A Weekend of Milestones

This past weekend was a busy one for our family.  After Thanksgiving Day we ran errands and cleaned out rooms in the house.  Looked for a new car and put up Christmas decorations.  We got a lot of things done, including getting a new toddler bed for Lana, and getting Georgia to start walking...sort of.  

Georgia has been taking steps for a couple weeks now, but this past weekend she really started to do more.  She would get up on her own and take steps across a room.  She still is mostly crawling, but the walking has begun.  Except for today.  Today I keep trying to get her to walk and she looks at me with no clue.  Then when I try to stand her up to make her walk, she takes a few steps and falls back on her butt.  She gives me a look as if to say,

"Yeah-I know I did that walking thing for a bit, but I'm all done with that now.  This crawling is WAAAAYYY faster."

Then she hurries away from me on her hands and knees before I can pick her up to make her try and walk again.  Oh well.  I guess I'll save money on shoes for her, but it's going to hell on the knee area of her clothes when she's crawling around at preschool.  

Then there's Lana with her new "big girl bed".  I've been meaning to put her in a toddler bed for a while, but we just weren't sure what we were going to do with the girls room. We thought about bunk beds for a while,  but in the end we decided Lana needed a toddler bed first.  To be completely honest, I've been putting it off for a while, because Lana has never been an easy sleeper, as I may have mentioned before.  So, I was worried about how many sleepless nights it would take before she would stay in her bed.  I finally decided to just go ahead and get it over with.  Really, most of my nights are sleepless anyway, so what difference does it really make?

Yesterday we all went to Babies R Us and purchased her a toddler bed.  She was very excited about the whole thing and we made a big deal about it.  After she woke up from her nap, I took apart her crib and put together the new bed.  (Andy was on the roof putting up Christmas lights so I did this all on my own.  Yes, I'm THAT good.)  She was happy when it was all put together, but seemed a bit apprehensive.  Still, she went over and laid down on it seemingly excited.  The true test came at 7:30 that night.  l

At first she cried, got out of the bed, and crawled around on the floor, but didn't come out of the room.  We would tell her to go back to her bed and she would on her own.  We were very forgiving and loving with her.  I knew it had to be hard to go from the crib, which probably felt safer, to the bed.  I thought it would take forever, especially because this is Lana we're talking about, but nope.  Half hour and she was out.  30 minutes!  That was it!  We couldn't believe it.  She only woke up once in the middle of the night, which is normal for her anyway.  I was amazed!  This morning she called me from her bed.  

"Mooooommmmmyyyy!!  I wanna get up!!" 

"Go ahead Lana," I told her. "You can get up on your own."

I don't think she realized she could do this.  She came out of her room and the best part was she was HAPPY.  I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Lana does not wake up happy, um, ever.  She's usually pretty cranky for the first 15 minutes.  But there she was awake and happy.  Looks like the bed agreed with her.  

Now don't think I'm getting ahead of myself, because I know it was only the first night and we still have a nap to deal with.  As I'm writing this, the nap part isn't going particularly well.  I expected this.  When Sonya first switched to a bed she would play during her nap and I would find her asleep in the middle of her room, twenty minutes before she was supposed to get up.  It lasted about a week, and I assume Lana will be similar.  Right now I can hear her in the room playing.  Every time I walk over to the door I hear her little feet run over to her bed.  I open the door to find her with the covers over her heard and her legs dangling over the guard rail of the bed, giggling hysterically.  The current bribe for her taking a nap today is a lollipop.   

The good thing is, if she doesn't take a nap it's not that big of a deal.  I'll just put her to bed very early.  Hmmmm, that might be a better idea anyway.  

update: She's been in there an hour now and we've moved on to crying for the lollipop. Okay, perhaps the bribe wasn't the best idea, but she's sure to wear herself out soon, right??