A Week of Sleeping in a Big Girl Bed

A week after the move to the big girl bed (aka mattress on the floor), we're back to a pretty good experience. Days one and two were fabulous…days three through six less so. Morgen had a hard time getting to bed after the first couple of nights and got up many times before settling into her bed (one night as late as 7:45pm). Then she got up in the morning between 5:30 and 6am (instead of sleeping until 6:30 or 7am). In the past when she's gone to sleep after 6:30pm, she's gotten up earlier than normal, so that should have been expected I guess. Last night she was asleep by 7pm and slept until nearly 6:30am – I can live with that if it's the new standard.

Morgen is increasing her vocabulary quite a bit recently.

Signs:

• "help"
• "diaper change"
• "baby" (often with kisses or hugs for my belly)
• "bath" (sometimes)
• "shoes" (sometimes)
• Already established – "milk", "up", "down", "more", "all done", "fan", "thank you", "please", "eat"
  

Spoken words:

• "boat"
• "hi"
• "bye-bye"
• "baby"
• "baaa" – the sound made by a sheep or cow (evidently)
• "no" (sigh)
• "ide" – short for outside and said often throughout the day
• Already established – "mama", "dada / daddy", "ball", "bubble", "nana"
  

Recent funnies:

• Morgen loves pictures of herself and of our immediate family. If she sees the computer screen, she signs more, meaning show me more pictures.
  
• She also squeals with joy when she sees the neighborhood park. I've stopped taking the shortcut to the grocery store (or anything near or off 620) unless I plan to go to the park along the way because she's so bummed if we don't stop
  
• The tantrums have begun. Alternating-foot-stomping-screaming tantrums. Sometimes it's hard to keep from laughing. Sometimes it's just hard.
  
• Morgen is getting a bit more social. We had a playdate with cousin Audrey this weekend and today with a little girl just about Morgen's age, and in both cases the girls played together, not just next to each other. It's pretty neat to see.
  

Another schedule change…Morgen has been napping much later in the afternoon this week. Instead of 11ish naps (which was the baseline), she's going to sleep closer to 1pm or 1:30pm. Great timing for starting preschool. We tour another one tomorrow and have gotten more suggestions and information about a few others to research in the coming weeks.

We're heading back to swim class starting this week. She'll be in the littlest kid class this month, but if we continue beyond March we'll get to move up a class. She's so different now from when we took classes last summer that I can't wait to see her in the water.

I met another neighbor with a little one close to Morgen's age and another little one due around the same time as #2, so we're going to try for a little neighborhood playdate. Don't look now, we're on a roll!

Sad news: My grandmother Jessie died last week; my folks went to the funeral and services in Illinois and were able to visit with many family members that we see rarely. Love to the Shooks and the Days. Goodbye, Jessie.