in-the-same-room problems. I digress.) So this night, we shut the door all the way because we don't want Luke to get out and, say, drive around the neighborhood. So life is good, everyone goes to bed, everyone is happy! Until Em wakes up at 9:30, and can't go back to sleep because (gasp!) it's dark in the room. Usually we just let her cry it out, but once we realized the problem Scott decided we needed to open the door. So we cracked the door, listened to her scream for a bajillion years, and once she fell asleep we went to bed.

Luke woke up crying about 3am or so, and I figured I had better go in there and see if he was okay. I opened the door of the nursery, and immediately Em pops up and says "Hi!" Great. Luke is asleep on the floor by the toys, so I pick him up and put him in bed. I go to lay Em back down, and discover that her crib is full of toys. Thus explaining the sudden stop to her screaming several hours before...Luke had tried to calm her down by giving her lots of toys. I guess it worked. Good job, buddy.

About 7 minutes later, we hear Emily say "uh-oh! Uh-oh! UH-OH!" followed by a click. We look at each other and Scott jumps out of bed. Luke has left his room and shut the door behind him. Here is what transpired:


Scott: Hey buddy, what are you doing?
Luke (pointing to my purse): Mama! Keys! Bye-bye! (apparently he did want to drive around the neighborhood ;) )
Scott: Uh, Mama's in bed, dude. Are you ready to go to bed?
Luke: No!
Scott: Well, you have to go to bed, buddy. You can't just walk around out here like a ghost all night.
Luke: No! (and you have to imagine the "no's" in the highest pitched voice imaginable.)

Alas, we finally got the child back into bed, and we all slept until 9 the next morning. Which is pretty much unheard of. The next night was the 4th of July, so no one got much sleep...but the next night I only had to put him back in bed once, and the last two nights have been a breeze. So we seem to have made it over the hump...until Em jumps out and it starts all over again, that is :) :)

And I know the story could have gone like this:  Luke jumped out of his crib so we converted it to a toddler bed and we didn't get much sleep for a few nights...but what fun is that?