Mission Accomplished...

As I mentioned in the last post, our goal over the past few weeks was to transition Brayden into a big boy bed so we could free up the crib for the baby's arrival. After talking to friends about how they transitioned their kids and reading up on the Internet we dove right into getting Brayden into his new bed. We have had the big bed set up in our spare bedroom for a couple of months now. We have never really tried to have him sleep there, we just wanted it there and for him to know that it was his big boy bed. Jon and I had a free Friday afternoon so we went shopping for the perfect bedsheets for Brayden's new bed. After looking all over the mall, we found the perfect obnoxious toddler bedding, Mickey!! Let's just say Brayden is very obsessed with Mickey these days and thought it would be the perfect lure for him to sleep in his big boy bed.

We went home and washed the sheets immediately, since we decided that we were going to start on a Friday night that way if he was crabby over the weekend, we could at least have him at home and taking naps. We decided the best thing for Brayden was to see that the crib was going to be taken down and the new bed placed in his room in place of the crib. So we had "Handy Manny" come and take down the crib and help put up the new bed in it's spot. We thought if we just moved the crib into the other room he would have a complete meltdown and just want to sleep in the crib, so if we got rid of it it made us and him realize that he had to sleep in the big boy bed.

After seeing the final product with the bed in place and the obnoxious bedding on it, he LOVED it!! He was so excited about his Mickey bedding. The first few nights we stayed in his bedroom at the foot of the bed, not looking at him until he feel asleep. The first few night he got up a few times, but overall it wasn't bad at all. No major breakdowns. The biggest concern that we had was him wondering around at night or trying to get down the stairs to see us. So of course we put the gate up at the top of the stairs just in case. They have must have trained him really well at daycare, but knock on wood he hasn't really gotten out of the bed. When he wakes up in the morning, he is still in the bed waiting for us to get him out. A few times he has gotten out, but he will stand right next to the bed and hold onto it until we come and get him. What a relief. After about 3 nights of sitting in his room, we decided that he was a big enough kid to sleep by himself. So of course we used some major bribery and said that if he went to sleep by himself we would buy him a toy. Wouldn't you know, he slept straight through the night and in the morning when I went to get him, he said to me "prize". What a smart kid, he knows what he wants. I gave in and bought him some Mickey toy, but it worked and since then he has slept in his bed and we have had no problems. It was a much smoother transition then I ever thought it was going to be!!!

Naptimes have been a little bit harder in the bed though. We he out for the night, he is out, but during naptime is a different story. He will usually sleep for about an hour, which he should sleep about 2 and then we have found him out of his bed and reading books in his room. Jon and I were sitting in the living room on Saturday and we started hearing pig and cow noises. At first we couldn't figure out where it was coming from, since we thought Brayden was sleeping. So we went around and cracked the door open and sure enough Brayden was sitting on the bed reading a book. When he was finished with the book he would put it back get another one and hop back into bed. We just left him alone since he wasn't really making a sound, he ended up doing this for about 45 minutes!!! We thought he would get so tired at some point that he would fall back asleep, we were wrong. At least he was being quiet and nicely reading, so I can't get too mad.

We now have the second bedroom empty and ready to start setting up for the arrival of baby #2 here shortly. I am officially 30 weeks today, only 10 more weeks!! It's sort of ironic, but we have nothing ready for this one at all. All we have at our house is the crib, which is broken down in the closet. Everything else is scattered in containers at different houses since we have moved. We really need to get our act together and get things around for this kid. And everyone has been asking, no we haven't picked out a name yet. As we keep saying, we are probably going to use one of the "left over" names that we had when we had Brayden. We didn't name Brayden until we saw him, so I am assuming we will do the same thing with this one. We need to make sure the name fits the face. I'm feeling great, can't complain at this point, so that is good.

We decided to enroll Brayden in "swim lessons", since he had such a great time in the water on our vacation. Really at this age it is just getting acquainted with the water and learning basic swimming motions. Jon was convinced that it would be all moms and the kids. So for the first lesson I took him and Jon just came half way through to see how Brayden was doing in the water. To both our shock it was all the dads that were in the water with the kids and preggo me with Brayden. It was pretty funny. I didn't mind at all. I actually think that I get more of a workout doing it than Brayden does. We are constantly lifting and spinning them, I'm exhausted when the lesson is done and it is only for 30 minutes!!

Brayden and I learning to kick in the pool

My little puppy, he absolutely loves swimming. He cries when the lesson is over because he wants to keep swimming.

We went to a fall festival and saw "Peyton Manning". Brayden was pretty excited.

He also go to drive a bulldozer.

This is how Brayden now sleeps in his big boy bed. He hasn't figured out yet that he could lay the other way and have a ton more room. He prefers to sleep this way everynight. Notice the obnoxious bedding.

We had the pleasure of watching my niece Callie this past weekend for the night. We thought it would be good practice to see how it would be with two kids. Boy am I glad that we had a trial run with Callie. It made Jon and I realize how much work we have ahead of us with two kids. We decided that we were going to head to the zoo for a little bit. I think it took us a full hour to pack the car and get the kids ready just to go!!

What a cutie!!

We thought we were going to have a long night not knowing if Callie would sleep for us or not. Turned out she was a saint and slept the whole night for us. After having her for the day we realized that Brayden is going to be more difficult than a newborn baby. Brayden insisted on doing everything that Callie did. He wanted to get into her saucer, needed a bottle, needed to be burped. He was a handful. He was very concerned about her at all times though, which was nice. In the morning Callie slept a couple hours longer than Brayden and I think he asked about every 2 minutes if Callie was up!! Here he decided that he wanted to give Callie a hug, but instead pretty much tackled her down to the ground. Looks like we have to work on the word gentle.

I then went to change Callie's outfit and I came back to find Brayden sitting on top of Callie. Don't worry she wasn't injured. Notice the smirk on his face, stinker!!!