All By Himself

This morning when I went in to Blanden's room to get him up for the day, I discovered that he had put his snow boots on all by himself! All velcroed up and on the right feet too! These aren't the greatest pictures -- by the time I ran downstairs to grab my camera and came back up he was coming out of cuddling mode, but he was quite proud of himself -- as he should be!

A note here on Blanden's sleeping arrangement. As you may remember, in January we posted about trying out Blanden's new big-boy bed. That went well for the first few days, then progressively and quickly went downhill. He began coming into our room in the middle of the night and waking up very early in the morning and overall seemed scared again to sleep on his own. After about three weeks, he (very happily) went back to the portable crib.

It turns out, last week Blanden's crib was recalled. So we suppose it's a good thing he only ever slept in it for five months (to recap: he slept with us until he was 10 months old and then fell out of his crib at 15 months old), and it's a good thing we weren't planning on using it for Ellis right away anyway (we are very much hoping Ellis takes to the bassinet in our room).

So next time we'll take our cue from Blanden himself as to when is the right time to transition. He likes to play on his toddler bed, and he's getting more curious about it, but for now he seems perfectly content exactly where he is. He's sleeping soundly for 10 1/2 to 11 hours, then happily turns on his CD player, pulls the books off his shelf, and reads and listens to music and plays with his stuffed animals on his own for 30 to 45 minutes each morning. (And considering that Mommy and Daddy are relishing our last couple of weeks of uninterrupted nighttime sleep, we are quite content with this situation too!)