Big Boy Bed

OH, the joys of parenthood. There are many, as you know, and there are definitely some that you don't forget. It seems like there is always a new hurdle to cross with one of the children, and our most recent one (since potty training isn't going too well...) is the transition to the Big Boy Bed.

Let me preface any description of Nate and his Big Boy Bed by saying that 4 years ago, moving Maia to her Big Girl Bed (which was of course one and the same toddler bed that Nate is now using), was one of the most difficult transitions of her 2 year old little life. Suffice it to say, she never spent one single night, NOT ONE, in her toddler bed. I believe there may have been part of one night spent in the toddler bed with Mommy on the floor next to her, but there was never an entire night spent by Maia sleeping in this bed. In fact, the first night that we tried sleeping in the big girl bed, she flat out refused to stay in it, refused to stay in her room and refused to go to sleep. Begin: crazy sleep patterns; End: Shad and Laura's "normal" life. This was in January of 2003. It progressed to one of us sleeping with her on an air mattress on her floor, to her sleeping on the couch with Daddy ("camping"), to her sleeping on our floor or in our bed, to us buying her a double bed in October 2003 for her 3rd birthday. The double bed accomodates Maia + Parent in order for one of us to lay down with her at bedtime and/or during the night.

I'll save you the gory details about how even with the double bed, Maia still would not go to sleep for hours and would roll around, pull my eyelids open, hit, kick, scream, sing, hum, and generally drive me to the edge of insanity nightly. Eventually, after we moved to Mattoon, we got a system in place that has worked for getting Maia to bed and getting her to sleep required medication. So, you can see how we might be perhaps a teensy bit nervous about moving Nate to a Big Boy Bed given our experience with Maia.

Ok, so here is the scenario: Nate is almost 3. We are going to Jamaica in a month and he and Maia will be staying with my parents and Shad's parents (still working on a schedule for that). Shad's parents don't have a crib. Nate's crib has been on loan to us from my friend Hollie and she needs it back. Fair enough. We've had it for 3 years and that is about as long as you can expect to borrow a crib from someone. ;) So, the timing was imminent, and although we considered borrowing my mom's crib and just setting that up at home instead so that we wouldn't have to deal with this yet, it seemed like the cowardly way out. And Nate, for all of his daytime craziness, is a champion sleeper. He relishes going to bed, rides his tricycle from the living room back to his bedroom for night-night and cozies in with his monkies (2), babies (2), Elmo (1), Curious George blanket (aka "Cozy") and at least one and possibly 3-4 Blue Blankies (Gerber thermal receiving blankets). Most of the time, not a peep is heard from him after night-night until 6am or so. There is the occassional bad dream or coughing fit that requires some rocking in the middle of the night, but mostly he is down for the count. And we deserve this after all that we have gone through with Maia. We NEED this at the end of the day. We need to know that at least of them is going to go to bed without an issue and is going to sleep all night without bothering us. *sigh*

So, moving Nate to the Big Boy Bed was not something that we were really all that excited about. And yet we needed to do it. My brother was over for dinner last night, so I asked him to help Shad carry it in from the garage. It's not heavy, but it's kind of awkward to get in through the various doorways from the garage to the bedrooms. So, they brought it in and we got it all set up right next to the crib complete with mattress, pillow and all of the necessary night-night bonanza of characters. He and Maia "practiced" night-night in the toddler bed and read a bunch of books together in it. It was during this very sweet sibling-together-time that the thought entered Maia's head that she would need to sleep with Nate in the toddler bed. She approached me with the idea.

I said no.

She cried and pleaded.

I said no.

She cried and pleaded some more.

I explained all of the reasons why that as not a good idea and said that my answer would not change no matter what she said. End of discussion.

She cried and screamed and pleaded some more. For an hour.

That's right: the most difficult part of switching Nate to a toddler bed, at least so far, has been his Big Sister. She was hysterical about it. She said that he would be scared in there without her. We explained that he already sleeps in there by himself every night without her. She said that he would get out of the bed and we needed her in there to help keep him in the bed. We said no that he needed to do this on his own and that we did not want her to be in charge of keeping him in bed. She said that "it wasn't fair" to Nate because "Mommy sleeps with me every night". We again explained that Nate is FINE every night sleeping by himself and that changing beds shouldn't change that. (Of course, as we explained this we truly had NO idea what would happen with him once we finally got him to bed. What if he didn't stay in bed or was scared or woulndn't sleep by himself? What if it was a complete and total disaster just like it was with Maia?) Well, the biggest hurdle in getting him to bed did prove to be getting Maia OUT of his room and out of the way so that he could get ready for night-night in peace. She finally laid on the loveseat in the back room and cried about it while we got him to bed.

And he went to his room on his bike, just like usual. And he got in bed with his usual bedfellows, and he went to sleep. Just like that. He laid down on his little back and pulled the Cozy up to his chin and wrapped his arms around his friends and Blue Blankies and went to sleep.

