UNSACKED AND UNCAGED

James' new room is complete. He has fresh paint, room-darkening drapes, and a brand-new mattress. On the floor. This weekend (starting Saturday night, so as not to disrupt the weekday routine), we moved him from his crib in his nursery, all the way downstairs, to his new mattress in his new "big boy room". Here are a few before/remodel pictures of the old guest room:

(Man, we really hated that steely-blue color, and the paint was SUCH bad quality!)

This is an in-progress photo of the magnetic wall Jay made for James:

And here the first coat of "Candid Blue" (nice and bright!) hits the wall:

Jay worked really hard on James' new room. I could tell he wanted it to be PERFECT before we moved him in, just like the nursery (way back when). The magnet wall he added was such a great idea! We'll get pictures of that finished product a little later (Jay is making a frame for it, so James will know where the magnets stick). He also replaced all the socket covers (for once the DIY wiring of the previous owners didn't make him scream) and the closet doors (so that James wouldn't be pinching his fingers in bifolds). I am SO happy with the outcome! By the way, we moved all James' decorations and some of his bedding down from the nursery (keeping with the pirate theme we love) and the furniture is a hand-me-down from his Daddy (the same bedroom set Jay grew up using - though the bunk beds are on hold for a few years). The only addition we still plan to make (excluding the magnet wall frame, of course) is the "repurposing" of James' crib bumper. I had a fun idea to cut it up and make pillows out of it, and since I have ZERO sewing skills, James' Grandma was gracious enough to work on it for us. I'll definitely post photos of the new pillows once they're complete!

For now though, here is a round-about view of James' new room: Here is a close-up of the photo Stephen sent James for his new room, all the way from Maui. He took it himself, of course, on one of his daily snorkeling trips. We like to show the print to James and tell him that his Uncle Stephen and Auntie Robyn live with the sea turtles now.

This is the view James sees from his new bed (notice the location of the baby monitor... we tried hanging it high above the mirror, so we could survey the entire room, but found we needed to see our baby up-close at night to feel assured he was safe - and you can also see the furniture straps Jay used to secure the dresser to the wall):

James really loves his new room! We let him play in there all day Saturday as we added the toys and decorations. At first, we think he was just in awe of the fact that he was allowed in the room at all (since we always keep the door shut, except when company is visiting), but as his toys made their way into drawers (the bottom drawers of both dressers hold "noisy" toys - not that he can't get to them, he can, but at least they are "out of sight, out of mind" in the middle of the night), closets (push toys and the giant toybox, holding more "noisy" toys, are behind closed doors for the same reason), and bookshelf (holding only "quiet" toys and books), his enthusiam just grew and grew. It was so fun to see him realize that this was HIS room now and he had free reign to really do as he pleases. And he can go in and out of his room as he pleases, which is a new concept for him, since his nursery was upstairs and required one of us to take him up there (and then stay in there with him).

I think it was harder on us than James the first night, having him so far away. Jay was anxious, just waiting for James to wake up and need him to run downstairs. He even made me sleep with the volume on the monitor turned way up (and I normally don't use the volume at all, since James had previously been sleeping practically outside our bedroom door). I admit that I was a bit nervous too... Would he stay in bed? Would he sleep well? Would he wake himself by falling that 6 inches to the floor? Would he just play with his toys all night? Would we get to him fast enough if he woke up crying in the middle of the night, scared and needing us?

I tell ya, the stresses first-time parents endure are never ending...

Saturday went better than expected though. Luckily, we had weaned James of his sleep sack about 2 months prior, so we didn't have to add that into the mix. He doesn't use a blanket (he literally moves ALL OVER the bed when he sleeps, and he gets tangled every time, so we quit trying), but it's plenty warm here in the south this time of year, so he doesn't need it anyway. We had reinstated bedtime stories. We had even reduced the amount of rocking-to-sleep we were doing. We were ready. James went right to sleep after his 8pm bottle and stayed that way until 1:45am (Jay snuck out around 8:30pm). He had woken a few times prior to that, but put himself right back to sleep after getting comfy again. At 1:45 though, he woke enough to realize he was in a different bed and different room, and he launched himself off his mattress and high-speed crawled to the door. Jay was down there in less than a minute and had him right back to sleep, but then stayed there with him the rest of the night to be sure he slept well. It was cute to watch them both on the monitor, Jay's feet hanging off the end of the mattress and James literally sleeping on top of him!

Sunday night was even cuter though. Jay passed out right along with James at 8pm (we had a busy day, what with the swimming adventure and start of the computer room remodel) and just stayed there all night. Since I was wide awake (I even had ice cream ready, waiting to watch a DVR show with Jay after he got James to bed), I decided to take some photos of the baby (and Daddy) monitor:

(Good thing we bought James a good mattress - ahhh, TempurPedic!)

On Monday afternoon, right on schedule for naptime, James took a nap in his room all by himself (and he even put himself to sleep):

And last night went so well! James was asleep right after his bedtime bottle and slept by himself all night long! We heard him shift positions a few times, and once he either fell out of bed or crawled out of bed after waking up, but we watched the monitor and the little man just climbed right back onto his mattress, snuggled in, and went back to sleep. Jay had to wake him at 7am this morning to get him ready for school!

Finally, I'd just like to note that while the title of this post says UNCAGED (as in, James is no longer in his crib), he is still caged, technically, since his room is gated (to keep him from wandering the house at night). The gate was also suppose to keep the cats out (it has worked for over a year with the nursery upstairs, hence the reason we bought a second one), but Jude decided this new room was too interesting to be kept out of, and she learned to jump over the extra-tall gate! Bummer... Guess we'll just have to keep the door shut, as usual.

Congratulations Bub Bubs, only 15-months-old and sleeping in a big boy bed! We're very proud of you, and also relieved that your baby sister will have a crib available for her when she arrives. You're such a good big brother already!