The Great Room Amalgamation

so we've moved our kids into the same bedroom.  if you want to catch up, all the reasons behind the change is in the last post.

it started out a little rocky, i'm not gonna lie.  there were evenings that colin and i looked at eachother, grinned, and said, "this was a terrible idea."

the process was difficult, in the first place, because of elliott's ikea kura loft bed.  it's been taken apart and put back together 3 times or so now and the screws get a little more stripped every time.  it had to be fully taken apart this time as well just to move it 15 feet away.  i'll sugar coat it and say that this was a challenge for colin.  after some sweat, a couple glasses of cold water, a large beer (and maybe some swearing under his breath) elliott's bed was set up in molly's room.  i was so happy with the look of it, the window isn't centered to the room but when both beds are tucked in opposite corners the window is centered to the beds.  their dressers both fit at the feet of their beds, and molly's table and chairs fit nicely in between with their book shelf.  it all felt really meant-to-be so we were pleased.

then came the problem: miss molly went from being the easiest to put to bed to the most difficult to go to sleep.  i think she was so excited to have an overnight visitor in her room that she was too interested to sleep.  she'd yell, elliott wouldn't be able to go to sleep and he'd come out complaining, one of us would go in and tuck elliott back in bed, meanwhile molly was yelling so we'd go over to tuck her back in, meanwhile elliott would call us back over to his bed where we'd whisper hushes to him, and once again molly would yell... and on it went.  for a week or so.

the good news was if molly woke up during the night elliott would sleep right through it all.  the bad news was that if elliott woke up during the night molly would too.  they both went back to sleep easily though.  another challenge was with elliott waking up in the morning.  he has a clock and knows he can't come out of his room until the time starts with a 7.  so he'd come out, but not quietly.  then she'd wake up, which was a negative because we were used to her sleeping until 8:30 and if colin's already gone to work she won't let me shower.  and i need my shower to feel happy.

anyway, it's been about a month now, maybe, and it's going well again.  they've both gotten back into their routine sleep patterns, we've been putting her to bed a solid 20 minutes before him and she's in a deep sleep by the time he comes to bed, so she doesn't yell and he stays very quiet.  they're both sleeping through the night again, thank goodness!  he's also learned to sneak out very quietly in the morning so she can sleep until her usual 8:30.  it's sane again in our home.

elliott's old bedroom is now a playroom/home office, which is kinda nice.  the upside is our computer is now out of our living room and it feels more spacious in there now.  the downsides are that elliott won't play in the now playroom because he's still afraid of the silly noisy furnace fan.  he won't play quietly with lego on the stair-landing during molly's nap any more (his favourite thing to do before the "fire") and he won't play his pbskids.org games on the computer either (his other favourite past time, and mine if i want to watch a show he can't watch with me).  we've come up with other quiet-time activities for him, but it's sad that he's so afraid.

we've followed all the supportive suggestions we've found online and all that's left is time, i guess, for him to get over the trauma.  sigh.

my parents turned on their fireplace the other night and elliott said to my mom, "um, i'm kinda sensitive to fires now..."  he's so cute.

i'd love to decorate the office now but i need better storage in here first, can't afford paint yet, and haven't found many inspiring playroom/home office ideas yet.  it's been a busy month!

anyway, that's the update, as promised.  sorry it was so wordy, i tend to ramble!  but that's what blogs are for, right?