Boppa's Tricks

Matt's Dad has an incredible talent for keeping Daniel interested when we are at restaurants or other places. Well, at the risk of levelling the playing field between Dan and the rest of us who deal with busy toddlers, I'm going to share a few with you.

Trick #1 - Washing hands - Take the toddler to the bathroom of whatever location you are at and wash your hands together. Don't forget to use soap and to dry them. This is particularly interesting with motion activated water, soap or hand dryers.

Trick #2 - The waterfountain - Daniel enjoys visiting the water fountain so much that Dan is often greeted with, "Drink of water," as if it were his nickname.

Trick #3 - The elevator - Daniel would ride elevators up and down all day long. He really likes to "hit da button." In my first "gator" attempt, I just let him hit the buttons. Well, I was quite suprised when someone started asking if I needed any help. Daniel had called the emergency operator. They thought that it was somewhat childproof as it took a two-button operation to accomplish the call. That was no match for Daniel. I just smiled and said that we were all ok.

Trick #4 - Bathtubs - Dan regularly takes Daniel on a tour of all the bathtubs in their house. I think he is trying to pass on his real estate prowess :)

Now, if you are as luck as we are, you can find a breakfast establishment that has three of the four attractions. These are great ways to pass the time between ordering and the arrival of the food which is excruciatingly long for a toddler.

February Fun

"Hi Christopher. Nice to meet you."

Picnic in the living room. Daniel tried to share his sandwich with Christopher.

Morning bouncer time.

Christopher has been really good on his tummy. He even rolls over sometimes!

Storytime?

Kiddopotamus I Love You

Christopher slept through the night last night. I am sure it was a fluke and will never happen again, but he slept from 10 pm until 6 am. Two nights ago he woke up every hour between 11 pm and 3 am. I was slightly annoyed with this and decided to put him in the Kiddopotamus or baby straight jacket as we like to call it. He has been busting out of our swaddles immediately, and we needed something new. Well he slept until 7 or 8 am. The next night I used the Kiddopotamus again, and he only woke up once. I was pleased with those results. Little did I know that last night would be even better. Of course, I woke up in a small amount of pain, and Matt was concerned that Christopher was not well, but we are thrilled that he is sleeping well at night. Now I only have to figure out naps for the little guy. He does not like napping alone during the day.

Matt's New Car

That's right, we had to get another new car! After spending Wednesday getting a new big boy bed, Matt's transmission died on Thursday. The Jeep has been very good to us over the past 8 years. We knew it would not last forever, but we were hoping to get at least another 6 months out of it. The repairs were a little pricey to justify this time. Too bad he had just purchased new tires the day before! Here are a couple picutres of the new car. Matt is really excited about it!

Time for a Change

After a second day of not napping, we decided it was time for a major intervention on the whole crib/bed thing. For a long time now Daniel has had a crib and a twin mattress on the floor in his room. This worked fine for a while, but it quit working two days ago. Naptime has been quite dramatic recently. After over an hour of wailing by Daniel, I was about at my wits end. Matt came home around two, and we headed out to buy a big boy bed. Daniel was so tired that he fell asleep before we even got out of the neighborhood. The change worked well for last night's bedtime. We will see how nap goes today. Here are some pictures of his new room and a few of the boys from last week.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Today has been a day of highs and lows. On the good side of things, Christopher has been a perfect baby. Another really huge thing is that I got to flush a poop instead of tossing it out in a diaper. I am so proud of Daniel for being so good at the potty these days.

On the bad side of things, Daniel has figured out how to climb out of his crib with cat-like speed. The kid is up and over the side lightning quick and does not even make a sound when he hits the ground. It's quite scary. That means that he pretty much has to sleep in the bed. His problem with the bed is that he has trouble falling asleep there. He just has not figured out how to turn it off well in the bed. He did not nap today. We spent an hour trying to get him to settle down and stay in the bed.

That only leaves the ugly, which would be me sitting outside of Daniel's room frusterated to my wits end wishing that he would just take a nap or at least just have some quiet time in his room (he can open his door and climb over the gate, too). The icing on the cake is that Matt has to be out until 11 pm tonight. Let's hope that Daniel figures out how to go to sleep before it gets too late tonight. Feel free to provide tips and pointers on getting an escape artist to sleep.