Toddler Bed

As I wrote last night, we transitioned Ethan to a toddler bed. He had been attempting to climb out periodically when throwing tantrums at bedtime, though he never actually made it over the rail, so we knew the transition was coming. He has had an awful chest cold/bronchitis this week, so I brought him into bed with us on Tuesday night and gave him a pillow to keep his head elevated. He thought this was amazing, so on Wednesday night, he asked for a pillow again. However, he did NOT want it in his crib and insisted on lying down on the floor with it. Thursday's nap was the same story, so we made the decision to go ahead and convert his crib that night.

I worried that Ethan would freak out about the change since he pitched a fit the last time we lowered his crib mattress. However, he excitedly climbed all over everything, helping Daddy use the drill and playing with the Allen wrench.  After our usual bedtime routine, I kissed him goodnight, and he pointed to the floor and said, "Pillow right here!" I told him he needed to stay in bed, but he was already off and dragging his pillow onto the ground. Since he was happy, I decided not to push it, and he joyfully told me "bye bye" and went right to sleep without a fight (rare for him these days since he usually wants to go potty 3 times and then begs you to lie on the ground next to him).

The next morning, I woke up and checked the monitor only to see the following scene. Can you find the toddler?

This afternoon, he happily napped on the floor once again, so I figured we were going to have a floor-sleeper on our hands, but at least he wasn't trying to escape or throw fits. Then tonight happened. He begged me to lie down with him, and I did for a minute, but when I got up, he began to cry. A minute later, I heard the doorknob turn, and when I told him he needed to go back to bed, he grinned and said, "Need go potty?" After a potty run, I put him back in his room, and he immediately began to cry. I stood at the door while he kept trying to open it. Finally, Daddy had to go in and talk to him, and when he left, Ethan just sat on the edge of his bed and wailed. One more visit of reassurance from Daddy, and Ethan finally laid down in his toddler bed. And, for the first time, he actually fell asleep In the bed instead of on the floor!

I'm not sure whether to count tonight as a win or not, but at least the toddler bed transition is going better than I had feared. Hopefully, a week from now this will all be old hat, and he'll be happily sleeping in his toddler bed every night!

First Day of School

Today was Ethan's first day of preschool! Shockingly, I had no nerves about it whatsoever and was simply excited, which is odd since I've been lamenting all the big-boy changes of late. Ethan must have sensed this because he went in like an old pro! We got to the building, and he strolled right in to his classroom. I had to pull him back out to show him his hook for his bag. He resisted, but finally grinned when I pointed out he had a blue nameplate. Then he charged right back into the classroom, heading straight for a plastic bin and carrying it over to the play kitchen to "fill it with water." I stood back for a minute and watched him and then decided I might as well go! I asked him for a hug and a kiss. He sighed and gave me a hug. I asked if I could have a kiss. He audibly groaned and gave me a quick peck before going back to his work. I told him to have fun and keep his underwear dry. He responded, "K!" On my way out, I reminded the teacher to remind Ethan to keep his underwear dry, and as I left, he had already discovered the real sink and was gleefully washing his hands. I left and he didn't even bat an eye. The little punk =) (Not that I wanted him to be upset, mind you; I just expected some sort of goodbye =P)

I left the building (practically skipping, I'll admit) and rushed to enjoy my 3 hours of childless-ness, the only ones I'll get before my class starts back tomorrow. I wish I could say I did something fun, but in reality, I came home, uploaded a picture of Ethan to facebook, and then set about cleaning the house. I scrubbed the bathrooms, unloaded the dishwasher, dusted, captured an escaped goat (damn goats), and then headed back out to talk with a friend for an hour before heading back to the preschool to fetch Ethan.

I walked into the classroom behind some other mothers, whose kids came running into their arms. Not Ethan. He stayed right where he was, sitting on a shelf, and pushing a toy vacuum. Finally he noticed me and exclaimed "Mommy!!!" I went to give him a hug, and he said, "Mommy back!!!" Then he started showing me all the toys he played with, including a book that had wheels on it that he made "vroom vroom" noises over as he pushed around. Every adult in the classroom (his two teachers, the director, and an additional helper for the first week) came up to me to comment on how much he liked to wash his hands... apparently every time they turned around, he was back at the sink. Now they know what life is like at home! They also pointed out that he'd had no accidents, so that was my one fear put at ease! I asked Ethan if he was ready to go home, and he grabbed my hand and went to get his bag. As I put him into his carseat, I asked if he had fun, and he responded with an enthusiastic "Yes!"