Maia passed out from her delusional-hysteria-fest and we left her asleep on the back couch, not wanting to move her to bed and have her wake up back there and freak out loud enough to wake Nate.

He slept all night in his Big Boy Bed. Maia woke me up at some point and I went to her room with her and we went back to sleep, like always. Nate didn't make a peep until 6:45 when I heard him talking to his people in bed.

And, so, we survived the first night. Did I mention that during all of the craziness of getting him to bed and trying to calm Maia down that the dog barfed on the living room rug? Well, she did. And also Nate's nightlight burned out and we had to scramble to figure out what to do without him knowing. What are the freaking chances that his nightlight would burn out on the very night when we needed it to be as much like usual as possible in there? We stole Sissy's out of her room since she was passed out on the back couch. ;)

Guess what the first words out of Maia's mouth were this morning? That's right: "Since he slept all night in his bed last night, can I sleep with him tonight?"

*sigh*

Mommy's Day

So, here I am at work on an absolutely stunningly gorgeous spring Saturday morning, and I'm thinking about how my kids were so sweet and good this morning before I left that I would really rather not be here. I left them both on the couch reading books (too freakin' cute!), and neither of them seemed to care that I was leaving for work (which is much preferred to crying and screaming "NO MOMMY DON'T GO"...we've been down that road too much.) And they both looked so big and independent and just generally normal, like kids who sit and read books every day without whining for someone to come help them or read with them. *sigh* I suppose they all come to this stage eventually and the younger ones just that much more quickly as they watch the older ones and model after them.


I realized this morning that tomorrow will be my 7th Mother's Day. This year has been especially sweet already as the kids have both already brought things home for me from school/daycare. Nate painted a blue wooden picture frame magnet and glued hearts and stars on it for me. It even has NATE spelled on the top. He clearly had some help with this from the sitter, but he likes to show me repeatedly that his name is spelled on it "E-E-T-E NATE!" as he points to the letters in reverse order very carefully. I think we're going to have to work on some pre-literacy skills with him. LOL



Maia's kindergarten class had a Mother's Day Tea yesterday for all of the class mommies. They have been working on it since January 3rd and it was a very big deal with lots of secret stuff they had been practicing and making. One item was a giant floppy paper hat with beads, ribbons, flowers and other items hot glued to it which all of the mommies were required to wear during the tea. They made us paper flowers, poems, books, coupons, bookmarks and placemats, too. I'm not sure how I will manage to store this many keepsakes. ;) The kids all dressed up like rock stars and performed 3 different songs for us, too, which was the highlight of the tea and made most of us mommies cry just a little bit. Here is Maia at the end of their rockinest song:






This was all right up her alley. And there was no crying until the tea was over and Mommy was supposed to leave to come back to work. It was very close to dismissal time and it was quickly evident that most of the other mommies were taking their children with them. Well, I had to come back to the library for 2 more hours and Maia was supposed to ride the daycare van to her after school place. She was NOT keen on that, and in order to prevent Total Meltdown after such a marvelous display of mommy/kindergartener bonding, I caved and brought her back to work with me where she read books and magazines like a perfect angel for an hour and a half. We must be in a good moon phase. ;)

To compensate for Maia's outstanding behavior, however, Nate was a holy terror all evening. This tends to be the pattern, only one child can behave at any given time. Mr. Nate is all about playing outside right now, understandably, and getting him to stop playing outside and come eat supper is like winning the lottery. It just doesn't happen. Thursday evening he ate his supper at the top of the slide on the swing set after I realized that he was a) actually hungry but b) would never stop playing in order to come eat. Last night was no different, but I don't really think that eating atop the slide every night is a good idea (Bad Mommy for starting this trend in the first place...) and I tried earnestly to get him to think that coming in to sit at the table with us would be fun. Alas, it is not that fun and even when offered a hot dog instead of the chicken that the rest of us were having, he was not going to cooperate. (And then, OMG, the hot dog pieces touched the ketchup and that was the end of trying to eat supper for Nate. And when did ketchup become the enemy? Just a few days ago he would eat it with a spoon!)

Now, not only did Nate refuse to eat with us, he also proceeded to harrass Mommy about if she was done yet: "Mommy you done eating? You done eating. Yes you ARE done eating!" This was accompanied by climbing on me, pulling on me, pulling noodles off of my plate with his grimy little boy hands and being escorted by his father to time out. Truly, since he was an infant, Nate has not wanted me to eat supper. This is just a new progression in his Campaign to Have Mommy's Evening-Time Attention all to himself. And I'm sure that I'm partly to blame since I have Working Mommy's Guilt and have given in to his earnest attempts at not letting me eat supper on too many occassions, leaving the table to go play and then sneaking my food in later when he's occupied. My own grandmother used to eat the backs of chickens so that everyone else could eat the good parts. Is this so different?

