Toddler Bed

Jayden is technically in a toddler bed. Right now, it is a mattress on the floor. :) Brian broke the latch on his crib. We didn't want to buy a new crib at this point, so we pulled the front rail off. We bought a convertible crib, so that's no big deal. Jayden just kept falling off the bed.

Yesterday I took apart the crib and put his mattress in the middle of the floor. There are blankets on either side of him, so it's okay if he rolls around. He seemed to sleep much better last night than he was on just a pallet we'd made. Plus, there were no "thunks" in the middle of the night. We're going to get toddler rails, but we thought we'd start with this first.

He thinks that he's so big now. He climbs on his mattress and rolls around giggling. I even spied on him and saw him grab a book and take it back to his mattress. Of course, that made his Mommy proud!

We've Been Gone.

I haven't written for a while and much has happened in our lives. We went down to Georgia to stay for three weeks. Jayden had a great time. He got to see all of his cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and he really loved the company. He's such a little ham that he enjoyed having everyone doting over him.

He's running around now - not just walking, but running. He keeps me incredibly busy. We've started doing little projects weekly. Last week we made a nature scene picture, and this week we made sock puppets. I made a stage for him out of a cardboard box, and he's had fun getting in it and playing with the puppets.

He's 30 inches tall now and weighs 20 pounds. He's a little man, but his doctor says that he's perfectly sized. He also is eating "real people" food these days. He's a good eater, which is great because Brian and I make a lot of non-American foods. So far he hasn't met a spice he didn't like, and we're hoping it stays that way.

We went to an event at the library yesterday. He's signed up for a 6-week Mother Goose time. It's a little weird how much the mothers invest in what their children can do. They all want to show everyone what they've taught little Johnny. I feel very differently about Jayden's intellect. He's a problem solver, and we let him figure things out for himself. Everything we've read says that is the best option for allowing his mind and creativity to develop, so that's what we're doing. These kids have memorized things their parents taught them, but watching them play, I realized that they don't do anything for themselves.

There was only one other kid there, Benjamin, who was like Jayden. The two of them hit it off immediately. I liked his mom, too. She looked pretty eccentric, and she seemed to think the other mothers were as full of themselves as I thought they were.

Jayden had fun, though. He doesn't care for the forced activities, but he does like the books they read and the stuffed animals they had. Of course, his favorite was the group play time with blocks. He jumped right into that.