"NEW" BEDS

Verdict says?

So far, so good. It's been almost a week since we moved the kiddos up to their "big kid beds", and the transition was a non-issue. James actually stays in bed now that his mattress is up off the floor with rails to keep him in. He's asked for Cora a few times, and we had to install a couple more nightlights, but other than that bedtime has only gotten easier with him. He looks like such a big boy, yet so tiny in that big bed. Jay and Jean were quite sentimental seeing Jay's old bed put together again, especially with this sweet little boy inside:

And this one here? She just goes right to sleep without argument (as long as we stay in the room and sing to her until she drifts off, of course). The first few nights she kept right on sleeping through the night too, which we were surprised at. Then things changed, and she's been up the past few nights. Potty breaks, falling off her little crib mattress, waking up and not having James/Mama/Daddy in the room... We're working on the falling out of bed issue as we speak (we ordered queen-sized waterproof mattress pads so that we can just move her into the "guest bed", which is the mattress we bought when we got married 8.5-years-ago, and we'll stick pool noodles under the edge of the sheets as "bumpers"), and hope that once we have that solved, she'll go back to sleeping through the night:

And just for fun, a couple bedtime/middle-of-the-night stories...

1) At bedtime the other night I was minding my own business, laying by the door, while simultaneously singing to Cora and playing on my phone. The bright screen blinded me to the rest of the room, and I didn't hear her get out of bed. I suddenly had that feeling of being watched, and when I looked up, she was literally standing with her face mere inches from mine. I screamed SO LOUD. She backed up quickly, stunned, then started maniacally flapping her arms and screaming back at me. Which made me laugh. Hysterically. Which ticked James off (he had been nearly asleep) and he came looking for me, telling me "No Mama! No laughing! Stop laughing right now!" It required substantial snuggling and 45 more minutes to get the kids to bed. My bad. 

2) Last night, Cora woke up as usual (without a peep) and walked to the bottom of the stairs. It was at that point that she suddenly grabbed the gate and shook it violently while screaming, jerking me from a very deep sleep around 1:00am. And somehow Jay slept through it as I leaped out of bed and rushed downstairs to calm her. Unluckily for him though, it was his night for Cora Duty, so I woke his booty up and sent him on his way with her. I hear she was up for an hour and half...