Who's Sleeping in There?

Well, if you are asking about our boys' room, the answer is simple. No one. No one is sleeping. Unless it is close to 11:00PM. See, as exciting as potty training is, we decided to move Benjamin into a big boy bed this week also. (Oh, and did we mention we also took away Abby's pacifiers this week? Nothing like doing it ALL at once, right?) Now, Benjamin has been climbing in and out of his crib forever. Usually not so much at bedtime. There was always a lot of chattering and sometimes Noah would get in the crib, but they would eventually settle down and go to sleep. It would appear we are in a while new ballgame now. Everyone is out of bed, or jumping on the beds, laughing, fighting, coming downstairs, going to the bathroom. You name it, they are doing it - except sleeping of course. If anybody has any suggestions on keeping kids in bed OR just going to sleep at a reasonable hour, we are all ears. We are all about them having fun in their bedroom (that's half the reason we have them in the room together) but if they could enjoy their company in half the time, it would be wonderful. And here is another question... how is it they only want to play with each other [nicely] after lights out? They just keep us guessing...

Now on to the big boy bed. We took Benjamin and Abby to Nebraska Furniture Mart to buy a new mattress. He never once asked what we were buying it for. (Noah wasn't even in the car yet when he asked about it. Just another of their obvious differences...) We finally told them after dinner that we were taking down the crib. They were so excited. Everybody grabbed tools and went to work. There are not any more pictures until everyone was in bed because it took all the hands to had to keep people from getting hurt. We asked them to stay out of the room and off the piles of mattresses because someone was going to get hurt, yet everytime we turned around there they were. Somehow, we made it through with only one bloody nose. (And it was not the one we were worried about sleeping in the new bed, if you must know...) The boys really wanted to sleep side by side. We humored them the first noght while we had a few apprehensions. The boys are sleeping in Christopher's old beds and the frames are so big there is a giant gap in between the mattresses. We were a little leary about someone jumping down the hole. We tried to have a swearing in ceremony for the new bed. The rule was to stop jumping long enough for to ceremony AND to not jump from bed to bed. This is how well that went.
Eventually, they went to sleep. While they seemed pleased with the arrangements, we thought it took up too much of their floor space so the next night we switched it up a bit. (So Noah has never slept with an animal - perhaps there is no room with all of his nite-nites. Benjamin seems to find someone new each day that he adds to his collection.) Now it is just one long jumping bed - still with the giant hole between mattresses. So far, no accidents. No sleeping either... But no accidents. Gotta find some positive, right? Oh, and Abby was entertaining herself in her room while we worked. She cleaned out her book basket and made herself a new seat. Very inventive, this one.