Life of a Toddler

It must be incredibly frusterating to be a toddler. At least that is what I can surmise from my little guy. Daniel had a relatively rough morning with lots of no's and tears. He was very mad that I would not let him play in the sink before swimming, and he was even more mad when he could not take his raisins in the pool with him. Well, I was just assuming that he was in a bad mood or not feeling quite right or some thing like that. But after the last few hours, I'm thinking that he just has some big things going on in his head. Let me explain, in this morning with all the tears and frusteration, Daniel did some big things.

First, he did amazing at swimming lessons. We are transitioning to the next level at swimming. This is a really big deal because Mommy is no longer part of the class. Well, today he did the lessons by himself, and I did not even have to put on a swimsuit. He listened to the teacher and sat on the step and waited his turn. Really quite amazing acomplishments for Daniel.

Then we went to the grocery store where he started telling me things in sentances. Yes, Daniel did insist on wearing his hat and gloves and holding his raisins the whole time we were in the store, but at some point he took one of the gloves off and put it back on. Then he said, "Daniel put on glove by self." I can't wait to see what else he wants to do by himself. This will be another source of frusteration, I fear.

Last thing he did was sleep in his bed for nap. Now I know you all think that he sleeps in the bed every night, but the sleeping in the bed did not last too long. It was maybe a week before he started getting out. He has not slept there for a long time. We try every night, but he just can't seem to fall asleep in the bed. So we have this routine where Daniel tries to sleep in the bed twice, but he gets out and comes to the door (where we have a gate). Eventually, he goes in the crib and is asleep within about 30 seconds. So he sleeps well, and he goes to sleep happy. I can't bring myself to force him to sleep in the bed at this age. Maybe this nap is a sign that he is ready to make the switch. He has been down for over 2 hours and had no problem falling asleep.

I guess Daniel is just a little like me in that change and times of transition make him a little emotionally unstable. He dives right into the next thing, but it always comes with a few little speed bumps he has to get over.