All in all, it was a great first day for both of us. Hopefully he's just as excited on Thursday!

Potty Time!

This afternoon, at just 17 months, Ethan peed on the potty.

I hadn't planned on potty training Ethan until he was 2.5-3. I knew boys often trained MUCH later than girls, and since he didn't have an older sibling to emulate, I didn't expect it to happen any earlier. But for the past several weeks, every time he needs to be changed, he will point to his diaper and say "dapa," which is a sign of readiness I was happy to ignore. For even longer, he's been waking up dry after naps and often even overnight, which is another sign of readiness. Then in the past couple of weeks, he's been all about trying to play in the toilet. It's a race to keep him from sticking his hands in once he starts heading in that direction, and he could often be found attempting to swirl the toilet brush into the bowl. Our new sitter had been pointing out that he definitely seemed ready, but I just said I wasn't ready!

Then on Friday, Ethan asked to use the potty. He touched his diaper and ran to his bathroom, pointing at the toilet and saying "potty!" In disbelief, I asked if he wanted to sit on the potty. He nodded and again said, "Potty!" Figuring I had nothing to lose, I began taking his pants and diaper off. Just in time for him to finish peeing. In other words, if I hadn't wasted so much time trying to figure out whether or not he was interested, he probably would have peed on the potty then. Later that day, he did it again, and I got tripped up getting his pants and diaper off, just missing the opportunity. It appeared Ethan had decided it was time to start potty training, whether we were ready or not.

So on Saturday, we went and got a toilet reducing ring. Ethan was immediately interested in it and loved sitting on the toilet without help. We'd planned to try him on the potty after his nap, but he woke up with a poopy diaper. We were out all evening with my parents so we planned to try again in the morning. Only to have another poopy diaper. We were out all morning with my parents again, so our next opportunity was after his nap today. He woke up and pointed to his diaper, saying "dapa!" I asked if he wanted to try using the potty. He broke out into a grin and ran into the bathroom. I took his (dry) diaper off and sat him on the seat. And he began to pee. I clapped and said "Yay!," and he broke out into a HUGE grin before clapping and yay-ing for himself. I kept him on the potty for a while longer to see if there was anything else. Then it happened. He passed gas. And he burst out laughing. He did it another 3-4 times in the course of the next few minutes, giggling maniacally each time. Once I became convinced he wasn't going to poop, I put him back in the diaper, and he ran back to his nursery, victorious.

Later this afternoon, we were playing downstairs, and he stopped, looked at me, and said "Potty?" I asked if he needed to use the potty, and he ran for the stairs. Unfortunately, he got distracted by the prospect of playing with the gate, then threw a tantrum when I carried him upstairs instead of letting him play with it, and by the time I got his pants and diaper off, I was greeted with another freshly wet diaper. Oh well. We'll get there. Or not. If he decides tomorrow he's not interested, we'll happily wait another year or so before trying again. I'm in no hurry to start formal training, complete with rewards and punishments, but I'll happily continue to follow his lead if he continues to show interest. Wish us luck! Who knows, we may be out of diapers by 2!

We're in Trouble Now...

Since a family emergency caused our sitter to cancel too late for me to find a replacement, I had to miss class today. And it's a good thing I did because Ethan discovered a new way to get into mischief:

He can open doors.

He has to stand on his tip-toes, and it sometimes takes him a couple of attempts, but there is now nothing keeping him in or out of a room. He knows he's something, too, because he giggles maniacally the entire time.

I see a Target run in our future for tomorrow...

Learning to use the spoon

The past few days, Ethan has finally started to rebel slightly against being spoonfed. At first I thought he just didn't want any more of whatever he was eating. Then he reached for the spoon and began feeding himself, with a little guidance from mom when eating more liquidy things like yogurt. This morning, he wanted some of my oatmeal, and it's thick enough to stick to the spoon so he ate all by himself! I managed to grab our new video camera to capture one spoonful:

First Word(s)

Ethan has probably been talking for weeks, if not months. He first said "Dada" at 7 months. He first said "Mama" at 8 months. In the past couple of weeks, he's been saying "ba" for ball, and a couple of times, he's gone up to the bookcase, grabbed a book, and said "boo." However, it's hard to tell when "dada" and "mama" stopped being babbles and started meaning mommy and daddy. And do "ba" and "boo" really count as words? Because of this confusion, we'd held off on counting any of this as his first words.

