Gabe's New Bedroom

With a cascade of events finally falling into place (basement renovation → clear out guest room → move guest room into basement), we were finally ready to turn the old guest room into Gabe's new room. We had been promoting this idea to him for a few weeks, telling him that he would get a "big boy" bed of his own, and that we needed to make room for his baby sister. Courtesy of Walmart and Amazon, we purchased a huge Thomas blanket, and Thomas and Sesame Street wall decals. IKEA's delivery and assembly service helped us with a new chest of drawers, and a very kind friend gave us an old futon. We figured it was low and had sides to prevent him from falling out easily.

The transition was surprisingly smooth: he took to the new bed right away and really enjoyed participating in the decoration of the room. At first, he still called for us in the morning when he woke up, but, I (perhaps unwisely), told him he could now get out of bed himself. So most mornings, we are now greeted by the pitter-patter of 2-year old feet and a hearty, "Oh HI!" in our bedroom. One precautionary measure we took was to wrap the futon cushion in a waterproof cover: Gabe wears a pull-up diaper to bed, but often leaks through it.

It's been about a month now, and everyone's really happy. We have enough time before the baby comes so that Gabe doesn't feel like the baby displaced him. And he feels more independent now.

As always, click through on the pictures to see a more detailed description on Flickr: