Adam and The Toddler Bed

From an article on Baby Center.com about transitioning your child to a toddler bed:

"There's no set time when you have to replace your child's crib with a regular or toddler bed, although most children make the switch sometime between ages 1 1/2 and 3 1/2. It's best to wait until your child is closer to 3, since many little ones just aren't ready to make the transition. [Oh, okay, so Adam has some time before that milestone. Whew.]

Of course, you'll need to move your toddler to a bed when he's simply too big [Oh... CHECK] or too active [Yikes . . . DOUBLE CHECK] to sleep in a crib anymore. And once he's potty-trained, he'll need to be able to get out of bed to use the toilet.

Many parents make the switch because they're worried that their active toddler might climb or jump out of his crib — and this is a real safety concern. [OH. Yeah, he does that big time...] But it's best not to react to climbing out of the crib or any other sudden sleep problem with a sense of alarm. [No alarm. He's just pretty good at it already.]

Don't rush right out and buy a new bed the day your toddler first climbs out of the crib. He may not be ready to move to a bed, and it may not be safe for him to be up and about during the night when everyone else is asleep. [That's a big concern... but if he wants out, he can climb out. So what's the point in making him leap 4 feet from the crib railing? He is a tiny athlete, so he hasn't hurt himself... but why push it?]

Buy yourself some time by lowering the crib mattress as far as possible [We had to do that about 9 months ago], so the side rails are relatively higher and more difficult to climb over [Climbing + Adam = Difficult? Never!]. Consider installing a crib tent. A crib tent is mesh and attaches to the crib rails with Velcro, to keep your little one safe and snug in his crib.[Oh, sure. Don't rush out and buy a $70 toddler bed that you will eventually need anyway; rush out and spend $70 dollars on a crib tent instead.]."
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Dear Baby Center,

Your article has only confused me.

Thanks Anyway,
Confused Parent of Active 16 Month Old
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It was not my first choice, but for lack of better options and obvious signs staring us in the face, we went ahead and converted Adam's crib into the toddler bed. He sleeps on a cot at school, he can climb out of his crib anyway if he wants to, and in some ways he's just as physically advanced as a two year old. And even if we had the money to spend on a crib tent (which we don't), it would have just annoyed the hell out of Adam for a few days before he mastered the art of Velcro unfastening.

How did we get here so quickly, you ask?

Last Friday night, Adam was put to bed at his normal time (8:30). Ten minutes later, he came strolling out of his room with his blanket dragging behind him. He stopped at the doorway to the family room, where we were finishing Finding Nemo, and glared at me. His eyes said, "I wasn't ready for bed yet."

Adam had scaled his crib for the first time. He had been throwing his legs over the side and trying to pull his torso up over it for about 3 weeks, but I would always catch him on the monitor and rush in there quickly. I knew that if he figured out he could do it even just once, we'd never get him to stop.

The last time as a "baby" bed for Adam.

And in his first attempt at jail break, he also somehow figured out how to open his bedroom door just a few minutes later. We let him watch the end of Finding Nemo, which I swear was just the principle of the thing... he laid calmly on the couch and drank his milk until the movie was over, and went to bed easily and slept through the night.

Watching Little Einsteins

We decided not to worry about his crib on Saturday and were going to try to push the inevitable toddler bed conversion milestone back a few more days, and optimistically, a week, but Sunday morning, bright and early at 6:30 am, Adam was standing at our bed, whimpering and desperate to get up in bed with us to watch Little Einsteins in our room. Monday morning was deja vu, except even earlier. And after being pulled sleepily into bed by me, Adam promptly asked for juice. Then Shannon came out of the bathroom dressed and ready for work, and Adam waved and said, "Bye, Dad!"

I literally saw Shannon melt.

So Monday night we converted his crib to a toddler bed. 

Night 1:

I spent 30 minutes stroking his head, rubbing his cheek, and rubbing his chest with my thumb to coax him to sleep. A few times I stopped and tried to get up because I thought he was close enough to sleep for me to leave, but he only sat straight up in bed, whimpered, grabbed my arm, put my hand to his head, then laid back down and closed his eyes. Oh, you want me to keep stroking your forehead? Real subtle, Adam.

In truth, I didn't mind and loved being able to cuddle with him for a little bit. He never wants to cuddle and while I don't want a 45 minute bedtime routine every night, I felt for him. Change is tough and we'll give him a chance to adjust at his own pace.

Shannon and I went to bed with the monitor volume turned up and expected to be awoken several times throughout the night... but we slept soundly until about 6 am when he woke up and tried to get out of his room and come see us. But he woke up completely not himself -- mad and upset and he couldn't stop crying. He didn't nap well at school on the cot either that day, so it's hard to tell whether it is all "new bed" related.