Finally, a "scientific" method was declared to determine when Ethan says his first word:
1) It has to be unprompted. This means what you can't say "Say mama/dada/ball." The word has to come from him. However, it is acceptable to say "Ethan, what's that?"
2) It has to be repeatable. Just doing it once does not suffice.
3) It has to be clear enough and close enough to the actual word that he is indisputably saying dada/mama/ball.

Today, we achieved all three criteria. Ethan's first word? Kitty. Or more exactly, "Ditty!" since he can't quite make that "k" sound. Ethan has loved the cats for months, excitedly grabbing at them and chasing them around the house. He's said "ditty" or "datty" in reference to the cats before, but today was the first time he said it meeting the above requirements. His daddy held him and pointed out Toby, asking "Who is that? What do we call that?" Ethan let out an excited, "Ditty!" before struggling out of his daddy's arm to attack. Shortly afterwards, Ethan was faced with both Toby and Henry. "What do we call them, Ethan?" "DITTY!!!" he cried in a high-pitched squeal. And there you have it. His first word!

As a result of this achievement, I think we're basically out of major milestones for the time being. This week he also finally started clapping and waving bye-bye. He walks. He talks. What else are we waiting on?

The Trick to Table Foods

I discovered the key to table foods today. After some more failed attempts at finger foods, I decided to try Ethan on whole sweet peas for lunch since he likes pea puree, and they are relatively small and squishy. I put a few on the tray. He picked one up and gave me a look like "You've GOT to be kidding me." I ate a couple to show him the mechanics. He stared blankly. I tried to feed him one. He pursed his lips and turned his head away. In short, he behaved like he usually does unless I'm giving him Puffs or "Cheerios." Then I remembered how well he ate scrambled egg yolks when I fed him with a fork. I fetched his toddler fork and, right in front of him, stabbed one of the peas from his tray. He opened his mouth.

Now, it wasn't immediate. He gagged several times with the first one, once almost to the point of vomiting. With the second one, he gagged a little less. By the fourth one, he was eating peas like an old pro. He finished off an entire saucer full of peas with no problems.

This evening, after he ate half a banana in his yogurt, I decided to tempt fate and cut up the rest of the banana into small pieces. Remember, this ended in disaster last time, with one piece causing him to throw up thrice. I tentatively offered him a piece on the fork. He opened his mouth and ate it like he'd been eating them all along. He finished off the banana like it was no big deal.

So could this be the end of our table food dilemma? I don't want to jinx us, but it certainly seems to have helped! I still have hopes that he'll figure out how to feed himself, but for now I'm perfectly happy feeding him if it'll get him to eat. The only issue may be figuring out how to get things like toast on a fork!

In other news, Ethan has a couple of new "tricks." If you say "Give mommy a kiss," he immediately leans in, mouth open, and puts his mouth on your cheek and grins. Not quite a traditional kiss, perhaps, but still cute as can be! If you say "No no no!" (in a happy tone), he grins and shakes his head back and forth. And yes, I'm guilty of having him do both of these over and over, both because it's adorable and because I'm in awe of what a smart little guy he is! He's also adding new words to his vocabulary, but that's a story for another post. This is just such a fun age, and I can't wait to see what he'll learn next!

First Shoes!

Since Ethan is doing pretty well with this whole walking thing, we decided to go to Stride Rite today to have him fitted for his first pair of shoes so he can safely explore the outdoors. He took after his daddy's chubby baby feet, landing him in a navy sneaker in size 4W.

As you can see, he already looks older in them, especially when paired with his haircut! Once he finished his water, it was time to try them out:

"These things make walking harder! I have to hold onto Mommy's hands"

"OK, I guess I can push my train in them, too, but I'm NOT walking in them!"

We went outside to give them a true test, since he's so far refused to do much walking in the grass barefoot (and since that's the entire reason we got shoes!):

"I would much rather just sit down and explore, Mommy!"

"What the heck is this stuff, anyway?"

Finally, we convinced him to give walking in the shoes on the grass a try:

SUCCESS!

First Steps?

In continuing his momentous week, Ethan may have started walking today. I say "may have" because I'm still not sure it counts, and crawling is definitely still his default mode of transit, but he definitely took steps.

Around lunchtime, just before his afternoon nap, I always offer him to nurse again. We're usually sitting on the ground playing, so I sign for milk and he usually comes happily crawling into my lap. Today was no different, and after he'd had his fill, I stood him up to work on standing unassisted. His train walker caught his eye, and before I knew it, he took 3-4 steps and grabbed hold of it before taking off. And yes, I was so surprised I'm not even sure how many steps he took! I extracted him from the train and stood him up again to try to get a repeat performance, but he just got down and crawled to it. So I offered him to nurse again, he did, and then I stood him back up. Once again, he took 3 steps to reach the train!

