Shared spaces

If our home purchase goes through the boys will have to share a room, at least for a little while. The house is large, but is essentially a 2 family home. Or better put a family home with an attached in-law suite. The main house has 2 bedrooms, the in-law suite has one, in the basement. Eventually, we will probably convert the house back to a single family home essentially doing away with the in-law suite but for the first little while it will stay as is. Which means our boys (3 &5) will have to share a room. I have some misgivings about the idea, if only because my oldest is not a very good sleeper and my youngest is.

I shared a room as a child, I was 8 my sister was a newborn. I still remember her waking up in the middle of the night and me getting up to turn the music box back on. Brahm's Lullaby is forever ingrained in my head. I have hope that because they're close enough in age it might make them closer, that it might work for them but until we figure it all out I have at least searched many an inspiration photo:

Source: windhula.blogspot.com via Jacquelyn on Pinterest

Source: flickr.com via Jacquelyn on Pinterest

Source: paloma81.blogspot.com via Jacquelyn on Pinterest

Source: marligrace.blogspot.com via Jacquelyn on Pinterest

Source: theinspiredroom.net via Jacquelyn on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Jacquelyn on Pinterest

More Boy Room stuff...

Yesterday we drove to the middle of nowhere to have a look at the bed I was drooling over for Dawson's room...

Well, they didn't have it in stock... the did have another mates bed there so I was able to guage the height, and sadly I think it might be too high, and since it is meant not to have a boxspring the bedrails that you can buy for toddlers just wouldn't work. They also sell the bunk beds in the same finish, so that could be an option, just to use one of the beds for now.

So, my hunt continued.

I found this:

http://www.maxtrixkids.com/boys-bedroom-furniture.html

Which can be turned into this:

How much would the boys LOVE this idea?

Or This:

Then This:

Then this:

It's all made out of solid birch with good safety standards, and essentially one bed keeps transforming into other configurations by just purchasing the extra pieces. It seems quite ingenious to me... but then again the crib that transformed into a daybed and then a double seemed pretty cool too, and it's only ever been used as a crib. 

Convertible cribs were all the rage when I had Dylan, but frankly I don't see the functionality of them. If you take the rail off the side of the bed you get a small daybed, with no rail to keep baby toddler in. By the time Dylan was big enough to move from the crib, Dawson had been born so we needed the crib for him, and bought Dylan a set of bunk beds. Dawson's room is way too small for a double bed so that isn't going to work either...

So, while I like the idea of a bed that can grow and change as the kids needs grow and change I am not 100% convinced that it would withstand the test of time. Although boys don't usually care as much about what furniture "looks" like... just ask Bruce.

I haven't found out how much the bed costs, and don't know if it's in the budget or not... but I think it is pretty cool!

A Big Boy Room

Dawson's room is a whopping 8 1/2' by 9 1/2'... less than 100 square feet. It's tiny. There are closets bigger than his room.

As a nursery it was OK, afterall baby furniture is small. There was room for the crib, changing table and dresser (although I wish the changing table and dresser had been combined for space saving because it was a little cluttered).  Now that he is climbing out of his crib it is time for a bigger bed...

This is the bed I hope to get him. I love the two-tone color combination and how it looks very masculine! I have been to so many furniture stores around here and few of them have real wooden beds for kids, everything is made out of fiberboard, not only am I opposed to it for ecological reasons and the off-gasing, but frankly I don't think they're very practical. My kids are hard of stuff and it seems like a waste of money because in about 6 months it would be broken!

Boys rooms seem so hard to do right, they are either too themed which they grow out of SO fast or they are a mismatch of themes, or they are dull. There isn't much to choose from for boys either. Some people manage to conquer decorating for boys, they do it so well... I am jealous!

 

I have had these pictures in my design file for years, I think they may have come from the HGTV dream house once upon a time. I absolutely love the car on the wall, how creative! The tin on the wall is pretty cool too! Unfortunately Dawson's room is no where near large enough to pull this off!

And definitely not large enough for this room!

I love bunkbeds, but he's not really old enough for that... he's a monkey and he WOULD climb up to the top whether there was a ladder up or not!

I like the neutral tones, so easy to decorate around with all the colorful boy stuff

Again with the neutrals, and a world traveler kind of vibe

I think my Mom will be making Dawson a quilt so we'll have to see what we can find for fabric and maybe work the design of his room around that, I will try to take pictures once it is complete but it's such a small room that it's hard to get a good picture!

Some other bloggers that have made boys rooms look great?

Tracey at Beneath My Heart

Karla at It's the Little Things

Those days

Today was one of those days. We have a lot of those days lately. My two boys don't ever seem to want to do the same thing, unless it happens to be getting into things they're not supposed to. They're in cahoots then. Partners in crime. Like with the pouring of the coffee cream into my couch. Yeah.

