Shower for Peter-in-the-belly

I have been putting off posting about the AWESOME surprise baby shower Erin, Joslyne, and Alicia threw for Baby Peter last weekend for several reasons: (1) I was completely overwhelmed by the amazing surprise (including my parents flying out all the way from California!), (2) I took no photos at the party, and (3) how do you do justice to something so wonderful? Nothing feels adequate. Both Joslyne and Erin wrote some terrific posts about the party and the preparations, but here are some photos off of my mom's camera:







Peter got some killer presents, and the outpouring of love for our little growing family was amazing. Words cannot express how grateful we are for the shower and how thrilled we are that Peter will be born into such a terrific family and group of friends. Thank you!!!

Curtains

I skipped my nap this afternoon (which I usually take while Charlie Jo sleeps) and finished up the valances for the windows in CJ's room. I'm dying to put her bed up on the frame so we can use the head and footboards, but CJ probably needs a little while longer with the mattress and box springs on the floor.

For One Night Only - TODDLER TANTRUM!

For One Night Only - Playing in Franklin Green and Cannonwood - Your Favorite Punk Band - TODDLER TANTRUM!

By popular demand -- the DIAPER DANCE!

For those of you reading on Facebook, click here!

Reading the Halloween Card

Great-Great Aunt Bev and Great-Great Uncle Leo sent Charlie a Halloween card, so Charlie sat and read it to us before bed.

Once upon a time . . .

And then . . .

The end!

Puh-kin!

We carved Charlie's big "puh-kin" tonight. Not this puh-kin, but the big one.

We set up on the floor, and I realized that this could get messy. So, we got her clothes off.

Charlie was not interested in getting all messy, and instead did her happy diaper dance while I carved.

She kept close, and chatted with us while I carved and Niki shot pictures. She played with the puh-kin tools.

Happy Halloween!

CJ and her new room

Despite the dour look on her face, Charlie Jo loves her new room. We took this shot after we hung up the puffy "Charlotte" letters made for CJ by one of NanaB's friends. Now, the box springs are back and there are white bed rails, and some day we will set up the headboard (along with the rest of the bedframe), which will make the height of the letters make more sense. For now, they look a little high. I have the material to make curtains for the windows and we need to recover the chair currently draped in an old sheet, but otherwise CJ's room is just about complete!



Seeing CJ climb up on her bed and curl up with a book is just about the cutest thing ever. She also loves to drag various stuffed animals up there and then throw them off. Oh Charlie...

SUCCESS!!! -- a post script

Okay, so I may have declared our success with little Charlie Jo and her big girl bed a leeeeeetle bit early. We had some more rolling out of bed issues, so we decided to push the mattress up against the wall on one side and shove some big plastic tubs up against the other side to make a pseudo crib. That took care of the rolling out of bed problem, but her room looked a little like a storage locker.

Then, we had an exciting weekend of houseguests (Auntie Ernie and Cousin Sonia!), and that probably led to some problems getting CJ to sleep through the night. We bought some mesh bed rails and set the mattress back up onto the box springs, but we apparently didn't place the rails close enough to the head of the bed. Somehow, CJ managed to squeeze out of a 16-inch space at the head of the bed (whether on purpose or by accident, we don't know) and fell off the bed again. Once we got the bed rails placed up higher, CJ slept through the night without a single peep.

SO, whereas we didn't have a horrible frantic scene with CJ throwing herself at her old crib and insisting on sleeping in it (or some other scenario forcing us to completely abandon the big girl bed and put her back in the crib), things didn't go quite as smoothly as I thought they might. I'm still so proud of my little baby girl! Oops, I mean my big girl.

SUCCESS!!!

She did it!! Charlie Jo slept through the entire night in her own big girl bed (well the mattress anyway - we even took the box spring out of there since it still seemed to high off the ground!) with only one small hiccup. At about 2:00 am, Corey and I awoke to the sound of crying. We went into her bedroom and found Charlie Jo sitting next to the head of her bed. Did she fall off or crawl off? Who knows.

Regardless, she instantly calmed down when I cuddled her and laid her back down in bed. We sang the usual "pregame routine" (the alma maters of Vanderbilt, Michigan State, Duke, and Placer High School before a final made up song about CJ) to her and left the room again. She never got out of bed or woke us up again for the rest of the night until 8:00 am. At that point, she woke up and cried a little, so I came in and we did our usual good morning routine. This consists of lying in bed (usually mine, but today hers!) together and talking about all sorts of things (Daddy, Pacey, Connie, cars, pumpkins, etc.) until one of us decides it's time to get out of bed. Too bad Corey was already at work because he loves to do this routine on the weekends. (Ah, the life of a lawyer...)

I'm so proud of little Charlie Jo! And to think that I have been stressing for about five full months about this transition...

Another step on the journey toward becoming a big girl

We needed to get Charlie Jo transitioned to a big girl bed in order to clear the crib for Peter's arrival. Step one: clear out the guest bedroom and paint it two shades of purple suitable for a precocious toddler. Joslyne and Demetri came over to help Corey paint while I stayed away from the fumes and watched CJ and ZoZo in the bonus room.




The best part of hanging out with the girls was helping them diaper various baby dolls and stuffed animals over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Here, the girls were trying a synchronized diaper change. Pretty soon after, they demanded more help. Sigh.



Step two: buy CJ a big girl bed (which we set up on the floor without the bed frame until we could be sure CJ wouldn't fall out of it at night). We have been letting her play on it since it was delivered yesterday afternoon so she could get used to it. She absolutely adores it.



Pacey likes it too. He's pretty sure we got it for him.



Step three: Get that toddler to actually sleep in the new bed! Tonight we begin the grand experiment. I couldn't believe that we were able to leave her lying down in the bed with the lights out and didn't hear a tiny fist pounding on the door and a squeaky voice demanding "Mo-MEEE!" within seconds of closing the door behind us. I have the baby monitor on for the first time in many many months (I usually only keep it on upstairs while we sleep so I can hear when she wakes up) and I haven't heard any unusual activity up there. Just an occasional thup-thup-thup of her sucking her thumb. I'm dying to peek in on her but I'm not quite ready to accept the fact that CJ is not my baby anymore. I'm definitely not going to miss hauling CJ's 24+ lbs. in and out of that darn crib though. Cross your fingers and hope the night goes well!

Here's CJ practicing her sleeping skills in her new bed. We'll let you know tomorrow how the night went.

CJ and ZoZo over the years, er, year

CJ loves her BFF, Zoey. They met a little more than a year ago at a mom's group playdate at ZoZo's house.



Sometime later that fall, CJ and I invited Joslyne and ZoZo to our house to play, and the rest is history. Here are the girls in December '08.



They both look totally dour in this next photo, but trust me when I say that by April they were really starting to interact like playmates rather than just playing near each other.



Now, they play little games with each other. Here, they were busting a move in their "boats". Moments before, they were seated, rocking back and forth and giggling like maniacs while we sang "Row, Row, Your Boat."



Can't wait to see how the friendship develops in the years to come!

Little painting monkey

I'm ready to paint! Someone hand me a roller...