I was going to wait to post because I was going to be a good blogger and take pretty pictures to go with it, but I'm feeling like a rebel so you guys get a post with old pictures from a year ago. Gasp! Hahahaha.
Besides, I love looking back at pictures to see how much Nicole has changed. Time, why do you have to be such a cruel, fast-moving thing?!?! At least I'll have another squishy newborn to mug on soon.
I love transitions, mostly. We're in the middle of one of my favorite transitions right now. I embraced and celebrated this new season whole-heartedly yesterday, complete with a chocolate pumpkin spice frappe from The Cocoa Bean, taking a walk out in the misty air in the morning with Nicole, and making our favorite hearty tomato soup to eat for dinner while we sat by open kitchen windows and listened to the rain. I already brought out fall decorations earlier in the month... but now I can "legally" put up Halloween décor, right?! Good, because I started today. #noshame
I love the autumn transition.
If we're buddies on snapchat (ashleykelly23 - let's be friends!) you probably saw me geeking out about all the fall colors up in Provo Canyon when Nicole and I took a drive up Squaw Peak road back on Tuesday. The dorkiness in my voice should give you an idea of my love for the season.
It's a season of other transitions for our family, too. We'll be transitioning to having a second child in just 4 short weeks, give or take a few days. My nesting instincts are really starting to gear up as I contemplate how I can make the transition easier for myself. I keep getting the urge to clean the whole house top to bottom and organize everything really well so I don't have to worry so much about cleaning and whatnot for those first few sleep-deprived weeks. I remember how little I accomplished when Nicole was a newborn. In some ways, I feel like the transition to 2 kids will be easier than the transition to having my first kid; I know a bit more of what to expect this time. I still want to make the transition easier in any way I can, though.
I haven't acted on those cleaning instincts yet because we're still finishing up our upstairs renovations, and I cannot focus well on everyday cleaning when there's a big project that needs to be finished. It nags me too much, not to mention I feel so scattered by the disorganized nature of a renovation zone, and by all the displaced furniture. The only thing left to do up there is paint one more coat in Nicole's room, so we should be done by tomorrow, we'll let the room air out all day Sunday, and then Nicole can move back in on Monday. Yay, we'll meet my goal of having renovations done before October!
Speaking of Nicole, she's going through a transition of her own right now. Even though the new baby probably won't be sleeping in the crib much for the first month or so, we decided it would be nice to transfer Nicole to her own bed before the baby gets here so she doesn't feel like the baby is kicking her out of her crib. We have a bed frame out in the garage ready to assemble once her room is painted. Meanwhile, her new twin mattress is on the ground of the spare room next to the crib... and she successfully slept on it all night last night! I've been telling her about her "big girl bed" daily for the past week, and when it arrived yesterday she was really excited about it, so we figured we'd jump right in to this transition even though the frame isn't assembled yet.
It went pretty smoothly: Doug put her to bed, and she was all of a sudden not so sure about this whole "big girl bed" thing, so she began crying to herself. It was so sad, this little not-even-2-year-old lying on this huge twin mattress and crying... so I came in and lay down next to her and assured her that it was okay, that it was scary to all of a sudden be in a new bed but that she was a brave girl, that the crib was right there if she needed it. She draped her little arm over my pregnant belly as we lay there, and I rubbed her back for a few minutes... then I kissed her, told her I'd be in to check on her in a little while if she still felt uneasy, and left. I didn't hear another peep out of her!
Then, of course, I went in to check on her right before I went to bed to discover that she had rolled off the mattress and was sleeping under the crib... I put her back on the mattress, but I'm pretty sure she rolled off again at some point during the night (she may have spent more time on the ground than on the mattress last night, oops), so I picked up a bed rail at Walmart today. I don't need this toddler falling out of bed all night. In any case, she woke up happy and proud of herself at her usual time of 7:00 this morning! Success! I lay in bed listening to her chatter to herself for about 15 minutes before she finally started politely knocking on her door and asking to come out.
In any case, she's sleeping on her mattress again tonight, and I just checked on her and she hasn't rolled off yet! ;)
So many transitions.
Nicole will have to transition to not being the sole object of mom's attention. Then she'll have to transition to using a potty chair. And then, and then, and then... wow, our lives are just long series of transitions. But I love it. As stressful as they can be, transitions push us to grow, adapt, discover... and they keep life from getting too stale and repetitive. I'm so proud of Nicole, and I hope I can handle the transition to being a mom of 2 with as much grace as she handled her bed transition!
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