Tuesday night (Night 2), Shannon got to wrestle Adam to sleep. We read some books, he got some water, and Shannon tried to rock him and rub his back, and convince him to chill out, and 45 minutes later, Shannon emerged from his room wiped. But Adam was asleep, and slept until about 5:30am. When I heard him crying I quickly went in there, discovered a dirty diaper (which was "off-schedule" for him), and tried to get him to calm down as he screamed and sobbed uncontrollably.

However, I think that although he is definitely showing signs of an adjustment to the new bed situation, something else is going on too - maybe he's sick, maybe he's teething, maybe he's growing... on top of the shock of his bed looking and feeling different.

But I got him to calm down and go back to sleep, and he slept until about 7:20... then got out of bed and sat on the floor for about 5 minutes, then got back in bed and snoozed/chilled for another 15 minutes, and when he heard me get up he came running out of his room squealing and happy, and saying "night night, night night!!" So at least he woke up happy. I'm okay with baby steps as long as there is improvement.

Night Night.

Touchdown on my bed!

Did we move too fast?

Adam is well aware of the concept that if he wants to do something, he can do it. It's nearly impossible to convince Adam to do anything but what he already wants to do. And he's not bad or defiant, really... he's just extremely determined, courageous, and independent.

My bed is different!

It should be easier to get in and out, you say? We'll see about that...

Oh, yes, I see... piece of cake.

Yes, this is much safer.

This weekend he was bouncing on a patio chair to show off, and just as I ordered him to sit down (for the 6 millionth time in his life), he tumbled head first onto the concrete patio. He rarely falls from high places (he trips and falls constantly and gets up like it never phased him), but in the quarter of a second it took to fall, he stuck both arms out over his head and caught himself. He cried, because it was scary and because I swooped in (gasping) mid-fall, but he was smiling less than one minute later and had not one mark on him. Not a scratch. In fact he begged Robin to put him on the even higher patio chairs and whined at her to let him crawl between them.

He can take pen caps on and off easily, can do every shape in the shape ball, can work those little suction pieces that are stuck to walls (on the wall, off the wall, on the wall, off the wall), and can take those little syringes that you get with the bottle of Infant's Advil and slide the little white plastic piece into the clear plastic syringe piece. His manual dexterity, balance, memory, and physical strength are incredible. (And yes, I'm his mom, so I'm biased. But I'm not lying).

The cool kids ride their 4 wheelers backwards while chugging milk.

I have to remind myself of his age constantly, and this toddler bed adjustment experience is no different.

So were the last two nights a success? Yes. Absolutely. They exceeded my expectations. Were they tough? Yes.

I'm having as hard a time as Adam is with this crib to toddler bed adjustment. He is ready, despite his young age, but change is tough ... and we'll live through it. Besides, going to bed at 9 and getting up at 6 - 6:30? I know a lot of parents with kids his age who aren't even doing that -- and that's without a recent adjustment to a big kid bed.

More Words

When Adam first started speaking I noted that if he could sign a word, he didn't try to say it. Again, I haven't had any real opinions one way or another about baby sign language, although from what I hear it can be kinda controversial.

Lately, however, it seems that if he can sign it, he can say it, and he does both at once. I think that's a good sign. We are still doing Your Baby Can Read, but mostly because he really does like watching the shows in the morning during breakfast (some days, not all), and he has a drive to expand his vocabulary and learn everything there is to learn. In fact, if he doesn't know the word to something he'll point and grunt urgently until you tell him what the name for it is. He most likely won't try to say it (we're getting there on TRAIN), but he'll process it.

And if he hears an airplane, he'll point to the sky . . . if you ask where the airplane is, he'll point up too.

Adam's newest words/phrases:

"What's that?"

"Bath" (usually said quickly and while running to the bathroom)

"Yellow" (he points to something that is yellow when he says it)

"Three" (he points at the number 3 when he says it)

"Apple" (he points at a picture of an apple, signs it, and says it)

"Milk" (points to a picture of milk, signs it, and says it... or sometimes he runs to the refrigerator for it)

"Banana" (He sang me a song about his banana yesterday morning. It was very catchy)

"Waffle" (well, it sounds more like "wa wa" but it doesn't take much to impress me).

"Away" (He likes to throw things "away" and is very good at it.)

"More" (he signs and says "more")

"All Done" (he signs and says "all done")

"Yeah"

"What?"


I have to remind myself that he'll be 17 months old in a week and a half and this is normal.

He's also pretty good at the fist bump. He looks cool when he does it too... like, "yeah, (fist bump). I'm know, I'm awesome."

