Our (working-hard-to-be-a-) Big Boy Simon

I suppose its Simon's turn for an update now! He is just ten days shy of two and a half years old--much more a little boy now than a toddler. His language has just taken off in the past months. He regularly speaks in complete sentences, which we've found recently catches us off guard in that it makes him seem more mature than he really is. We have to remind ourselves at times that reasoning with him (or attempting to) is still reasoning with a toddler, just a well-spoken one!

our novice gardener

Andy's first project for his two-week paternity leave was to plant a garden--something he had been hoping to do for several years now. We finally have a yard we own to do it in, and we will be in the same place at both the beginning and end of summer--hooray! I found these kid-sized garden tools so that Simon could help with the gardening--he thought they were pretty fabulous.

Simon's Garden--full of mystery seeds and so much fun to dig in!

This big planter was designated Simon's very own garden, so that Andy could make neat rows in his garden :-). This is what it looked like just a week or so after planting--its now sprouting all sorts of things. All sorts because Andy would just pass the seed packets to Simon once he was done with them--so it will be quite interesting to see what took root in there!

Step Stool Use #12: Checking on baby brother

It may have been a gradual realization that spent days or weeks percolating in his little mind, but behaviorally it happened overnight. One day the step stool lived in the bathroom for washing hands, and the next day Simon carried it from room to room using it to get access to a whole new level of un-toddler-proofed items! Now we have three step stools floating around, and he's always running off to go get one so that he can do or reach something himself rather than having us do or get it for him. One handy use of the step stool: getting a better view of Theodore!

Showing off the sheets his picked out for his big boy bed

We decided things were going smoothly enough with having a baby brother around, that we could move ahead with a few other changes. First on the docket: big boy bed. This one trumps potty training because Simon really could care less about potty training right now, whereas he has been getting frustrated with his crib, and just a couple weeks ago figured out how to climb out. We know other toddlers start doing that at a year and a half, and feel rather lucky that we've had him staying put so long! Still, it was time...we cleared out the room, rearranged some furniture (never did get to finishing the painting, maybe someday...), and let him pick out some new sheets at the store.

First night in the big boy bed, sound asleep

That first night went great! It took him a LONG time to fall asleep, but he was content, and stayed in bed the whole time. The second night went even smoother. The third night he asked for his crib, and nearly burst into tears when we hesitated...we don't want his big boy room to seem like a punishment, so for now we let him choose each night if he will sleep in his crib or his bed. He always chooses the crib. We've tried a few things to make the big boy room more attractive, like moving all his clothes & books down there, and limiting what is allowed in the crib...but he still chooses the crib. Finally I asked him the other day if he would like his big boy bed if it were upstairs. Yes, he said. An emphatic yes. Sigh...flaw of the house, we have two rooms upstairs (ours & the nursery), one bedroom on the main floor (the big boy room), and one bedroom in the basement (guest room). So we are in sort of a pickle for the moment--for now we are sticking with the "big boy room is awesome!" theme and letting Simon choose where he sleeps, while promoting the big boy room in subtle ways, hoping that with time he'll get used to it. (We have had another night or two in that bed, which went okay, but then he's back to the crib.) If he doesn't start liking it soon we may have to consider other options, like swapping him & Theodore (but then Theodore is so far away!), or having them share a room (but the nursery is so tiny, we're not sure we could pull that off).

And, to finish off what has become a rather lengthy post, we took this video on a recent drive up to the north side of the Cities (for Andy's cousin's wedding). We took it without Simon knowing so that he wouldn't stop singing. My favorite part of the way he sings the alphabet song is that he changes "Now I know my ABCs" to "Now I know your ABCs"...which makes perfect sense if you think about how we use the terms my and your in other contexts: When I say "my" and he repeats me, of course he should change it to "your" to make it correct when he's saying it!

The Alphabet Song: