Good night babies, hello big kids.

First off, I DO realize it's a new month and that I don't HAVE to blog. BUT....today was a big day. Today, right before my eyes, my babies turned into big kids. Daddy turned their cribs into big kid beds today. Sniff...sniff...tissue please. We knew it was necessary earlier last week, but I was really hoping we could make it to Friday since interrupted sleep is pretty much a guarantee and I didn't want to have to be up early for work. So today was the day.

After nap time, Brian went up and took the side rails off.

Mary and I took the kids up to their room to see their new beds and get "the feel" of things. They were super excited at this new development. They took turns bed hopping and checking out everything new in each other's beds. Every so often we'd say "Okay, night night" and they would in fact lay their heads on their pillows. So that gave me a tiny shred of hope that they would still understand that their beds, albeit an invitation to freedom, still meant sleep time.

So they did pretty well in the day time. The interesting thing is this-once Ethan's crib became a bed, he wanted nothing to do with it. He cried when we put him on it. He immediately crawled off and went to Hunter's 'bed.' Luckily, she seemed okay with lying on his bed. We brought over her pink pillows and 8 woobies and and we encouraged her to try out her 'new new bed.' All the while, I'm pretty confident that when it's actually night time, he would go back to his bed.

Ethan on his new bed, checking out the new singular view finder that Aunt Mary brought over totally unaware that it would instantly become THE MOST COVETED TOY EVER. Yeah, those fights went on the whole night.

And then it became bed time.Reluctantly, Brian and I did our usual routine of "Okay everybody, let's go night night! Everybody goes night night!" And up the stairs they all marched. Same as usual, (except that tonight I brought a baby gate with me...)

Ethan was the first one up the stairs which worked out really well because I wanted to see which bed he would head to. And sure enough, he went straight to Hunter's bed and crawled on. Fortunately, she went right to his bed and lay down. We blew kisses, said goodnight, (took a picture) and left the room. And then we waited. Upstairs in the hallway, Brian and I sat. With the camera and a watch. And we waited. And waited. And waited. And finally, after 15 minutes of absolutely no movement, we went downstairs. It remained completely quiet for 28 minutes. Then we heard Ethan standing at their bedsides saying, "Where are you?" Well that invited a few minutes of laughing and chit chatting, but with one reminder yell from dad from downstairs to "GO to Sleep!" They all lay back down and are still quiet. So it's been 51 minutes so far and there is no sound coming from their room....

Perhaps this won't be as bad as we imagined?? Is that really possible? Anyhoo, I'm just going to sit back and listen for the Thuds of Bunchkins rolling off their beds. Goodnight friends.

(Notice the sign above Ethan's bed in the middle)