A Long Post After A Long Absence

Jillian's room has served many functions since Brandon and I moved into this house in August 2005 (Wow! Has it really only been 3 years?) It started off as my studio. By the middle of 2006 it was converted into my studio/ Jillian's nursery. Shortly after Brandon left for deployment at the end of 2007, Jillian started sleeping with me in my room (I just felt safer having her close to me) and her room, by default, became the storage place for all things that didn't have a better place to go. Now Brandon will be coming home on leave soon (in about 7 days!), so I've spent the past few days converting the room (yet again) into Jillian's big girl room so that she can sleep in her own bed.

I started by completely emptying and sorting out Jillian's closet. In the closet were boxes that I hadn't opened since I moved into this house when I left my house in Savannah after college. I went through every box and threw a lot of random things out and found proper places for the other things (mainly old artwork, art supplies and shoes!). Then I went through each and every bag and box in the room and sorted all their contents. That sorting took a whole day! Today I finished packing away nursery items (which made me kind of sad) and completely emptied the room of everything but the crib. (I can't bring myself to take the crib down. My baby is growing up way too fast!)

Then, since everything else that had been entertaining Jillian in the room was gone, the crib caught her attention. "I'm a baby!" she said, and lifted her arms for me to put her into the crib. As soon as her feet hit the mattress, her legs turned to springs! "I jumping! I jumping!" she yelled and giggled as she flew up and down from one end of the crib to the other. "I fall down!" she said as she repeatedly lost her balance and landed on her butt and bounced right back up again. What a crazy, hyper, funny child I have!

After the jump-a-thon I vacuumed the room while Jillian, terrified of the vacuum, stood outside the bedroom door peeking her head in and saying "All done, Mommy! All DONE, Mommy!" Once the floor was all clean, I put the crib mattress on the floor. Then the jump-a-thon was shortly relived before we put Jillian's big girl sheets, blanket and pillow along with her bedtime cuddly toys on the mattress and called it her new "bed." She seemed pleased, and we went to have a pizza dinner in front of the TV.

We watched Ghost Hunters International and half of Project Runway Season 5 before I decided I'd better go and start what I expected to be a long process of getting her to sleep in her own bed. I changed her diaper, cleaned her up a bit, put her jammies on her and put her in her bed. Then I simply said "Goodnight, I love you" and walked out. She said "I love you too" and that was (surprisingly) all I heard from her. I went to check on her 20-30 minutes later and she was totally knocked out! I was so excited! I took some pictures and left her to sleep, wondering how long it would be before she would wake up crying for me.

Just about 20 minutes ago (about 10:30pm), as I sat here chatting online with a friend and saying how excited I was about Jillian sleeping in her own room, I heard an odd thumping sound and Jillian came strutting into the living room. She walked straight over to the box of pizza sitting on her little table, opened it and said "Oh, a pizza. Look at this!" She took a piece and started eating and said "Good morning!" I just looked at her and started laughing and she said "Are you okay, my Mommy?" At least she didn't cry when she woke up alone!

Now she's sitting on the couch next to me picking off and eating all the black olives from the pizza and saying "Watcha doing? Nothing?" She's had a power nap, and I'm tired... It looks like we've got a long night ahead of us afterall!

Here are some pictures of her sleeping in her new "bed" for the first time (even if it was only for a couple of hours!).