Her Own Space

The plan was that our children of the same gender would share a room. 

And then we had 3 girls and that sorta left one of them out on her own...

After 7.5 years, we figured that Ali had served her time well.

She made it quite clear she was ready to move on.

And little Eva is following big sister "Mi-Mi" around more and more everyday wanting to play, read books, hold hands, watch cartoons, and just do big girl stuff. 

So while everyone was at school, Joe and I disassembled the crib, de-bunked the beds, moved stuff around,  reversed the closets and presto!  The biggest sister has her own space!  And the middle sister has a new roomie!

Joe and I could hardly contain ourselves when she came home from school! 

 We came up with some really clever trick to get her to go into the room...

"Hey Ali, could you go grab me a diaper from Eva's room?"

SURPRISE!!!

She loved it all.

  I took down "EVA" from the wall and hung up "ALI". 

 The quilt on the bed is made from the girls baby clothes and the one folded at the foot of the bed was my quilt when I was little.  She wasted no time putting her personal mark on the space and she was the first kid to bed last night! 

And then there's Eva's adjustment to her new big girl bed..

Eva noticed her lovies all piled up on the bed in the girls room and got very excited!

"Mine night-night!  Mine  night-night!"

And then 8 pm came and we tried to lay the little sisters down.

Eva thought we were playing the best game ever!!

After several different attempts to settle her in her new bed,

at 9:30 we gave up and moved on to Plan B.

Pack n' Play in the closet.

 Mia is rapidly learning that it is quite something different to be the "big sister". 

She came out of the bedroom last night and said, "Eva keeps getting up.  I have to hold her hand and put her back.  She tries to get in my bed with me.  I have to hold her hand and put her back.  She keeps talking and I have to keep shushing!  This is too much work!"  

Of course Ali takes every opportunity to smirk at Mia and say things like, "Now you know what it's like."

I think it's going to work out great! 

Ali and Mia are already showing the benefits of having their own corners to retreat to.

Sisters!