The taste of freedom!

For at least 2 weeks now, the boys have been sleeping in big boy beds (ahem, their cribs with the dropside in the down position.)  At first, the transition was seamless.  After a few nights, they started climbing out after we would put them to bed and we would have to tuck them in again... but just once.  I am sure you see where this is going.

The current bedtime situation is quite absurd.  Peter and I spend much more time than ever before with the bedtime routine.  Then even if we put the boys down asleep/nearly asleep... the moment we shut the door, they are up and out of their beds.  We shut the door, then put a gate up on the outside so that they can open the door but not get out of their room (yet).  The gate is essential still and i will tell you why.

Friday night, after putting them down to sleep, we forgot to put the gate up.  From downstairs, we heard the boys climb out of their beds and then eventually open the door.  By the time we responded just a minute or two later... we found the both in the bathroom.  Gabriel standing on the toilet (getting into my toiletries) and David sitting in the running sink (all wet of course) eating our allergy medication!  Peter actually saw him eat one.  David looked up at Peter and said "mmm medicine".  Well, there were a few more pills in the wet sink near the drain and none left in the bottle.  Thankfully, it turns out they didn't eat too many, but we weren't sure since there were probably 100 at least, missing (most likely washed down the sink).  It was very scary but we were very fortunate as Peter would later say that it was pretty much the best drug they could have picked (loratidine, 10mg).  How did they get the pills?  They opened a childproof container... SO BEWARE... as they are not always childproof.  No emergency visit necessary (so so thankful!) ... we just had to watch them for a few hours.  We were pretty stressed out since the poison control people said that there were no medical studies on little kids ingesting loratidine and so we weren't sure how bad it could be.  Then Peter found a study where they gave monkeys basically 150 pills and they were okay... so we felt better because as Peter said "our kids are pretty much monkeys".

Monkey behavior we have observed during their evening you-can't-make-me-go-to-bed parties:

1. Climb out of crib, open the door and then scream/yell.  When they hear parents coming up the stairs, they slam the door and run back and climb into their beds.  Sometimes David will decide to run to his big bear sitting in the corner of their room instead of his bed.  Mr Bear can't protect him from daddy though.

2. Party in one crib.  We keep finding them playing in the same crib.  They yell a lot and tell us that [Gabriel] does not want to sleep in [Gabriels] crib... he wants to sleep with [David].  And vice versa.  We haven't found them actually sleeping in the same crib yet... they usually go back to their own cribs when they get tired enough.

3. Last night i listened outside their door for awhile as they played in Davids crib together with their nightlight which is a battery operated ladybug which projects stars on the ceiling.  It is awesome and I happen to enjoy  it myself.  They had changed the star colors to red by pushing a button and were pretending that it was fire.  "Oh no fire! Oh no fire!"  "Ouch it is hot!"  I couldn't make out too much more than that, but i know a lot more was being said.  It was cute, i had never heard them play that before.

4. Also last night.  When they finally conked out, Gabriel was in Davids bed and David was on the floor.  At first i couldn't find David which was scary.  I thought he escaped from the gate because i couldn't find him.  But when i couldn't find him anywhere else, of course i found him right in the middle of the floor.  It is amazing i didn't trample him!

It is funny to us that they come alive so much at night and are so active.  Their night light isn't super bright and it does go off after 15/30 minutes.  They don't seem to mind when it is dark.  They haven't seemed scared yet.  The other surprising thing is that they can be extremely quiet when they sneak out of their cribs and open the door.  Despite having a monitor on, we do not always hear this which is another reason the gate is so crucial right now.  When they break down the gate (yes, they can both barrel into it and knock it down) it makes a huge noise so that at least is comforting.  :)

I would love any advice people have.  I am not sure what to do... especially if this behavior gets any worse!  I am hoping they will just calm down and over time this new freedom they have will not seem like so much fun.  But i don't know... I know i still have trouble making myself go to bed!