Tuesday, February 18, 2014

February

Did some rearranging again.  We’ve lived in this house less than 6 months and already all three boys have slept in 3 different rooms, and Hollyn in 2 – twice each. Lol.

It’s been hard to decide how to arrange everybody.  I want both the littlest ones upstairs with me.  I don’t really want them together though. But if I split them and make Asher or Brennan share with one or both of them, then there’s a good chance Hollyn/Kieran will be woken up and wanting to be gotten up when Asher/Brennan gets up for school.  That’s why for a long time Brennan and Asher shared the downstairs bedroom.  Between the fact they’re just a little big to be sharing a twin-sized bed, (not that they minded, but it bothered Brian mostly, lol), and acquiring the piano which caused us to move downstairs furniture around – it was time to come up with a better plan.

I put the boys in the bunkbed room and moved Hollyn in with Kieran.  After much, MUCH thought the bed I chose for her is a junior loft bed.  The height is lower than a regular bunk bed – a perfect height for tucking your child in.  I planned to put a dresser or two underneath, but didn’t get that far.  I wasn’t loving the way things were going with Hollyn and Kieran sharing.  Hollyn was often waking up at night (maybe from Kieran’s sounds?) and turning on the light, which would wake K up and make him cry of course.  Or when he’d wake up at night to eat, she’d wake up too and try to talk to me, get up, etc.  The mornings were nice though because Hollyn’s presence did stall Kieran.  He’d watch her in interest, and I’d buy myself a little more time before getting up with them.

After the loft bed came and I set it up (all by myself, thank you very much!), Hollyn spent all of, like, two nights on it because I came up with a new plan.  I flip-flopped the kids.  I moved Hollyn BACK into the bunkbed room, put a mattress under the loft so that Brennan and Asher now use it as a bunkbed, and moved Kieran in with Hollyn, but into the closet!!!  Genius!  It’s exactly what was needed – they’re sharing the room, technically, but the walls and partially closed closet door offer enough buffer that Hollyn and Kieran don’t wake each other up anymore.  In fact, we’ve put them both down for nap times at the same time on several occasions.

It’s not perfect – Hollyn at first totally ignored the closet, but lately has climbed in with him.  Or bothers him for a bit then goes out to play elsewhere in the room.  Another problem is that I don’t really want her climbing onto the empty top bunk at this age, but I’m not sure whether or not to go to the effort of stopping her.  Without the mattress up there it actually makes for a pretty tall railing.  And by keeping most of the toys up there for a “play loft” the floor has never stayed cleaner.  So that’s a perk.

 

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One day during a joint “nap” time, (and Hollyn stopped napping a looooong time ago.  Or rather, she doesn’t usually fall asleep but if she does it’s not before 4:30 or 5.  Always.) we heard a terrible banging.  Brian went to check and found Hollyn in Kieran’s crib with him, shaking it.  But he left them to it. 10 minutes later when I went to rescue Kieran I found them both sound sleep.  That’s Hollyn’s head poking out from a blanket.  I wonder what it’s like to grow up with a Hollyn for a big sister. *shudder*

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She still loves coloring on herself.  I wont be sorry for this phase to end, if it ever does.

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On the second “snow day”, the previous day’s snow iced over.  Asher attempted get me to check out how weird the snow was, but was busy with Kieran and was like, “yeah, yeah… snow feels cool…”  Finally that evening I stepped outside to see how amazing everything looked with the light shining through the iced-over world.  At that point I finally touched the snow and was shocked.  I was knocking my hand on the snow covering the bushes and it held firm.  Everything was SO sparkly, it was so cool!  Neither Brian or I could take any pictures that did it justice.

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Ice encasing everything

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She became pretty upset when I wouldn’t let her go out and play in the snow, at night, without pants and underwear on.

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The lights bounced off the clouds and snow creating a nice glow.  This picture was taken around midnight.

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Monday was the third snow day so we avoided some cabin fever by going to Grandma’s.  The snow was perfect that day for building and snowballs.  I helped the boys roll up some snow until it was too heavy to budge.  They were enjoying climbing on it, so to help them out I made another ball and moved it over to be a step.  Except the end result was a giant snail.  My mom laughed about how she was probably the only one in town with a giant snow snail.

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And yes, we did have a nice snowball fight before going in Smile

1 comment:

Kelly said...

So the snail - LOVE. I want one.

Your daughter trying to play outside practically nekked - another laugh out loud moment.

She cracks me up.