The Eby Shuffle

Call it early nesting, but last week I decided it was time to start moving kids and getting the babies room started. After a lot of hemming and hawing we decided that putting the boys back together would be the best solution, at least for now. Rylan has been on the difficult side and we thought if we put her with Brenden it might totally screw her up or she might mess Brenden up. When we went to Cleveland she was staying up until almost 10pm when she shared a room with the boys and that's not fair to Brenden when he has to go to school in the morning. We also thought about putting Jake in the basement, but the room is tiny, has no windows, and is open to the rest of the basement. This might be an option when Jake is older when we could close the room off and do some other things to "add" space, but for now it didn't seem right for a 7 year old.

So after we talked with the boys about our plan they were ready to get things going, and so I did. We had moved Jake into a queen sized bed when we moved here and he was quite attached to the extra space. So to keep Jake in the bigger bed I took out the bottom twin bed and put in a queen bed. I used the bed that was in Jake's old room and used the metal bed frame from our guest bed in the basement. I then (with help from Chris) moved the queen guest bed from the basement up to Jake's old room so we would still have an extra bed in what would become the babies room. With Jake, Brenden, and Rylan we had a bed in their baby room that we used on the extra difficult nights and found it to be very helpful. I then switched Jake and Brenden's dressers so that the larger one was with the two boys and the other one would be in Jake's old room as dresser and changing table for the new baby. I also brought Jake's bookshelf from his old room to Brenden's room since there was room for it in the corner by the bunk bed.

The boys room now looks a little like a dorm room to me, but so far its working great. They have a desk for homework, lots of full bookshelves, 2 dressers, and of course the bunk bed. They have been together now for about a week and have been doing great. There have been a few nights of shenanigans, but that's what you get with boys :) Chris and I have also noticed that they seem to be getting a long better when they are playing. Hopefully this will keep up for the next couple of years when we plan to revisit sleeping arrangements - probably give Jake his own room again and have #4 and Brenden share a room with Brenden moving to the queen bed and #4 heading up to the top bunk.

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So with Jake moved it was time to get things going with the babies room. I put up the crib and have been slowly moving in other things. I put on all the bedding a put a couple of stuffed animals in it. The dresser is very slowly getting clothes put in it - I don't have much now, but soon I'll be getting more from my Sister-in-law. I need to buy a lamp for the room and move one of the extra dressers from Rylan's room into the closet for extra storage - we have HUGE closets that will never be filled with hanging clothes. And we have a desk in the basement storage that we will move into Rylan's room once I move the extra dresser.

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Since getting the baby room ready Rylan has been very obsessed with the room. The first couple of days she really wanted to play in the crib and was insisting that the blanket I bought was for her, most certainly NOT for the baby. As the days have passed she's been less insistent on spending time in there and now just talks about the baby crib and the baby blanket. The way she initially reacted made me happy I decided to do all of this so early. It'll give us more time to talk and prepare her for the new baby. Nothing will ever make it totally easy for her (the current baby) to adjust to the new baby, but its obvious that getting Rylan moved to a twin bed earlier this summer and getting the babies room ready now will help with this transition - at least I hope :)