He's also graduating to longer and "big kid" picture books, as long as you don't have to stay on a page for too long and the pictures are interesting. He's becoming addicted to Llama Llama Red Pajama and will also sit still for Goodnight Moon (however, throughout the book he purses his lips together and "moos"... we aren't quite sure where that comes from - maybe that one cow).


Shannon has asked me a couple times what I would write down in his baby book as Adam's "first" word, and I would have to say, without a doubt, that it's "DAD." He says it clearly, he says it when he's looking for Dad, and he plays "Where's Dad?" when he knows he's looking for Dad. (But obviously, with two parents working full time, we aren't looking for Dad that often because Shannon is typically home about an hour (ish) after I've picked Adam up from school.) And he's said DAD since the moment he could put together sounds and know what he was doing.

And lately, because of reading books and getting older, he's started saying "Mama" much more often too... and looks for kisses from me, calls me Mama, and even gave me a few good hugs before bedtime tonight, which I ate up like candy. (If I liked candy . . . so maybe I ate it up like queso).

I remember when I used to worry that I wasn't cutting up his banana small enough for him to eat. Now I break it in half and hand it to him while he sings his banana song. Now I watch him as I cut his food and know that if I cut it up too small he'll yell at me because he so desperately wants to do it himself, because he can. If it's not small enough, he'll break it up in his hands himself. Even with his two and 1/2 little teeth. (We hung out briefly with a boy just 5 weeks younger than him who has nine gleaming teeth right out in front). It doesn't phase Adam one bit.

For the last few days Adam has shown considerable maturation, and his craziness factor has decreased. He listens more, understands more, and will sit down and play games. He's pretty incredible at the shape ball and can point out pictures in books. For a few days we kept saying that he's probably not feeling well... and now we're just starting to see that he's just growing up. Last night Shannon said he missed the crazy Adam, the one who steals your cup and comes running into the room grinning with his mouth so wide open in happiness that you light up and get on your toes for what's next. Constantly. But that guy's not gone, he's just probably scheming for bigger and better craziness.

We like this guy. A lot. (As if you couldn't tell).

Lesson Learned #16: When I think I couldn't possibly love someone any more than I do right that second, I wake up the next morning and see his face again.

Lesson Learned #17: I'm sappier than I ever thought I could be.

Fantasy Football Quarterbacks

It's only Week 2 of the 2011 NFL Season and my fantasy football quarterback situation is bleak, to say the least. Adam helped me pick out my starting quarterback this morning. The choices are: Eli Manning, Donovan McNabb, or Rex Grossman (who I do not have, but could pick up on the waivers and drop one of the other two).

Here are the choices.

Don't worry, Mom, I'll help.

First you have to stand on it.

Get some last minute advice from Dad.

Open the lunch box.

Pull out the options...

Here it is, this is the one.

Eli Manning (I swear he picked it because he's named Eli - seems a little biased)

  

There. Quarterback DECIDED.

By the way, Mom, all of these options suck. Let's just crumple them all up and call it a loss.

I'll let you know how it goes. If this works out, this may be the way my starting lineup is picked every Sunday.

"Down" Time

Linus with Blanket #1

Linus with Blanket #2

Adam's newest development is that he likes to "pretend" Night-Night. He screams and struggles and wrestles and hides when it's "real" Night-Night, but at random times during play, he'll say, "ny-ny!" turn his head to the side and close his eyes. If it weren't for the grin on his face, you might believe he was actually asleep for those two seconds of shut eye.

Last Saturday he got to play stickers with Dad and watch Toy Story... and trust me, this kid LOVES his Daddy.

Dad put a sticker on my head!!

Watching Toy Story

Adam knows how to give kisses - the puckery kind. I ask about 20 times per day if I can have a kiss. I usually get one out of my twenty times of begging, if I'm lucky, because kisses are on his terms, not ours. Now they are starting to become more frequent . . . but the other night before I put him in his crib I asked him for a kiss, and he looked at me thoughtfully, grabbed my head with both hands, turned my face to the right and licked me, from chin to eyeball. Then he patted me four times on the side of my head. I took it.

If I were a cat, though, my odds of getting kisses may be better. Two weeks ago at my parents' house he saw their cat Cricket (the grumpiest cat we know) sitting on the couch, and went up to him with puckered lips to give Cricket a kiss. Cricket looked at him out of the corner of his eye with his ears slightly back, a little confused. We laughed. Yesterday Adam was in the kitchen and Eli came to join him. Adam patted him on the back, then got on all fours and puckered his lips at Eli. Eli walked off. Adam turned and looked at me, still on all fours, lips still puckered. I laughed and said, "awwww, Buddy, I'll give you a kiss." Adam got up with his puckered lips and ran 7 feet towards me and planted one on me instead. Yeah, I was second choice, but who am I to complain?

