The "Big Boy" Bed...

All in all, things are going pretty well with Owen's big boy bed. Please read this post through to the end to make sure you get the WHOLE story...

Here it is the first morning when Owen saw his new bed. Mike had started putting it together the night before but it wasn't done by his bedtime, so he had one last night in the crib. When he woke up, he was so excited to try it out!!!

Lola was excited to try out the new bed, too!

This was his first night... He piled up his whole basket of stuffed animals into his bed. He called out to us crying, " There's no room for Owen." So we moved all of the animals off to the side and made room for Owen. Also, Owen has been pacifier free since moving into the new bed!!! Mike had been trying to take it away since Owen turned one and I had given it back after several days of no sleep and lots of tears on more than one occasion. This time, when we told him that his pacifier could not go into his big boy bed, Owen said, "Oh." He has asked for it back several times throughout the last week, but is very accepting of the fact that it is gone. Kind of amazing, but I just had a feeling it wouldn't be so hard when he was actually ready...

So, overall, things have been going pretty well. Since he figured out how to climb out of the crib, he has been getting up at 6ish every morning instead of his old wake-up time of 8-8:30. This is a little unfortunate, but, Mike has been throwing him in the jogger a couple of mornings a week to go for a run. It is great for Mike to get the exercise, for Owen because he loves to "go fast" in the jogger, and for me because I get to sleep in until 7:30 or so!

This morning, Owen came into our room around 3:45. He has done this one other morning since the transition to his new bed. Last time I put him back into bed and sang a couple of songs and he went back to sleep for awhile longer. I assumed this would work again, so I took him back to his bed, sang the songs, and told him to go back to sleep. I thought it had worked and I went back to bed. I must have closed our door. He came into our room at 5:15 and crawled up in between Mike and I with the camera and said, "I took pictures." Here are the pictures. The time stamp doesn't show up, but it does in our Picasa gallery so I thought I'd share them with you...

4:12 am

(a picture of his foot, he's sitting on the couch)

4:15 am
(looks pretty dark in the living room)

4:17 am

4:22 am
(Of course Mike was very proud he turned on Sportscenter)

4:29 am

So, you can imagine how surprised we were when we woke up and realized that he'd been up and roaming around the house for maybe even an hour and a half. He didn't take any pictures after 4:34, so there is definitely about 45 min of unaccounted for time. And he had to climb on top of our desk to get the camera out, in the dark. Thank goodness he didn't hurt himself or get into anything dangerous (that we know of.) Our house is pretty Owen-proof, but you never know. This afternoon we went to Target and bought the baby gate that looked the least likely for him to be able to climb over. We'll let you know how things go in the morning!