Into Thin Air: Climbing the Crib

Noah's usual morning wake-up ritual is to hum, talk to his binky which he calls "baby", talk about "choo choos" and then yell loudly and abruptly, "MAMA!". Today, he did most of the same but began to say "mama" again and again and again. No yelling, just talking it out. Every once in a while he'd throw in a "down".

Mama, mama, mama, mama, down.
Mama, mama, mama, mama, down, mama.

I figured there was no way I was actually going to sleep through this mantra so I got up, got dressed and went to the bathroom. When I opened the door I was momentarily shocked to see an empty crib. And then I looked down to see a smiling boy who looked very pleased at his major accomplishment. (I was pleased that I didn't open the door on his face that was mere inches away.)

Panic immediately set in.
"Nooooahhhh!? How'd you get down? Show Mommy how you got down!"
And then I picked him up and put him back in the crib where he dutifully demonstrated his cat like agility and need for an adrenaline rush. Once he hoisted his leg over the top rail instead of hurling himself over, like I expected, he balanced his entire body on the rail while squealing in delight. After the excitement of balancing his body on the inch-wide rail (while Mommy watched in horror) was over he carefully climbed down the other side. And then smiled proudly.

We'll be shopping for a new bed today.

Big Boy Undies!

Noah flat out refused a diaper today. And by the word "refused" I mean, he threw an epic, full body, screaming on the floor tantrum. A diaper just isn't worth my sanity (or his) so I put on his shorts without one and proceeded to bug him every 15 minutes with, "Noah, you gotta go pee pee?" I did some research online about our predicament and found that this was actually good news. Apparently, the hardest part of toilet training is "motivating" the child that they don't need the diaper. If they don't want the diaper then check that little hurdle off. Herding Noah around the living room to ensure he only stayed on the hardwood floors was becoming difficult so Jeremy went to the store to get some pull-ups and big boy undies. He returned with some that had trucks and fire engines and all kinds of cool stuff. Noah immediately wanted to wear the red ones with gorillas. Not even 5 minutes into their maiden voyage he christened them with an "oh oh". So, we put on a new pair and gave him some paper towels to clean up his mess like a good boy (another Internet piece o' wisdom--make the kid do the dirty work). An hour later he came back from the kitchen saying, "Pee pee, oh oh". We ran, but we weren't fast enough to make it to the potty. After cleaning up his second mess he agreed to wear the pull-ups. While the overall event didn't end in total success (no pee pee in the potty), it was really cute to see him trying to be a big boy. And was a lesson to us that he's ready to start the long process of saying bye bye to the diaper. Amen!