Kids are smarter than you think.

As it turns out, early morning awakenings continued throughout this past week, and it didn't take long for me to realize why. The first time it happened, (last Saturday), I promptly deposited Preston on the living room sofa with a cup of chocolate milk, turned on Winnie the Pooh, and went back to sleep (if you can call it that) for an hour. Well, wouldn't you know, that's all it took for him to realize that all he has to do is wake up early, and he gets to watch TV. So now, most mornings, he comes waltzing into my bedroom at the a$$-crack of dawn, climbs into bed, snuggles up, looks up at me, and with the biggest sh*t-eating grin on his face, says, "Can I watch TV?"

I am pretty sure the quickest way to nip this in the bud is by just waking up myself and beginning our normal mundane morning routine without TV, but at 6:30am I just can't motivate myself to do it. I have a hard enough time getting myself going on the days I actually have to work, and I can do 90% of that routine with my eyes closed and with minimal conscious thought. The idea of waking up that early and beginning a full day of toddler management before the sun is even up, is somewhat excruciating. Hopefully this is just a phase. At the very least, Winnie the Pooh is proving to be incredibly benign, so it's not that bad of a fall-back plan. Beauty and the Beast had to go, because Preston was doing a little too much of pretending he was Gaston at school, which doesn't bode well in a classroom full of little people. 

What was meant to be a mommy's-day-out today turned into a family affair when I couldn't find a babysitter. So much for my plans to go kick back a few beers and enjoy a football game. Instead, I got to haul a 40+lb toddler up a mile-long hike to the Carrier Dome, chase him around the stands for about 45 minutes, and turn around and carry the 40lb toddler all the way back down the hill. In the freezing cold, super-gusty air. 

No, it wasn't really that bad. We did stop and enjoy a slice of Varsity pizza with my good friend Jess on the way up, and Preston actually sat through some of the 1st quarter. I could kick myself for not seizing the opportunity for a good photo when we first got there. Unfortunately things quickly progressed to mayhem and completely un-conducive to getting a nice photo of Preston at his1st SU game. I would, however, like to pat myself on the back for not influencing him against being an SU fan at this stage in his life. I think it is very open-minded of me to allow him to realize how bad they suck completely on his own. :) 

Here is a picture I had Jess send me after we left, to use on the blog just to show that this is where we sat, and that Preston truly was here on this day in history. 

When we were first walking up towards the dome, Preston caught sight of this big SU cathedral and, in awe, declared, "A castle!!" So, on our way back down the hill, we had a conversation about whose castle it might be, and Preston was quite content that it was, in fact, the Beast's castle. So we stopped to take some pictures.

I should also mention that the football game overlapped with our usual naptime, so I gave Preston plenty of leeway at the game, knowing that he was getting incredibly overtired, but eventually it became very apparent we were past the point of no return. After we completed the mile-long hike back to the Upstate parking garage, I plopped Preston in the carseat, and by the time we exited the garage, he was out like a light. 

Here  are some post-nap shots to show just how festive and intense a fan he was:

Although it looks like he's about to hit me in this one, I am actually standing off to the side and showing him himself in the camera, which is why he is so dramatically flailing his pom-pom. 

Recent developments & achievements

Well, we are officially T-minus 2 months from the 3rd birthday, so I thought I would pause and reflect on what Preston is up to these days.

1. We have finally graduated to the toddler bed! It has gone so much smoother than I anticipated. For a few weeks prior, Preston's morning routine had evolved into shouting for me as soon as he woke up. "MOMMEH!! I WANT TO GET OUT!!" So, I thought, as long as he's waking me up as soon as he wakes up anyway, there is no use keeping him confined anymore. Gone are the days where he'd wake up and play by himself for up to 30 minutes. So now, I am awakened by the pitter-patter of little feet running into my room and climbing into my bed. I'd like to say that he lays down next to me and goes back to sleep, but that's definitely not happening. This weekend he woke up super early both days (before 7am), but I'm hoping it's just a fluke, and not a new pattern due to his new-found freedom. I have really enjoyed sleeping in til 8:30 or so on my days off. 