We tried to recreate the scenario this evening and get some video, but Ethan didn't want to cooperate. However, here's some of the video so you can see a shaky step or two.



What do you think? Does this count as his first steps or does he need to be walking longer distances before it really counts?

First Haircut

As mentioned in the last post, Ethan received his first haircut on our trip! My brothers and father have gotten their hair cut at Tommy's ever since we moved to that neighborhood when I was 4, and he'd been asking to cut Ethan's hair for months. Since Ethan's hair was constantly in his eyes and looking quite shaggy, I finally relented. Overall, it went pretty well, and he certainly is cute with his new look. We also ran into an elementary school teacher of mine who had taken her grandson to get a haircut, so it was an extra fun adventure. Without further ado, here's the photographic evidence:

Playing with Grandmama's camera case and oblivious to what Tommy's about to do

Starting to catch on and not happy about it!

Standing up makes everything much better!

And if you're really invested in seeing how Ethan's first haircut went:

Before:

After:

New this week...

Ethan has had a few firsts this week that don't warrant their own post independently but are still worth noting. First of all, since I forgot his sippy cup when we went out to eat last Friday, Ethan successfully drank through a straw for the first time! I was feeding him yogurt so he needed water, but he didn't grasp the concept of the straw. Per his daddy's suggestion, I filled the straw with water and had him suck it out apart from the glass. That was apparently all it took because when I offered him the straw in the glass again, he sucked it up so quickly he got choked up!

Last weekend also saw my first attempt to get Ethan to nap in the crib since he was 3 months old. On Saturday, he was fighting going down for a nap and, honestly, I was just sick of bouncing with him so I went through our usual bedtime ritual before putting him in the crib. Even though at night he puts himself down with no fussing whatsoever, he apparently hasn't translated that to naps because it took 30 minutes of fussing before he went to sleep. However, he slept for 2 hours, which is the longest he's ever napped in the crib! On Sunday, I tried again, this time for his morning nap, and it still took 30 minutes of fussing on and off. When I tried on Monday, however, he screamed for an hour before I finally gave in and wrapped him, at which point he fell asleep immediately. I gave him a break on Tuesday and Wednesday, but he took his afternoon nap in the crib today. He still fussed for about 30 minutes, but I'm hopeful it will get better with time. I just need him to be napping in his crib by the time classes start back since I'll be leaving during nap time.

Finally, Ethan is getting better at standing unassisted and at initiating standing unassisted (i.e. at letting go while standing up). He stood without holding onto anything for about 10 seconds this afternoon, which was the longest he's done yet. So he still has a ways to go, but he's learning!

It seems like almost every day brings a new discovery or a new way for him to get into mischief!

Moving on from the Army Crawl

After his initial foray into crawling on his hands and knees at the LLL gathering, he mostly stuck to his usual army crawl. However, yesterday when we had some family over to meet Ethan for the first time, he got back up on his knees, and he's been doing it ever since! Here's a video of him moving around the front room:

My son is growing up too fast

He's already ready to start driving!



Sorry for camera-phone pictures, but that's all that was handy. The outfit was from church this morning. He's not usually that dressed up to just hang around the house!

The Return of Consonants

Ethan used to use consonants in his babbling all the time, but around 3 or 4 months, they disappeared in favor of working on sitting up, crawling, and such (this is extremely common). I was never concerned since he's such a social little guy, but I still missed his goos and boos. In the past week, the consonants have returned and have been joined with "dadadadada"s and "mana"s. Here is a video from this morning as he babbled to me from his Jumperoo. Notice, too, the weird way he's been holding his jaw lately as he gets used to his new teeth.

Mr. Mobility

Seriously, it feels like this was an overnight change, just like with the sitting up independently. He is crawling all over the house, getting into everything. A few minutes ago, I went to put my plate from lunch in the sink, leaving him playing with toys on a quilt in the front room. My back was turned for less than 15 seconds, and when I glanced back in there, he was gone. My heart immediately jumped to my throat (I don't know why. What did I think had happened?), and then I saw him. He had crawled to the coffee table, pulled himself onto the shelf underneath it, and was grinning at me from behind the bars on the side. What a mischief!!!

