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Sunday, December 13, 2015

Big boy bed

    Joel truly is on the fast track to big boydom. As I type this he is, for the second morning, fast asleep in his new big boy bed.
    (Okay I kind of cheated on this one. It's actually a little-big boy bed.)

    For Christmas, Aaron and I take the opportunity to be a bit more practical with gifts. (It helps that his birthday is in November.) This year we couldn't help but notice he was starting to look quite large in his crib. We talked it over and decided it was time to get him a toddler bed.
     We bounced around on ideas of a pirate ship bed, a construction truck bed, and settled on a simple brown bed with fun bedding.

    We asked his Aunty Amy to take hang out with him while we put the bed together and moved his crib out of the room.
   This was the most we could "surprise" him with the bed. Not wanting the bed to be a traumatic experience for him, we talked about the move to him for weeks in advance, and brought him with us the night before to buy it. We even let him help a bit in the beginning stages of putting it together, but I don't think he knew what it was. (Kid just likes helping us put things together.)



   After we had it all set up and ready we called him in to see what he thought. We got a great first reaction with a loud "WOW!".






He loves his bed. Not so much at bedtime- but what kid wants to go to bed?

      Cupcake brought him a gift from Santa on his first morning in his bed to reward him for being so big.
I'm still waiting for Santa to give me something for handling him growing up. I've deeply contemplated shoving him back into an infant outfit the past month.




Baby to boy

     For a few weeks I was fighting the thought that Joel's hair was getting a little... too much.

    His last haircut had left him without any of his baby curls, and I spent days agonizing over getting those curls back. I watched his hair grow out, I stalked him with a straight-egde trying to find any hint of a twist coming back. After declaring repeatedly that his unruly hair was simply growing out, I decided I had to face the facts and give him his first true blue big boy hair-do.



 
   I searched around for cuts I liked (it turns out, boy haircuts aren't all that diverse) and then hunted down a nice little-person oriented salon. After finding the one with the best reviews, Aaron and I dropped in and asked a stranger to take sharp blades to our precious boys head. Which oddly enough, Joel took quite some time accepting.

   His hair has never been quite this short, and I am learning all too well how hard it is to style boys hair if you are as out of the hair loop as I am. And just like that, in the time it took her to shave up his little head, my baby vanished and was replaced with an authentic little human.





My baby has officially become a little boy. And already, I'm beginning to see the little man he's going to become all too soon.


Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Cupcake

  Joel's 2nd birthday has come and gone, and I'm left wondering how on earth this happened in the blink of an eye.
















    My tiny little baby has transformed into a walking, talking, full human with his own opinions (which he makes very known.) And let me be the first to say- he's pretty darn amazing.

   Santa must agree because on his birthday he sent a strange visitor. We were all a little put off by him at first. We read his story and after a discussion about this tiny guest, Joel tipped me off that the little guys name was Cupcake. ("Duh mom", he must have been thinking. "Don't you see the outfit he's wearing to celebrate ME?")

  Well, after that day the tiny guy was gone. Only to suddenly reappear a few days ago...



Cupcake is back. With a new story and a wonderful new tradition to start with my family.


   I know some people really dislike, or even straight out hate the Elf of the Shelf tradition. I personally couldn't be happier to start a silly tradition with Joel and give him small memories to smile back on. He seems to be catching on already (to the extent a 2 year old can.) He understands Cupcake moves around and says good morning and bye to him. He also understands that Cupcake has something to do with Santa... though I'm not sure he knows how to feel about that.