Big Boy Things

Over the past few weeks, Lewis has really started surprising us with what he wants to/knows how to help us with. 

He helped Kevin transfer the recycling from our indoor bin to the outdoor bin this weekend:

 

 

We found him a miniature broom at the thrift store last weekend, and he walks around with it, swooshing the floor as he goes. I added a nail to the kitchen wall for him to hang his broom next to our broom.

 Get on that dog hair detail, Lew!

There were some hole punches on the office floor the other day, and he was totally moving them around with his little broom! Very exciting. There is always dog hair to be swept. Always.

When we last left off from Lewis' crib escape maneuvers, we'd been able to keep him in a bit longer by putting him to bed in sleep sacks every naptime and nighttime. However, Monday night we once again woke up to a big thump and a cry out from him falling out. (He'd been hiking his leg up on the rail again, despite the restriction of the sleep sack, for the past week or so.)

This time, we decided to go ahead and convert his crib to a toddler bed (the instruction manual says we need to do so after he is 35 inches tall, which he is). We took off the front crib rail and added the safety rail yesterday before nap. We didn't really give him time to get familiar with it before nap (our bad...not sure if it would have helped anyway).

 Big Boy Bed, ready for a big boy.

Soooo as you might guess, it didn't go well. He cried and came to the door and stuck his fat, little fingers under the door and pulled books down and did everything but sleep. I think he did fall asleep on the floor for about 30 minutes, and then we went in and got him after he definitely sounded like he wasn't going to nap any further. 

Here's what his room looked like after his first nap of having relatively free range:

 Piled up just a few books to read

 Emptied quite a lot of books from the shelves

(I moved the railing back to center after I read the instructions fully, by the way. I thought he might feel more secure if I closed off his favorite corner spot of the crib, but you're supposed to leave at least a 9 inch gap on either side of the safety rail).

 Took out a few fabric drawers

After the failure of that nap, we took some time to get familiar with his new bed.

 Sliding out

Climbing in 

Bedtime was MUCH better. Kevin got down on the floor and told him under the door that he needed to get in his bed and go to sleep, and he actually did! He fussed about it, but he did it!

After like 30 minutes, Mom and I creeped in to see if he'd stayed in his bed or ended up on the floor--he was fast asleep in his bed, cute as can be. He stayed there all night (to our surprise).

 Our Sweet Little Buddy

 My, what a lot of drool that is. :) 

He also likes to help us put leftovers into storage containers and put his water back in the fridge after he is finished taking a drink.

Speaking of big boy, I've started noticing that shopping carts have a child's weight limit of 35 pounds--uh, if places don't have the race car carts, what am I supposed to do? Do people put children in the basket part or is that against the rules? I guess I could put him in the stroller again. Also, I'm pretty sure he is creeping up to the maximum height to be rear-facing in his car seat (which his pediatrician suggested might happen since he's so tall). I need to get a ruler out to see where we are. We might be going forward-facing sooner than later!

#BigBoyProblems :)