Partners In Crime

This morning Peyton discovered how to break out of his room and rescue Grant from the confines of his room too! Since we moved to this house in Fall '07, we put gates at the doors of the boys' bedrooms and these were not just any kind of baby gates... they were designed to be very hard for kids to figure out how to work and for that matter adults too. I had heard horror stories of what "fun" things little boys could come up with so I had images of our boys sky diving from our catwalk down to our family room as they got older. These gates gave me peace of mind, even if it was a false sense of security. We decided to put these gates up for several reasons but one of them is we didn't have to worry about them ever getting out of their rooms overnight and having too much fun while we were sleeping (even though they have slept through the night since they were babies) and there have been many times that having that boundary up has helped with temptations when it comes to leaving their rooms during their quiet room play time. Each day they have quiet room play time in their rooms for a little while. Our boys are as opposite as night and day. Grant loves having time to play independently in his room and Peyton isn't a big fan of it which is probably why he was so determined to figure out how to get his gate to open.

Last night we had a rough night because Landon is still struggling with having RSV so he isn't sleeping well and for some reason Peyton woke up crying over night. On Saturdays, the boys know they have their quiet room play time in the morning so we can get a little extra sleep. This gives us the opportunity to sleep in until 9 on Saturday mornings and this morning we were desperate for the extra sleep because of the events overnight. Vince had gotten up around 8 am to talk to Peyton because he had a memory lapse of what quiet room play time meant :) and then he came back to bed. Then, I got up at 8:30 to feed Landon and noticed that Peyton's gate was open and the light was off in his room. (At least, he remembered to turn off his light.) I walked passed Grant's room and noticed his gate was open but I didn't think much of it because we would leave Grant's gate open so that he could go to the bathroom when he needed. We now know that Peyton needs that same freedom. :) I figured that Vince had let Peyton go into Grant's room to play because they usually have fun and play well together.

I had just sat in Landon's rocker to feed him when Peyton came running into Landon's room without a stitch of clothing on to get wipes for Grant. He informed me that he had pooped in his pull-up this morning and went into Grant's room and opened up his gate too so Grant could help him. A minute later, Grant came running in behind him so excited with himself proclaiming "I didn't get any poop on my hands when I cleaned up Peyton." He proceeded to tell me that he took Peyton's pajamas off and showed me how he made Peyton stand so that he could clean him up. Amazingly, poop didn't get anywhere and Peyton was all cleaned up by the time Peyton came to see me. This is probably one of those moments that you just had to be there but it was so funny watching them and especially seeing them interact. They were both so proud of themselves and their accomplishments, especially the fact that they didn't need help from us. Peyton getting his gate open and then opening Grant's gate too is just the beginning of their "partner in crime" moments. I don't know that we will be able to laugh about all of them like we did this one. One thing is for sure, there is never a dull moment and I'm always being entertained by them. I'm sure when Landon becomes mobile we will have all kinds of crazy stories with three boys in our house. :)