20 Months Old

Well, Eirik is now officially in a toddler bed. I pulled off the side of his crib about 2 weeks ago and he fell out every night for the first 5 nights. I almost gave up, but he hasn't fallen out since. He loves it and so do I. He HATES to be in bed with Paul and I for some reason. He just won't do it, so we never have to worry about him coming to our bed. He just gets up and cries at the bottom of the stairs for me to come get him some milk and turn on his favorite animal show. (This is his favorite thing to do in the morning!)

Eirik and I went to this Mom 2 Mom sale last Saturday (one of my favorite things about Detroit) and Eirik spotted this cute little potty chair that sits on the floor. He got so excited and wanted to sit on it and drag it around the room. He grabbed my hand and said, "mommy, open diaper please?" How could I resist. I had to buy the chair. The next day, he pulled the chair to me from the bathroom and said, "open diaper please". Mind you, I am not ready to potty train a 20 month old boy with a new baby coming in a month, so I was not going to really encourage this, but when he sat down and actually went I was AMAZED! We, of course, profusely congratulated him, but he was as excited, if not more, than we were by his own accomplishment. I think if I were diligent I could get him totally potty trained soon, but I am not ready for that responsibility. For those of you experienced moms, do you have any advise for me based on the signs he is giving? If I don't move forward with his excitement am I going to make it harder later?

Recently Eirik and I have been doing a lot of puppet making, finger painting, peanut butter playdough, regular playdough, hide and seek, tons of throwing and catching the ball, Eirik helping mommy paint ie: he sorts the pencils by color and makes a giant mess while I paint, Storytime at the library (a lifesaver!) and the best way to cure day to day monotony has been getting together with Erin and Benjamin almost every day for something or other. I can't tell you how great it is to have at least one activity planned every day. That saves me!

Oh, and I'm sad to say but Eirik has a few TV shows he likes to watch every day and I let him. :) Zaboomafo, Backyardigans, and Wonder Pets. They are all such cute and informative shows and I love what Eirik learns from them.

Eirik is talking in sentences and knows how to ask for anything he wants. I finally discovered the power of discipline this week. I realized that I have been letting him walk all over me. He's been developing tantrums when he doesn't get what he wants right when he wants it. Well, I finally learned that when I get firm with him, he is glad for the boundaries and does respect them. We are starting on a whole new venture here. Now, mommy is definitely in charge.
In fact, today we did a whole lot of things that I wanted to do instead of mostly things that Eirik wanted to do and he had to fend for himself. I worked on three paintings and painted the nursery walls, and he learned to paint on paper with water and leave mom's paints alone and find things to play with. It was great! He was very well behaved and it felt like I had a little bit of synergy between us that will continue to develop into a relationship where we are helping each other and I'm not just the caregiver. Pretty fun!

He's absolutely delightful with his spontaneous thank yous and I'm sorrys and hugs. He loves to help in any way that he can. He loves to sit on the counter by while while I do make up or while I cook. He wants to do everything I do. He has learned though that make-up is just for girls and he likes to tell me all the time... "make-up for gilas" which sounds a lot like gorillas. (We're working hard on those r's still.) :)
Today we played hide and seek for the first time- his idea.
He told me he was hiding in the shower. I told him it was my turn and he had to come find me. I went to hide and then he said, "mom?" I said "yeah" and he goes, "yeah, ok" and tries to follow my voice. We went through this conversation about 4 times for each hide and that cute little "yeah, ok" had me rolling. So cute!

Eirik loves to lay on my belly and talk to Jorin and give him hugs. I hope they're good friends.
I hope the boys like their new nursery. :) (who am I kidding.. the new nursery is for me, not them. They could care less what the furniture looks like!)