Big Girl Bed!

Larien has officially slept one nap in her big girl bed. Of course, due to having a babysitter (The wonderful T) Larien slept in her crib last night. This is okay as I wouldn't have expected T to keep Larien in her big girl bed. We'll do nap again today in the big bed and later will try the full night sleep.

Here's how it went down: Since Thursday I have been making a ceremony of getting Larien's room ready. I had made curtains when my MIL was here in early June. I put those up with Larien watching. We took out the old desk and computer. The girls went shopping with me on Friday for a purple bed spread (comforter, actually). Both of them helped me put clean sheets on the bed and spread the comforter out.

Yesterday, we got the bed rails back from Loquatia and Perfection Man. For putting these under the mattress Larien and The White Dragon "helped". Of course their form of helping was rolling around on the bed together. Despite their help the bed rails were installed. I then made sure our morning and lunchtime was filled with plenty of playing. We played in our small pool; the girls helped me clean out the Volvo for trade-in at the Dodge dealership; we planted some seeds in the garden; fed the fish; tried to find blueberries that the catbirds had missed; drew on the slate patio with chalk; ran around the house; played blocks. You get the idea--a very full morning.

By nap time Larien was ready to sleep. Instead of just laying her down for nap, I did a bit of our bedtime routine, which is reading books and then rocking. Larien leaned towards the bed while I was rocking, so I followed her signal and set her in bed. She snuggled in next to her large caterpillar (Valentine's Day gift from Daddy) and her Care Bear pillow (a new favorite lovey). I didn't hear a peep out of her.

Why did we have a babysitter? We traded in the Volvo wagon for a (GASP!) minivan, specifically a Dodge Grand Caravan. We'll need the room with a third little one. The girls haven't seen it yet. I'll take them for a ride sometime today. I really want to give a ringing endorsement for the USAA website. We used the feature "Buying a New Car" to determine what we wanted as in features, get the invoice price, and then determine the monthly payment. We also got a great interest rate from USAA as well. So, if you are planning on buying a new car and are a USAA member, log on to the website and use the features. The shopping function was wonderful, all of the numbers agreed exactly to that of the dealer, and the web site is super easy to use.