There's a lot of whining. A lot of fighting over toys. A lot of chasing. A lot of falling down and bangs. No is every other word, both said by me and them. We have entered the talk back stage with Dylan, and the terrible twos are in FULL swing with Dawson. (I have Mommy amnesia because I don't remember the twos being THIS TERRIBLE). Brotherly love is not the theme in this house. More like brotherly rivalry. All.The.Time. I'm sure someday they will grow out of this. I hope.

Someday I will look back upon this and feel a longing for the early years, despite how overwhelmed I feel these days...I know it will happen. Lord, please let me survive until then!

Jacquelyn

Rewind

I kind of sort of stole borrowed this idea from Shawni's blog Life. A verbal snapshot of the year. A scrapbook without the pictures (because I am still using the laptop, which doesn't have 90% of the years photos).

Dylan has a pretty amazing grasp on the English language for a 3 year old. His vocabulary is stellar, but he has trouble with f's and l's still... the word off comes out oss.

Speaking of speaking, Dawson too has a pretty broad vocabulary too, he was so quiet for so long now he's always saying something... he has his own language too... here are just a few Dawsonisms:

Dacey=his blankey
Dapchies=chips
Pobbiedoo= Ski doo, for the longest time I was sure he meant scoobie doo, but apparently I was wrong
Memona= oatmeal- which he will eat EVERY morning for breakfast
Tawson = Dawson. Or more commonly he refers to himself as baby

Dawson rarely says please unless proded, but ALWAYS says thank you (and now your welcome)

We are now in the superhero stage in Dylan's life. I will have to get that boy a cape, and something tells me he may never take it off... just like the pajamas that need washing EVERY day so he can wear them again the next night. In fact he would rather wear pajamas all day instead of clothes. Pajamas and a cape. Cute.

Dylan hates socks, he never keeps them on his feet. They are all over my house.

I hate socks too, not the wearing them part, but trying to match them after they've been washed.

There are a million dinky cars in my house, some which I'm sure the boys don't even know they have. Well I'm pretty sure Dylan does... he has a memory like an elephant! There are firetrucks, and lego, and tools everywhere too... frankly the boys have too many toys!

I am sure Dawson will be a mountain climber someday, the boy climbs everything. He's resourceful too; dragging boxes, baskets, chairs you name it he drags it to the kitchen to climb onto the counters. I can almost always find him on top of something he shouldn't be.

Dylan has become a better eater- though still very picky. Dawson has decided he doesn`t really like to eat anymore.  Dylan now sleeps much better, Dawson not so much. Ah stages.

Bruce was diagnosed with diabetes this year. The positive? We all eat a little better now.

We finally finished our bathroom, well almost after not having a sink for way too long. We redid the basement... twice thanks to the flood.

Bruce and I finally (after 6 years) set a date for our wedding, and have since changed it 3 times. I agreed (after a very long standoff) to change my name, he agreed to marry me. Well at least now I get to monogram stuff.

I don't take enough pictures. When Dylan was a baby I was always toting the camera around, the last couple years... not so much :(

Jacquelyn

Raising Boys

The other day a very pregnant friend of mine expecting a boy asked what it was like to raise boys (she already has 2 girls). Was it different than girls? While I can't answer that because I have no working knowledge of raising girls, I know a thing or two about boys.
Loud, messy, wild and crazy. This poem pretty much sums up our lives with 2 boys: (I wish I could write so well... and by the way- we do have spiderman shoes and a fireman coat to wear in the rain!)

Boys in my House
Author: Erin Jo Kilmer



There are boys in my house -
and Spiderman shoes And 200 papers in various blues.
There's Bob (he's a builder) and Thomas the Train,
There's a fireman coat to wear in the rain.
They have cars on their shirts and frogs on their hats
There's a glove and a ball and a red plastic bat.
There's dirt on a face and a smudge on a nose;
Grass stains on knees and sand between toes.
There's bathtime at night with bodies to scrub,
And when we're all done there is dirt in the tub!
There's bandaids and bruises and curious bumps,
There's smiles and laughter and sometimes there's grumps.
There's odors most icky; there's boogers so green
There's more yucky things than I'll ever get clean.
There's piles of laundry; there's stories at night;
There's bedtime and bathtime and dinnertime fights.
There's cars and there's trains and there's books about trucks
There's Scoop, Lofty, Dizzy, and Travis, and Muck.
Sometimes there are bugs, and sometimes there are frogs;
Sometimes they are lions, or dinos, or dogs.
There are cute little vests and darling neckties
Dragged right through the mud - oh what a surprise!
There's running and climbing and jumping and falling
And laughing and crying and hugging and brawling
And rolling and losing and finding and creeping
And whining and stealing and sometimes there's sleeping.
There's tantrums and time outs and extra loud noise -
There's love in my house shaped like two little boys.

I would love to have this poem done in vinyl and put in the family room or the kitchen but I suspect it would cost me a small fortune to have it made, so for now I will settle for sharing it here with all of you!