2. Wearing underpants! Potty training has also gone pretty well (not that I have anything to compare it to, but it didn't seem to be as excruciating as some people make it out to be.) Preston did most of the work by himself, since he was starting to hold it and go 4 or 6 hours staying dry. So I paid attention to his patterns and started toileting him at the times I knew he would go, and, with a little coaxing, (ie peeing on cheerios), he took to the potty pretty well. I tried using the novelty of standing to pee as another motivator, but learned quickly that little boys should not be trusted in this capacity. So, we have graduated to wearing underpants all day, every day, at school and out and about, and I think we are through the woods. I still put a diaper on him overnight, for the rare occasion when he doesn't make it through the night, but I think it's even been a few weeks since that last happened. 

3. Alternating movements! And by this, I mean pedaling a bike. I was wondering how long it was going to take him to develop this skill, since he's been pushing a bike around since 18 months, but it FINALLY happened. And it was a total mom-moment where I freaked out with overwhelming excitement and the requisite "OH MY GOSH!!! YAAYYY!!! WHAT A BIG BOY!!!!" Saturday happened to be nice enough that I thought I'd tackle some outdoor jobs and hoped Preston would be able to help out, or atleast entertain himself for a little while. I pulled the trike and toy lawnmower out of the shed like usual, and next thing I knew, he was pedaling away down the driveway. Luckily, he knows to turn and stay on the sidewalk, and we ended up going halfway around the block. I'm pretty sure I was beaming with pride. 

And, due to time, this will have to be cont'd some other time....

Also, I will take a moment to apologize for spelling errors, past and present, since I am sticking with the ipad blogger app these days and apparently there is no spellcheck that I can find. Same goes for general grammatical errors (ie on a day-after proof-read, I just caught that I wrote peddling instead of pedaling. Oy.)

Autumn hodge podge

After a long delay, I present: Preston and Wesley,  apple-picking, and playing, and wreaking general havoc at Beak & Skiff.

Playing some baseball:

There's no crying in baseball!!

Enjoying an autumn day at the fabulous pumpkin farm "The Hollow."

How do you eat your Reese's?

Thanks to Halloween for also contributing to our incredibly healthy lifestyle lately. Thanks to a largely uncreative and frugal mother, Preston dressed up as Spiderman, again, but loved it, so it was ok.

Despite the rain, we did manage to get in some trick-or-treating, though sadly only 4 other houses on our block were passing out candy. Which actually worked out fine, because Preston rather enjoyed helping me pass out candy from our house, so that's how we spent most of the night, and stayed nice and dry, and warm. 

Preston was mostly puzzled by the trick-or-treating procedure, and took quite a bit of coaxing to approach the other houses. The fact that one neighbor was dressed as a werewolf, passing out candy from her garage that had been transformed into a scene out of a horror film, with smoke effects and eerie music playing, didn't help matters. 

However, when Preston got home, and we dumped out his bag of loot, it was like the lightbulb went off. Ahhh.... booty. 

I was largely successful at rationing the candy to a few pieces a night, and after the 2nd or 3rd night he actually totally forgot about the candy. (Score: mom).

So here he is, enjoying his 1st ever Reese's PB cup. In standard Preston fashion, it took him about 10 minutes to savor every last bite. Which incidentally is a pretty good eating habit, so atleast there's that. 

Exceptional parenting

My dad sent me an article today about the number of young children having access to smartphones and tablets. 

Umm....like this?

Fortunately there is no long-term (or short-term, for that matter...) data on how this exposure actually affects children. But I'm guessing it's pretty safe to say neuronal growth slows a bit during this type of activity. Hopefully, with limited exposure, there is minimal re-circuiting going on to promote ADHD type behavior. But, I guess we'll find out!

The pics above are actually from earlier this week when I completely gave into Preston's persistence that he watch "Be Our Guest" while I was putting forth a valiant effort at cooking dinner. It didn't take much for him to figure out how to que up video after video of Disney songs, which was actually kind of nice, because it gave me several minutes of uninterrupted productivity. Preston has been pretty deficient in the "play-by-yourself" category recently. Needless to say getting anything done, like cooking a meal, is really hard with an almost-3-year-old pulling, head-butting, and/or body-slamming into you every 5 seconds. 

Earlier this week, consistent with our "healthy behaviors" lifestyle, I had Preston help me make a chocolate creme pie. It was a great educational experience in which he learned about the fundamentals of instant pudding, cool whip spreading, and sprinkle selection. 

The final masterpiece:

And, no surprise, turns out he really, really likes chocolate creme pie. Just another weapon in the arsenal that can used for bribing....err...encouraging desirable behaviors.