Last night when we were reading Are You My Mother? and we got to the part where the baby bird asks a kitten (and like he always does, since he was about 9 months old, Adam squeals "EEEEEE!" when he sees a picture of a cat in any book). I said, "Do you see the kitten?" Adam puckered up and gave me a kiss, then crawled to the other side of the couch to give Shannon one too. Then he came back to finish the book. The kitten came up again 2 pages later, and I said, "look, there's the kitten!" Adam puckered up, gave me a kiss, then one for Shannon. It appears "kittens" and "kisses" may go hand in hand.

Adam is still teething and we believe more are coming in, all at the same time . . . he chews on his gums and he's extra sensitive, but luckily he likes the Hyland Teething Tablets and doesn't fight it when I want to give him a few. And he still loves to brush his "teeth." He can be throwing the fit of a lifetime at any given moment for, say, I dunno, taking away the cap to my contact case that he stole from my bathroom or because I shut the door to the room he wanted to be in. If we say, "want to brush your teeth?" he will forget his screaming, back-arching, the-world-is-ending tantrum in a split second, then grin, stick out his tongue, and high-tail it at full speed (squealing the whole way) to bang on the bathroom door. I let him in, and he makes faces at himself in the mirror and touches everything on the counter while he "brushes his teeth." The tantrum comes back, of course, when I tell him he's done and escort him from the bathroom.

In this picture, I have turned my back for literally 1 minute and Adam has broken into his bathroom, found his toothbrush, then ran into our bathroom where he grabbed styling moose and is carefully planning his next act of robbery. The blanket in hand is making me think that Adam's alternate personalities (Professor Chaos and Linus) are starting to merge into one.

Last Sunday, Adam threw up during NFL football but he kept going, and we assumed that it was just because "milk was a bad choice," (as Will Ferrell aka Ron Burgundy would say) when he was running around playing during the day. Well, Monday morning when he woke up he was crying. I went in to retrieve him and found him covered in dried vomit and throw up all over his crib. Poor guy. I kept him home that day, hoping that it wasn't something more serious than eating something he didn't agree with. While he didn't have a fever, he certainly wasn't acting like himself and actually sat down quietly on the couch to watch 3/4 of Alice in Wonderland.

Luckily, he was feeling better and acting much more like himself (minus the teething) on Tuesday. So we got back on the fast track again.

NFL Week 1 - Sunday Football

Last weekend Robin and Sarah came over to watch Week 1 of NFL football . . . although this year is like no other in that "watching" football really means chase or play with my active toddler.

Sunday we had hamburgers and hot dogs and beans and Doritos (seriously healthy dinner choices, I know). We started week 3 of Shannon's "Sunday Grilling" tradition. (Tomorrow it will be brats, ribs, and stuffed zucchini).

Here are some pictures from "watching" the games in the Man Cave.

Sorry Robin, I know I was told explicitly not to post pictures of you without approval, but I loved this one too much.

Eli and Adam chilling with Sarah.

Caley is interested in Adam's crackers

RED ZONE

I love the excitement on Adam's face as Robin tells him to "stay here" while she goes to get him something from her car.

An Adam-sized Football!!

Getting the throwing motion down...

Checking Sarah and Robin's fantasy football scores (Mom's are pretty depressing so we didn't bother).

Mr. Brilliant Idea thinks that the football might fit really well in a certain hole that he sees - the one that belongs to the sub woofer.

If pictures could have sound, you would hear Shannon telling him not to stick the football in the sub woofer.

Well, Adam did stick the football in the sub woofer, and Shannon had to take it apart to get it back. Once the football was retrieved, and Adam had reclaimed his prize, he had another brilliant idea....

But he was dragged away...

Surprise face

Last year, Adam spit up on his Cowboy's onesie EVERY WEEK before the game even started. So this year we had a brilliant plan. He would wear it during the day, and since he's old enough not to spit up on everything now, we would take it off for dinner and put it back on before the game started at 7 ish.

However, Adam drank milk, then ran around, wrestled, climbed, and threw shoes at Robin while they took a "football break" and played in the other room. He came back, climbed on the couch, and promptly threw up everywhere about an hour and a half before the game started. (Later we discovered that it wasn't from running around, and that he had a little stomach bug). We had to time to wash and dry his clothes before the game, but by that time Shannon was defeated and said to save the clean clothes until next week.

PLAN FAIL.

Before this year, I remember Sunday Football watching days being much less exhausting.