Tommy is now actually reading. Like, practically overnight he started reading real, actual books. He obviously still needs help with a lot of words, but he knows a lot by sight already - ones that I didn't know he knew. Holy crap. At first I thought maybe he was simply remembering things I'd read to him before, but now he is reading books that we' ( Read more... )

Today as I was driving Tommy home from school, I asked him about a new classmate, and discovered a possible future career for my son. The conversation went like this ( Read more... )

We snuggle together under a blanket on the living room floor, just the two of us. I lift up a corner of the blanket to make a little cave for him, and he crawls in, grinning. He is accompanied by his almost constant companion, his blankie bear. We giggle in our cave, and I cuddle him close, his soft, warm body still small but growing, growing. We ( Read more... )

I am so over this whole potty training thing. Seriously, done now. Tommy had been making pretty good progress over the past couple of weeks, but today I cleaned up a total of five "accidents". I believe today he was deliberately forgetting to go to the potty to see what would happen. I have reassured him in the past that he's not going to get in ( Read more... )

We have some improvement in the nap situation today. It only took 15-20 minutes for Tommy to get quiet in his room. I went up to check, and he was asleep on the floor again. But today he's in the middle of the floor instead of right next to the gate. So I guess he's slowly creeping his way towards the bed ( Read more... )

After running around in his room, wreaking havoc and yelling for over an hour, Tommy got quiet. I snuck up the stairs as quietly as possible, to find him sacked out, on the floor in front of the baby gate.

I wish he'd done it a little sooner than 3:30, but sometimes it's best to let sleeping toddlers lie.

...why Tommy can't stay in his crib until he's 18?

(Um, except for that he's already too big for it. Can we ignore that part?)

Tommy's been sleeping (or not, as the case may be) in a toddler bed for about, what, a week and a half now? It seems like so much longer. I knew that it would probably be a rough transition, as he is an active and curious ( Read more... )

Tommy, holding Thomas the Tank Engine number workbook while having his diaper changed: "The engines aren't in the sheds ( Read more... )

Once again, I must make the declaration that no, I did not fall off the planet. I have been hiding in my house from all the election madness (not very successfully, I might add). I find that now that the election is over, I have even less patience for all the political talk. I'm very pleased at the outcome; I have real hope that things may begin to ( Read more... )

Today was Tommy's first day at preschool. He's going to the preschool at our church, which we started going to last year when we went to check out the school and liked the church as well. It has a 2 1/2 year old class which isn't required to be potty trained (whew!) and which meets twice a week for four hours. I have been looking forward to this ( Read more... )