my new baby...and my big baby....

On new baby news,,,we heard the heartbeat today! It never gets old. After a few weeks of feeling more "old self", it was a great affirmation that baby is indeed there and well. John was working and couldn't be there, so in a great act of corny enthusiasm that made the midwife chuckle we used my cell phone to call our home voicemail and leave a recording of the heartbeat for John to hear when he gets home tonight.

As for my big baby...we've been trying to move him into a toddler bed in Kain's room without much success. His current "bedroom" is actually our large school/play room. It's a cold and drafty room and when the temperature dropped I decided he needed to move to Kain's much warmer bedroom. I bought a little toddler bed and Jack was quite excited about the whole thing. However, he won't actually stay in the bed. After a few nights of tearful battles, John pointed out that he obviously just wasn't ready for this. I protested..."He's 3 years old! Maria moved into a regular bed at age 2 and with no problem!" But John wisely insisted that, still, *Jack* wasn't ready for this. So, that very evening we partially broke down the crib, shoved it across the house, put it back together, and wedged it into Kain's now very cramped bedroom. The toddler bed will stay where it is simply because I don't have anywhere else to put it. And even though it's a big and lunky, mattress-less, in the way eyesore, a relative peace has returned to bedtime.



It occurs to me how much grief I have brought myself as a parent when I have tried to push my kids to do something before they are ready, insisting that they "should" be ready,,,,even if they just aren't. I do try to measure such things by the "when they are in high school" yardstick. It works like this. You take the problem and plug it into this sentence...."He/she will surely be able to (insert problem here) by the time they are in high school." Possible problems that have worked here for me include weaning, using the potty, tying their shoes, pushing themselves on the swing, eating without wiping their hands on their shirt (this may be a reach), remembering to flush the toilet, learning to read, understanding fractions, sleeping through the night, and sleeping in their own bed. My theory is that if a problem fits in that sentence, it is an issue of maturity and the child should just be allowed to mature at their own pace in the name of family sanity. Not that I still don't nag Kain to use a napkin. But it does help keep things in a "this too shall pass" perspective. These are the kinds of problems that almost always resolve on their own and leave you later wondering why they caused you so much grief in the first place.