Success! (So Far...)

Well, we did it! We put Jackson down for his nap today in his big-boy bed for the first time. He did GREAT!!! Not a peep out of him for a little over two hours! We were very happy, but I have to admit I was a little bit sad to walk past the nursery during naptime and see an empty crib. Sniff, sniff. How did he get to be almost two years old already?? The success with this new sleeping situation certainly helps alleviate some stress (although we fully realize that he may have some issues in the coming days/weeks and have not raised the crib mattress up to newborn level yet). I was really worried about J having sleep issues in his new bed with a newborn in the house, and I wanted to be able to keep the crib in the baby's room and out of J's room for aesthetic reasons. :) Hopefully by the time the baby gets here all quirks will be worked out and everything will be back to normal.

I just took a break from writing this to put J to bed, and he cried a little bit when I left the room this time, probably because it's darker in there now than it was at naptime. He's quiet now and I feel like I'm sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear if he's going to cry again! We don't want him to be scared in there, but we really want him to get used to it. It's so hard to know if we're doing the right thing!

Speaking of the two rooms, they are finally finished. Hooray! It felt a little weird today for Phil and I to not have any projects to take care of. Here is the new baby's room...

We're pretty sure about the name, but nothing is set in stone yet. We can buy new letters if we need to! Now that I'm looking at this picture, the last three letters look a little crooked to me. Better fix that!

And here is Jackson's room...

When we ask him, "Where's the cowboy?" he laughs and points at the picture of John Wayne.
It's hard to tell from the pictures (kind of just looks like white paint), but Phil put beadboard wainscoting all around the bottom of the room. I just wanted to give a shout out to him for doing such a great job on that, and the crown and chair rail. We had to put his bookcase in the closet b/c the furniture is so big and we have that huge window on the one wall. It works out pretty well, though... I like being able to shut the door on the book and Lego mess! :)This is J's "cheese" smile. He just started doing that!

Okay, baby, we're totally ready for you! I, for one, am more than ready - it feels like he's running out of room in there and I'm constantly being assaulted from the inside! :) Only one month to go, though, and I think I can take it.

We visited the hospital today to check out the labor and delivery department and were very pleasantly surprised! They actually call it the "Family Birthing Center" and it really seemed to be very family-oriented and less... clinical, maybe? than our last hospital. It seemed very clean and quiet and the rooms were large and newly remodeled. There are only single rooms (no sharing) and that was a big relief! Another thing we were happy about is that we won't have to switch rooms after I deliver. With Jackson we had to move out of the "delivery" room to a "recovery" room almost as soon as he popped out, and that was kind of rough. At this hospital we get to stay in the same room until we're discharged. One last good thing - they're very big on keeping the baby with mom and dad. Last time, Phil and I were pretty adamant about me being able to hold and feed Jackson immediately after he was born, and we pretty much had to fight for that. Luckily, my nurse (and good friend), Tracy, ran interference for us so that I could feed J for a few minutes before they took him away. Here they let you hold the baby for as long as you want after delivery and even bathe him, clean him up, put on the eye goop, etc. in the same room. So the whole thing sounded pretty good to us - hopefully it will be a good experience!