Look Who's A Big Boy Now

Look who's a big boy now! That's right my baby is now in a big boy bed!

This is a work in progress - as we are going to pain the rails in the center of the head/foot boards some sort of "baseball" colors, and the knobs on each corner will transform into a baseball as well. We are just waiting to locate some accessories that "scream" baseball.

Unfortunately there isn't much (affordable or age appropriate) on the market at the moment. I'm hoping things change once baseball season hits in a few months.

He looks so small when he sleeps in his new bed. My baby is growing up.

So there's some drama as to how this bed came together - I share it because I'm hoping Dave can laugh at it now....

On Saturday morning while Dave was putting this together, Drew and I stopped over at GG's for a bit. We finally had a break in the week-long rain, and Daddy thought despite feeling a little under the weather he'd take advantage of a kid free house and get this bed together.

Drew and I got back shortly before this task was completed. The last task - to get the board for the mattress to rest on... So off to Home Depot Daddy went. When he left the skies were clear (see where I'm going with this?), and when he left Home Depot not 15 minutes later it started sprinkling. Now we live a whopping 1 mile at most from Home Depot - and in the time it took Dave to tether the board to the top of the car and get home - it started pouring!

I open the door to a cursing husband (needless to say I shut the door on him so our little mimic of a 2-year old doesn't pick up any more potty mouth) and Dave asks for towels and a blow dryer. Yes, Dave was in the backyard, wiping down and blowdrying a piece of wood!

Finally it was dry enough to put on the bed, and we assembled everything.

The cruelest part of the joke - after we assembled the bed, and Dave went to go outside to clean up the towels and mess... the sun was shining bright as could be! (I still laugh at this one!)

In Transition

What's different about this room?

For starters, the crib is MIA. That's right, we've officially removed the crib. Since Drew's 2 year well visit last month, Drew's slept on the crib mattress on the floor (if you recall he'd developed a bad habit of sleeping in our bed - and he became phobic about his crib). Despite following Dr.'s orders we kept the crib assembled. One because I was hoping Dave would take it down, and two, I haven't had a chance to do it myself.

Well after weeks of waiting for Dave to make the move, I had to take things into my own hands. The crib which has called this room home since I was about 14 weeks pregnant, was disassembled, by me (if you want anything done, you've gotta do it yourself, right?).

So until we find a big boy bed for Drew, he'll continue to sleep on the floor on his crib mattress. At the moment he's not complaining too much - and I'm being picky about the furniture that will call this room home next (I want a trundle bed that matches all the current furniture in this room).

In the process of taking down Drew's crib, I had a purging experience. All the "baby" toys were put away for storage in the attic/garage. I went through the toys in the front room and Drew's toy box, and came out with this:

Believe it or not that blue tote is filled to the brim with rattles, teething rings, and other baby toys. Do I have my house back? Not by a long shot, but at least it doesn't look like Toys R Us completely threw up in our house.

So while I'm happy to have things thinned out around here, I'm sad to see the end of yet another phase. My baby boys is now a big boy. *Sigh*

Naptime Battle

So as I hinted at yesterday, there wasn't much sleeping going on for Drew's first nap attempt on Monday with his crib mattress on the ground. After about 30 minutes this is what we were listening to in between the whining and crying.



After about an hour-and-a-half nap time battle, we gave up. It was a no-nap kind of day.

However I confess that after two nights in his own bed (he's at Camp Grammy & GrampC now) he did remarkably well. We started really working on a bedtime routine of a story or two, and then music CD, and lights out. We've had to lay there for a while while he falls asleep, but he stays in there all night!

The first night (Monday/Tuesday), he woke up around 4am for an hour, and Daddy had to lay down with him. He fell back to sleep at around 5:45, and slept until 8:45... I think a new record. (Daddy did move back into our bed around 6am). Then Tuesday/Wednesday, he slept until 5:30 am, and never went back to sleep. I wouldn't either if I wet through my jammies and onto the bed.

Hair-Raising Wake-Up

Talk about a hair-raising experience!

On Thursday morning I was busy online trying to figure out if Drew's hands could be infected when I hear a chipper little boy calling out "Mommy, Daddy!"

I go into our room (Drew slept with me that night because Dave was in St. Louis) and I found this! The kid was a mess of hair, apparently all that rolling around a CalKing bed will do that to you.

He was so funny about it too, that is until we went to comb it out. Then it wasn't so fun or funny for that matter.

Hands update: On Saturday we changed the bandages (with the help of Grammy) and they looked a million times better than Thursday after the doctor's visit. I'm not sure whether this is because of the new ointment or the new bandages but there's progress!

On his left hand we left all of his fingers exposed so the air can do it's healing thing. On his right hand we left only his his pointer finger covered since that looked really raw yet - and it didn't help the bandage had stuck to it. We only had to put the outer "glove" on his right hand. The left I just taped exceptionally well to almost "cast" it.

Then last night I needed to fix the right glove - Drew poked his pointer finger through the bandage, and it needed to get recovered. In doing that, I noticed one of the other fingers on his right hand wasn't looking great - a little discolored - so we went ahead and covered the whole hand, minus the thumb. And for good measure we rebandaged the left hand. I was hoping to leave that hand completely open now, but there was one area that looked a bit raw and needed a bit more ointment, so we only covered up the palm again.

I think by tomorrow's dressing change the left hand will be bandage free, and his right only the palm will remain covered. FINALLY! Only 2 1/2 weeks later!

Quarantine Lifted

At noon today the quarantine will be lifted - WooHoo! But that still means we have to keep him home from day care, as Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease is contagious for 24 hours after the fever breaks. His temperature was significantly less when Drew woke up on Thursday.

It did appear to be climbing some throughout the morning (he had the nerve to wake up at 4:30am), but by lunchtime he was completely normal. He remained normal the remainder of the day. There are still a few signs that his throat is bothering him, but for the most part he's improving.

So how do you like the makeshift bed? My co-worker Rachael let us borrow this really cool kids inflatable bed/sleeping bag. At first Drew didn't know what to make of it, but finally I managed to get him to enjoy his juice in it. Now if he would only fall asleep here, rather than our bed....

Perhaps there's hope of that now that he's feeling better.