He currently has a cold, but he doesn't seem to really be feeling the effects, other than not sleeping or eating well. He's as happy as ever, and he LOVES his newest accomplishment: pulling up. He's been able to pull up while on his back for a while, but he's just discovered pulling up to standing from his belly, which means he can now use things other than us to pull himself up. He crawls up to anything in sight and tries to pull up on it, regardless of how tall it is. If I offer him a finger, he immediately grabs it and pulls to standing, at which point he beams with pride. He's even taken to standing up in the bath tub, much to my panic. He still can't stand without holding onto anything for more than a few seconds, so I think we're still a ways off from walking, but I can't tell with this little guy anymore since he seems to figure things out so quickly. He definitely keeps me on my toes!

Army Crawl

Apparently Ethan takes after his mommy, who also refused to crawl normally:



Sorry the video cuts off rather abruptly. We hadn't erased any videos since he was born, and the Flip was full!

Sippy Cup Success!

We bought Ethan a sippy cup last weekend. Our first attempt with water was a fail as he wasn't expecting any liquid and got choked up. However, he LOVES holding it and sucking on it, so when he started refusing his bottle today, I poured the contents into his sippy cup. Success! Please excuse the cinematography. I had to hold the camera away from me so I had no clue what was in the frame.

Solids = Success?

After last weekend's failure, we decided not to keep up the solids attempts for a while. However, this morning Ethan was grabbing for my food as usual and managed to get my banana to his mouth while my head was turned. Unbeknown to me, he actually bit a chunk off, which he subsequently gagged on and spit out. Once I was sure he was OK (he was completely unfazed), I decided to take advantage of his interest and mash up a piece of my banana for him to try. The first spoonful was spit out, but for once he didn't gag. I kept trying, and finally got him to swallow a bit. His face lit up in a smile, and he opened his mouth for more. After a couple more small bites, he was back to spitting it out, so I decided he was probably ready for his morning nap (which he was). Following his nap, I nursed him, and prior to giving him his first bottle of the day, I decided to try again with the banana. He happily swallowed the remaining spoonfuls (still not much since I didn't mash up too much to begin with), with nary a gag or spit! And some of the spoonfuls were pretty full, so I was quite impressed. He seemed to lose interest around the time I ran out of banana, but he continued to smack his lips and play with his tongue like he does after a nursing session to get the last drops, so I think he might actually like it! At the very least, he's beginning to figure out the mechanics. So we may try again with banana tomorrow in hopes that we can soon graduate back to cereals and sweet potato!

Oh, and to address the old wives' tale that babies shouldn't have fruit as a first food: Breast milk is extremely high in sugar so breastfed babies already have a sweet tooth, thus making fruits a natural choice for a first solid. In fact, more and more studies are showing that (white) rice cereal has no place at all in a baby's diet, yet the same people who say you shouldn't give a baby fruit are usually the same people pushing store-bought rice cereal. For more info on this, check out The WhiteOut Movement.

Solids = FAIL

After much debate and reading, we decided to go ahead and try Ethan on solids a week before he turns 6 months since he certainly seemed ready (sitting well unassisted, attempting to grab and eat our food, allowing a spoon to be put into his mouth). I'd made brown rice cereal last weekend and sweet potato puree yesterday morning so yesterday afternoon after his feeding, we put him in the Bumbo and got ready. He was immediately enticed by the new bib:


When I approached him with the plate and spoon, he was very excited and immediately reached out to grab them. In fact, he grabbed the puree off the spoon before I could even get it to his mouth. Thus the messiness began:



Overall, he was not a fan. He enjoyed playing with the food, but very little actually made it into his mouth:


He was quite happy when the whole ordeal was over and it was time for his bath:




Today, we tried again. I thinned down the rice cereal some more and had more success getting him to open his mouth and take it off the spoon. Then he gagged. This isn't too unusual for him since he'll gag on a bottle from time to time, too. However, this was the first time he gagged to the point of vomiting, and up came a couple of ounces of formula and breastmilk. At that point, I called it quits, and I think we're going to take a break from the solids attempts for a little while. At least making the baby food is fun, even if attempting to feed it to him isn't yet.

Sitting Up Update

Yeah, he's definitely an independent sitter. He just sat up by himself, playing with his toys, for 15+ minutes while I cleaned the bathrooms, fussing only when Scout stopped talking to him. Then I put him on the bed, and he sat up another 10+ minutes playing with his groceries while I finished up. Both times, he was still sitting up steadily when I picked him up. Who knows how long he's capable of sitting up if he had the patience for it! I'm still in shock as to what a seemingly overnight change this has been. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if he's like his daddy and walking at 6 months. Yikes!