Big Girl Bed

We got Hannah's new big girl bed and she's been sleeping in it for about a week and a half now. The transition has actually gone MUCH smoother than I expected. In fact she might even be sleeping BETTER in the big girl bed than in her crib! She's at least doing just as well. She really likes her bed and finds reasons to sit and lay on it during the day and doesn't even put up much of a fuss when it's time to go back to her room for a nap. Now, she still cries usually when we leave the room and gets out of bed and goes to the door, but she usually gets back in her bed on her own and falls asleep on her own. Yesterday she even covered herself up with her blanket! Today, however, she didn't nap at all and alternated crying with dragging all of her onesies out and putting them on over her head! Consequently she fell asleep during her bedtime routine with Kyle tonight because she was so tired. So far we've been able to keep her in her room by simply closing the bottom half of her dutch door, but that may not be enough soon. Yesterday while playing in her room with a friend she managed to open her door by turning the doorknob by herself twice in a row. I watched her do it with a sense of panic that our easy transition to the big girl bed was about to end, but so far she has not duplicated the feat today even when she was attempting to get out during nap time. I also remembered last night that when Kyle put the second door knob on the door he reversed the bottom knob so that the lock is on the outside. So, if we have to, we can lock her in at nap time and bedtime and still leave the top part of her door open for emergencies.

Last week Hannah stayed with her friend Addie for the first time alone and she did great. I was nervous since she hasn't had very many babysitters (pretty much just Evelyn's parents and Mamaw and Papaw since she's been old enough to realize we weren't around), but I shouldn't have worried at all. She's getting a lot more flexible and she loves Kim (Addie's mom) so even though she'd never stayed at their house or been all by herself with Kim for more than a few minutes she stayed pretty relaxed and even went down for bed at a reasonable time!

Hannah's big girl bed has been helping her perfect a new skill, jumping and actually getting both feet off of the ground. She's been working on jumping ever since she started gymnastics back in October, but she hasn't really been very successful at getting both of her feet off the ground at the same time. Since she got her big girl bed she has learned that she can stand on the mattress and hold onto the foot board with both hands and bounce up and down. She's gotten some serious airtime and that has helped boost her confidence I think and help her learn what it really feels like to jump. She's been practicing a lot on the ground and can now actually manage to get both feet off the ground about 30 % of the time. Whenever she does it she gets this huge grin on her face and tells herself "Nice Try!"

The more Hannah learns how to do things herself the more insistent she gets about doing them herself EVERY time. So, I've been trying to use this to my advantage by giving her more and more responsibilities around the house. She's had the job of helping feed the animals and been responsible for helping put her toys away for quite some time now and she's always loved helping push the laundry baskets to the living room so that we can take them downstairs to the laundry room, but now I've started giving her some things that she is responsible for doing all by herself without my help. For example, we put up a coat hook for her that she can reach and taught her how to hang her coat and hat up. Now she is responsible for taking off her coat and hanging it up by herself whenever we get into the house. She's also responsible for putting her dirty clothes in her clothes hamper and for putting away her clean onesies, socks, and PJs in the right bins in her Nemo organizer. She knows where everything goes and puts things away as I'm folding. It's actually a big help because it eliminates a step for me and then we can get back to playing sooner. She's also responsible for taking her dirty clothes hamper into our room once it's full and sorting out the whites and colors into the appropriate laundry basket. This may be her favorite chore of all because once she's done she ALWAYS asks for more and sometimes gets upset if I tell her there isn't anymore laundry left to sort.

Speaking of clothes, Hannah's starting to strip off her clothes whenever she gets a chance. She's mastered taking off her socks and pants and and any jacket or sweater that has a zipper and just the other day she surprised us by taking a shirt completely off by herself. It seems like as soon as I get her fully dressed she starts the process of undressing. Fortunately she hasn't figured out how to undo the snaps on the bottom of her onesies yet otherwise I'm convinced I'd be finding her stark naked and peeing on the carpet quite regularly since she really loves being naked. To be fair, she's also quite interested in dressing herself as well as undressing. She's able to get her head in the right hole of a shirt or onesie pretty much all of the time and can sometimes even get her arms in the right holes as well. She knows the theory of how to put on socks and shoes, but gets quite frustrated as she attempts it and usually ends up chucking a sock or a shoe across the room because of her impatience. Pants are pretty hit or miss. She can often get both legs in the right holes, but lacks the coordination to stand up and pull the pants up over her butt without falling and doesn't quite understand why they won't pull up while she's sitting down! Now, if she already has pants on and has pulled them down while she is standing up then she can usually pull them back up on her own, but that's about as far as she can go with that.