Slumber party

O has been, shall we say, exploring his sleeping options in the past week or two; last week, he apparently ended up in Z's bed, which Z was none too pleased about. Meh found Z quietly sitting (sulking?) on his stuffed bear seat at a concerningly late hour when she got home from work. And a few times in the past week, I've put him to bed only to have him open his door and then both boys to dash back and forth between bedrooms - this was particularly frazzling when I was solo while Meh was at a conference. So in some ways last night's experiment was bound to occur sooner or later: O was climbing into Z's bed during story time, insisting he wanted to sleep with Z. So Meh pulled down the mattress from the top bunk onto the floor, brought in O's blankies, and the experiment began. We almost immediately had a Berenstain Bears moment when the boys simultaneously declared that they wanted the lights on (Z) and the lights off (O), but managed to make peace with the compromise of the lights off but Z using his night sky-projecting turtle. We heard a very cute conversation from downstairs, but they did indeed both go to sleep in the same room successfully. Perhaps this is the start of a shared bedroom?

Hidey Hole

O had his bi-annual dental exam today, and Meh reports that he did fabulous with all of the related activities. His favorite parts were getting to brush the teeth of a pink dinosaur (with a giant toothbrush) and of course picking out a toy at the end of the visit. He also did great with the various parts of the exam, including his very first x-rays, where he got to wear the heavy vest (when I asked him if the heavy blanket was okay to wear, he said "it wasn't a blanket daddy, it was a jacket!") and hold said dinosaur while biting down on the film and everything. Actually, he was very intent on bringing home a toy for Z as well, so they gave him a second token - what a thoughtful brother! His teeth themselves were healthy, though it seems pretty clear already that some kind of orthodontics may be in his future; the x-ray that came home had some pretty seriously skewed baby boy teeth.

The remodel continues to progress, and the boys' "hidey hole" is just about complete. They're huge fans, both spending a fair amount of time bringing toys and pillows into it. Hopefully all of the downstairs will be wrapped up soon as well; as Zachary continues to remind us, "there's NO POTTY downstairs!" There's also an impressive pile of what used to be in the new hidey hole space that we need to weed through, including high school and college documents as well as plenty of other detritus that one collects when they have an attic to store things in. Meh and I have been trying to take quick tours down memory lane when the boys allow - today I found a Microsoft newsletter from when I was an intern there (yes, they used to have a printed 'newspaper') and some college pictures. Hard to believe this stuff is more than 15 years old!

Let's close with a video; one of the final items that came in the excellent Costco Disneyland vacation bundle was a gift card to the Disney Store. Meredith went over there earlier this week and picked up some excellent Buzz (O) and Woody (Z) pajamas for the boys. They were pleased to say the least, as demonstrated by their high energy bedtime, um, sprint:

Tear down this wall

With a major renovation to at least three rooms about to start, we're going to have workers going up and down the stairs. This meant that it was time to at least temporarily pull down the safety gates that have been fixtures at the top and bottom of the stairs for years. We actually pulled them down for nearly a week when Z was around three, but then O started to crawl/walk, and back up they went. As to the renovations themselves, we're pretty excited even if they're mostly minor rooms -- we're fixing up the bathroom and mudroom (the previous owner was apparently a, um, self fixer-upper, with varying quality results - highlighted recently by tiles cracking and/or starting to come up from the floor), moving the washer/dryer from the furnace room to the bathroom (hopefully opening up some storage space), and perhaps most exciting for the boys, finishing out the little subattic into a tiny room that will be an extension to the guest bedroom (which itself will be turning into their playroom). So a fair amount of change is coming - look for pictures when things start to shape up!