Changes

Adjusting to fall has been difficult for me this year. We've experienced such an abrupt change in temperatures. Mentally, I simply wasn't ready to put away swimwear and pull on coats, socks, and shoes.

So, I couldn't resist getting matching fleecy jammies for the boys this year. Henry likes the footies. Grant was not a fan at first, but he's adapted (How can we be putting away cute baby piggy toes for the season already!)

Another change related to their pj's was transitioning the boys to share a room.

Hhmmm. Backstory a little: when Grant was 10 months old we entered the time period we refer to as "the banishment". He got into such a solid rut of waking in the night and crying for no apparent reason, that we were all rather miserable as no one was getting any sleep. So, we set up his co-sleeper crib in the basement (which is, for the record, fully furnished and rather cozy). I think he cried a bit the first night, even less the second, and by the third night not at all. The rest of the family slept soundly upstairs while Grant worked out these nighttime antics on his own (I felt I'd tried everything and couldn't find a solution. Warm - check. Dry - check. Full tummy - check. Binky - check). Then, he seemed to really like the basement (like I said, dark and cozy). Reacclimating him to the upstairs seemed like it was going to be difficult (but we wanted our TV room back!). 6 months later...

It was a brief and rough transition. 1 week, crying (why? wasn't everyone on a roll with sleeping through the night?), playing (dark became nightlight because of Henry -- and if you can see anything, it must be time to play, right? with a buddy, right? Grant can see Henry and wants to wake him up to play...how to do this...oh yeah, scream really loudly...but, wait, Henry is startled from a deep slumber and he, too, is now crying). The only thing worse than a baby crying in the night is two toddlers crying in the night. But we've ironed out the kinks. Up until recently, everyone has a room buddy in our house, and everyone was sleeping peacefully. That is, until the dreaded "back to school cold" caught us.

Now the kids have been forced to choose between eating and breathing. Or in Grant's case, binky vs. breathing -- which is actually a very close call. That's how much he loves his bink.

Anyway, it works out. The boys are loving having a buddy in the room. It means Henry has company (and we get fewer requests to lie down in his bed with him). Bedtime rituals are shorter now because of the combined kid and story time. Sometimes Grant wakes up Henry earlier than he'd like, but they are so happy to see each other in the morning that it glosses over shortened hour or so of sleep. And, occasionally, there is a little game going on that delays the pitter patter of footsteps seeking our bed...which is even sweeter.