In any case, tomorrow is Mother's Day and although I am not expecting breakfast in bed or a day of no chores or laundry (as if...), just seeing the kids be happy this morning is gift enough for me. This is not to say that certain other adults in my household should neglect altogether to commemorate Mother's Day --that is not a wise option-- but I'm not looking for much more than some peace in the household. And if my mother-in-law chooses once again to ignore the fact that I am the mother of her grandchildren by not acknowledging me on Mother's Day, I can live with that, too. ;)

Wow! We have been so busy at home and at work that I haven't posted anything since April. How lame! It's been about 2 weeks and you'd think that I'd have a lot stored up to talk about, but I'm not sure I do. I think I've been too busy to even have the usual "I should write about that" thoughts.


So, how about I just update y'all on what's what here in Mattoon with the Huddlestons? K, here goes:

• We bought a new car. This required lots of up front and behind the scenes work by Shad. He did all of the financing, salesperson talking and insurance dealing. Our 2000 Sonata had a very bad sound inside (worse every time that the dealer drove it to give us a trade estimate, in fact). We had already put about $1000 in it in the past year and didn't want to do that again. So, it made sense to find something new. Here it is:

Shad calls it a Baby SUV. It is a Toyota RAV 4 and is pretty fun to drive. What's more, the gas mileage is about the best you can get for an SUV, baby or not, and that is important to us what with freaking $3/gallon gas and all.

• I had strep throat last week. Again. I've lost track, honestly, but I think that is 4 episodes with it in about 18 months now. I think my boss thinks I'm lying now when I say that I have it. I asked the doctor what I could do to keep from getting it so much. In all of his infinite wisdom (and all 2 times that he's ever seen me), he stated "Wash your hands." Right. Cause I never do that. Without going totally OCD on handwashing, I'm right there with the best of them. I use the instant sanitizer stuff after every single time that I touch a patron computer in our public computer lab here at work, too. And it's not like I'm getting it from the kids, cause they haven't had it one time that I've had it. Not once! Whatever. After listening to the dr. tell the patient before me (in a boisterous voice through the paper thin walls of the dr. office) that she has an STD--and not the kind that will go away with medication-- I was feeling bad for even asking about how to stop getting strep throat.

• Maia is in her last few weeks of Kindergarten. She is feeling pretty proud of herself for finally mastering the lower-case g which has eluded her for some time now. She also finally holds her pencil correctly instead of using cave-girl grasping techniques. Her teacher has been working with her and another little boy on parts of speech and they are on adjectives now. She also got all 100 problems right on her addition quiz last week. Despite being accidentally left in the restroom today without any toilet paper when the others went out to recess, she is having a good spring at school. ;) Yesterday she got a Gold Slip at school for being a Super Musician in music class. Summer may be a challenge as we try to adequately fill her days with something educational and meaningful to do. I fear that by June 8th, Shad may be ready for school to start so that she will stop bugging him.

• Nate is getting so very, very big. He wears size 10 shoes!! He is learning so much every day and loves to "help" around the house, especially with baking muffins or cookies. His insistence on using the potty language is a little less frequent now, although he tends to pull it out when he is angry at us. Shad accidentally taught him a new expletive a few weeks ago. Nate was in the room when Shad discovered a literal colony of ants coming in through an electrical outlet. Now, Shad is normally very selective with his language around the kids since he is so well programmed as an elementary teacher to keep his language clean. The word that came out of his mouth when he found the ants was not clean, however, and Nate picked it up right away: Fox!! He started using it immediately, and quite appropriately, I might add. When Shad was changing Nate a few days later, trying to clean up a rather disgusting mess (no he's still not trained), Nate wanted to see the deposit he had made. In trying to get him to take responsibility for his own poo these days, we are trying to be as open as possible about all of it with him. So Shad showed him the grossness and Nate exclaimed "OH, FOX!"

Here is Nate cooking sand for Mommy outside last week:

• Shad is very ready for school to be out. He has a couple of really difficult little girls in class this year and they have been antsier than usual now that spring is here. They have very difficult home lives and Shad isn't exactly able to correct that for them, so he deals with a lot of fallout from it in the classroom. It turns out, when "mommy" has had a fistfight with "dad's" girlfriend the night before, paying attention in class is just that much more difficult. And let's just say that when one of them turned up with head lice this week, he was more than happy to send her to the office and back home for a few days. In any case, he is excited about the upcoming school year if only for the fact that he will be the assistant high school soccer coach. (Yes, you read that correctly. I told him it would be ok. Ask me about it again in September...)
  

So, that's pretty much it from our house right now. I'll leave out the parts about how we have ants in the kitchen, the dog is getting too arthritic to make it up onto the bed all the time, and the fridge smells like something is growing in there from last year but I'm too scared to look for it... (by saying that I would leave these parts out, I somehow inadvertently mentioned them, didn't I?) Please don't tell my mother about the fridge or she will be over cleaning it tomorrow and I don't need that. ;)

Peace y'all!