starting the day off right


before (l) - john in one of my tshirts after (r) - cleaned up nice and looking like a big man

we have a custom in our house that when john goes to bed every night, i tell him something about his day that made me proud of him. it can run the gamut from being proud that he used his words to tell us something to being proud that he behaved so well in a store or played so nicely with a friend. but no matter how rough the day might have been, i pick something out and tell him i'm proud of him.

and i truly thought i was doing this for him - to reinforce that he's doing good things and working hard. to remind him that mommy and daddy are always proud of the good things he does.

so imagine my surprise this morning, when i walked into his room because i heard him fussing a little. i had just gotten out of the shower, and still had a towel on my head and another wrapped around me.

"good morning, my love!" i chirped cheerfully.

"good job taking a shower, mommy!" said john with equal happiness. "i proud of you!"

so i hugged him gleefully and got him a dry diaper and we headed into the bedroom to check on daddy.

as john climbed onto the bed to hug daddy, i said, "are you proud of daddy, john?"

and he said, "i proud of you, daddy."

and i said, "is daddy a good daddy?"

and john said, "no. daddy a good man. mommy a good lady. i proud of you!"

so, whoever is feeding this kid his lines, thank you. great job! i'm proud of you. that was just what a mommy and daddy needed to start the day.

Comments

on lullabies

i am not a singer. if you've sat behind me in church, you know this to be true. (and i'm sorry.) a musician, yes. a singer no. and yet i find myself singing to john almost nonstop. and the beauty is, he seems to actually like it! (there's no accounting for taste. he also thinks i'm the most beautiful woman in the world. i'm no ogre, but i'm certainly not winning any beauty contests outside of my son's brain!) and actually, i've written some lullabies for john that are pretty nice. and it made me think: did your parents sing to you? do you remember what they sang, and better yet, if you have kids, do you sing the same songs to them? reply in the comments!

pull up your big boy undies

"what time is it? mommy? what oclock?" john's teacher told me something amazing today. "you should bring me some big boy undies," she said, "i haven't changed john in weeks." it seems that at school, since they check in with him periodically to see if he has to potty, and since his very smart teacher has noticed his (very regular) bowel movement schedule, john is potty trained. at 9am at 2pm, she plops him on the toilet. he might sit for 20 minutes, reading a book. when she checks on him, he says, "i just poo-pooin', miss meka." and when he's done, he's good and done. we're not quite that far along at home, but tonight we go shopping for big boy undies. and i'm sure we'll have a few accidents, but that's just a part of the process ... and soon my little boo will be in big boy undies full time. and ... it's a great time for him to be out of diapers. because good lord willing and the creek ...

i'm furberizing my baby

ok, let's get this straight right off the bat: i don't know if i am literally following dr. furber's methods of sleep training. there are so many versions out there. but saying we're furberizing john is WAY more fun than saying that i'm letting him cry his little lungs out in an attempt to teach him to sleep on his own. it's night two of our efforts. he went right to sleep last night, which was great. and he slept for 5.25 hours (!!!!) before waking up at 2:30 a.m. when he woke up crying, i let him cry for 5 minutes before going in to soothe him. (the soothing barely works at all, by the way, but it's what i'm supposed to do ...) then i let him cry for 10 more minutes before going in to soothe him again. next on the agenda was a 15 minute stretch of crying - but he fell asleep after 8 minutes. so a sum total of 22 minutes of crying. not too bad for night two. i've heard night three can be the worst ... so we'll hold on to our hats tonight. mean...

john's mom works

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