Back to the Crib

Any suggestions on how to handle a little one who has suddenly decided he'd like to sleep in his crib again after two months in a big-kid bed??? Evan has come up with every excuse under the sun why he no longer wants to sleep in his bed in his new room (we moved him into a new room with new furniture and left the baby furniture in Evan's old room). "I hear noises. I need more air. The face on the black cat stuffed animal scares me." I've heard it all in the past few days. Evan's ultimate solution to everything is just to sleep in his old room in his crib. Any ideas???

Simple Joys From the Weekend

-Getting fish kisses from Evan in the checkout line at the grocery store.

-Mixing up (and eating) a coffee cake for Bryan's birthday breakfast.

-Starting and finishing Saturday with cake.

-Having Bryan home before dinner and Evan's bedtime for two days in a row!

-Enjoying Sunday brunch with a friend and my little guy (who behaved beautifully--even if he did require four trips to the potty).

-Putting Evan to bed tonight, having him tell Bryan there was room for all of us in the bed and hearing him pronounce, "We're a family!"

-Wrapping up two work projects with time to spare.

I showed you mine, now show me yours. What were your simple joys this weekend?

Expanding Evan's Vocabulary

Today I repeatedly told Evan to get his socks and shoes on so we could go to the store, but he kept playing with his toys. I asked him if he was ignoring me. He stopped playing, looked at me and asked, "What does ignoring mean?"

"It means you hear me but you aren't paying attention to me," I said.

"Oh. Yes--then I'm ignoring you."

On the bright side, he learned a new word AND used it in a sentence.

On the downside, he kept ignoring me and landed himself in a time out. After his two minutes of sitting in front of the fridge were over I told him he needed to apologize to me for not listening.

He gave in and reluctantly said, "I'm sorry for not listening to you." Then he added, "Buuuuuuut, I don't want to go to the store."

However, he did head to the front door and put on his shoes and socks. Poor little guy. I know being two can't be easy, but I wish he wouldn't exert so much will sometimes.

Look What I Learned

Back in June I posted a blog entry about how I felt Evan should "dab it off" after using the potty while Bryan felt strongly that boys don't "dab." Oh the restraint it has taken me not to dab when I see even just one drop of pee on there. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to secretly dab without Evan, or Bryan if he is in the bathroom too, noticing. Then today, Evan went potty and as I was about to help him pull up his underwear he said, "Wait. Look at what Miss C (his preschool teacher) taught me." He reached over, pulled off some toilet paper and dabbed away. He looked so proud as he threw the toilet paper in the potty. I e-mailed Bryan to tell him about the little lesson Miss C has imparted on Evan. He thinks we need to have a talk with her. I'm assuming he means the "we" as in me, but I'm going to let him handle this one all on his own. Plus, I'm a little relieved at the dabbing.

Savoring the Everyday Moments

Today I read a quote that has helped me put the past few weeks in perspective: The days are long but the years are short.

I’ve been struggling with some long days lately as I’ve dealt with the monster snow storms that have shut down the city and kept us indoors and homebound, tried to keep up with work deadlines (two speeches and three feature stories to be exact) without the benefit of childcare (due to school closings from the aforementioned monster storms), and a sweet hubby who hasn’t been home before 10:00 p.m. or to bed before 1:00 a.m. in quite some time (hello busy season). Not to mention a toddler who seems to be developing more free will every single day.

That simple little quote today made me realize, though, just how fast the years do go by. I’m already knee deep in planning Evan’s third birthday party. It seems like just yesterday I was walking into the hospital to have him.

I’m going to try to do a better job of savoring the little moments of joy in the long days we all experience. So, my list of things I want to remember from this week:

The perfect and thoughtful Valentine’s Bryan gave Evan and me first thing Sunday morning. Not to mention the surprise and look of sheer joy on Evan’s face when he opened the new book Bryan gave him (Super Why—Evan’s new favorite cartoon).

Singing the Super Why theme song long after I’d seen the show or put Evan to bed. (If you haven’t heard it, it goes a little something like this… “Hip hip hooray, the super readers save the day.” Repeat about 30 times).

Sharing a glass of lemonade with Evan at his school Valentine’s party.

The sweet hug Evan gave me and how he said, ‘I love you, mommy,’ when I told him I would buy him his very own special can of shaving cream he could use in the bathtub. (May it always be so easy to please him.)

Taking a bath and watching my belly move around as little arms or legs gave some nudges from the inside.

That although I’m the type of mom who will go to bed with dishes still in the sink, I am also the type of mom who will let Evan help me make the cookies, pancakes, scrambled eggs, rice, chicken, etc., no matter how much extra work it makes during the clean-up (and cooking) process.

I forged ahead and met all my deadlines, even if it meant staying up until 1 a.m.

Snuggling with Evan. Snuggling with Bryan.

The ease with which Bryan got Evan to go back to bed around 2:00 this morning. I was quite impressed.

I’m sure there are plenty of other moments I should remember, and they’ll probably come to me as soon as I hit publish. But, these are enough to at least help me keep the big picture in perspective. The years will fly by.

Cabin Fever

It is day six of being snowbound at our house, and I think Evan and I are starting to feel the effects. We received another 12 inches of snow today (thank you, Bryan, for shoveling us out). I think the storms are over for a while. Now we just have to finish digging out. School has been cancelled all week and we haven't gotten mail since Friday. Thank goodness we still have power and cable!

Bryan got out yesterday and went to work--he took our SUV, which meant I was staying put. But, let's be honest. I'm not driving on the ice rinks we're calling our roads even if I wanted to, which I don't. Today we spent a few hours playing with moon sand (and then cleaning up moon sand), baking cookies (and then cleaning up the cookies), reading and playing trains.

Evan quickly pushed aside the princess and dragon molds that came with the moon sand and asked for some bulldozers and wheel loaders.

I think the high point of Evan's day was waiting for the cookies to cool off so he could eat one.

We have also taken the time to play outside in the snow--but only once. I haven't been able to get Evan back out there since our first adventure out.

I hope you are all staying warm! We're doing our best!