My Baby is Growing Up

Rilian has three loves in this world...balls, stuffed animal cats, and baby dolls. I had to clarify that the cats he loves are the stuffed animal ones. He isn't too sure about real cats. He found this hideous baby doll at Granny's house and fell in love with it. He carried it around wrapped up in a blanket and it eventually came home with him. He even sleeps with it almost every night.

He started out sleeping with one of Piper's stuffed animal cats. Then he found another one of Piper's stuffed animals cats and had to sleep with it as well. Santa decided he needed one of his own, so then Rilian decided he would sleep with three stuffed animal cats. Then he discovered a love for baby dolls. To make a long story short, he kept adding baby dolls to his collection of sleeping pals. So, most nights he has several baby dolls and stuffed cats in his bed with him. Here he is with some of them lined up on the floor.

When he goes to sleep, you have to make sure you get the cats on one side of him and the baby dolls on the other side of him. And he knows if one is missing. He will let you know and won't go to sleep very willingly without you going to get it. I went to check on him one night before I went to bed and I saw this, so I had to take a picture...he had his arm around one of his baby dolls.

About a week or so ago, we discovered Rilian knew how to climb into his crib. And then we discovered he knew how to climb out of his crib. So, we took the side rail off so he wouldn't get hurt trying to climb out. This is what we found the first night that we took off his side rail when we went to check on him before going to bed.

So, we carefully picked him up and put him back in his bed. Yes, those are pillows on the floor. With Piper, our first child, otherwise known as the guinea pig child, she wasn't too happy when she fell out of bed the first night of not having a side rail on her bed. When we heard the cries of our 18 month old Piper who had fallen out of bed, we decided we should have put pillows down to soften her fall. Yes, she was 18 months when she learned how to climb out. She is our climber. If you haven't seen the infamous "Climbing Piper" video, you need to watch it. If you have seen it, I'm sure you would love to watch her amazing climbing abilities again. She learned how to climb into her crib first...and we thought it was cute.

Then a couple of days later, she learned how to climb out. And both our worlds were changed.

The second night that Rilian was in his "new big boy bed", was a success! When I went to check on him before going to bed, this is what I found.

He was still in his bed! Yea Rilian! I will be honest and say that he still falls out occasionally. But he puts himself back into bed. Sometimes I think he is too tired to make it all the way back in bed. The other night, he was halfway in and halfway out and asleep. It looked like he had fallen asleep on his way back into his bed. Sorry, I didn't think to take a picture of it. It was pretty funny.


My two year old Rilian is on his way to becoming a big boy. He already thinks he is as big as his older sister and brothers. He wants to do everything they do. If he can't quite do it, he sure does try.