Bedtime......

Well, we've entered a fun new phase. (I use the word "fun" very loosely.) For months, we have had a child-proof lock on the inside of Caleb's bedroom door. This may seem odd to those of you without children so I'll explain. When toddlers sleep in beds that they can get out of themselves (aka, any bed that isn't a crib), they typically like to get out of their bed---and their room---several times a night. To avoid this, we put a plastic thingy-bobber (not sure if that is the technical term?) on the inside of his door so he couldn't open the door by himself. This has worked very well for months. It's not like we were trapping the poor kid inside--we had a monitor on the whole time he was in his room so we would get him as soon as he would wake up in the morning or if he woke up in the middle of the night, etc. Anyhoo, we took the "lock" off the door so Caleb could go to the bathroom in the middle of the night if he needed to. To us, this just seemed like a logical idea. To Caleb, this means FREEDOM. For the past three nights, Caleb has successfully gotten out of his room and hollered to us from the top of the stairs. Not once a night. Not twice a night. At least three times every evening for the first two hours after we put him to bed. I even created a monster in him because I was tired last night and I let him cuddle with me in bed, then carried him into his room when he fell asleep. Blame it on the tired mom! Sorry! (Actually, I'm the one who's sorry tonight because that is what he has been asking me to do every time I go upstairs to put him back in his room. "But, but, but, but, I want to sleep in Mom and Dad's bed.") Well, tonight, Caleb took it to the next level. He came out of his room about 30 minutes after his bedtime. He stood at the top of the stairs and let us know that he was there. After numerous threats on our part, Chris went up to check on Caleb and came down with a smirk on his face. "He made a nest on our bed," Chris said. I waited for a couple minutes, then went upstairs to check out said 'nest'. What I found had me enraged yet laughing at the same time: Caleb had gone into Hannah's room where the poor, unsuspecting baby was sleeping, turned on her light and got right into her crib with her. I couldn't believe he had done all this while her monitor was sitting right next to me! I should have heard them! I should have heard Hannah's angry cry from being woken out of a blissful slumber! I had to physically cover my mouth when I walked into her room because I thought I might burst out laughing. Caleb was in Hannah's crib with her---blue blanket and all---and Hannah was still completely asleep. She apparently didn't even twitch when Caleb climbed into her bed and probably kicked her in the head in the process. Caleb got a scolding and was put back in his bed and Hannah was very thoroughly checked out (by me) to see if she was okay. What a lesson we learned tonight! There are three big lessons that stick out in my mind:

1. Caleb will ALWAYS take it to the next level, so be on your toes!

2. Always put one of the plastic thingy-bobbers on the outside of a sleeping baby's room so their older siblings can't go in there and wake them up.

3. Man, Hannah is one hard-sleeper! :)