The Big Boy Bed Transition & Lots (and Lots!) of Flooding

When it comes to me and Ben, the saying "opposites attract" couldn't be more true.  While he is a spontaneous thrill-seeker, I prefer to plan out every detail, and if possible, I like to know exactly what I'm getting myself into before I commit to anything.  For the most part, we do a great job of balancing out each other's extreme tendencies, but occasionally, our difference in personalities makes it somewhat difficult to make a decision together.

Ever since we set up Jackson's big boy bed, Ben has been ready to move him into his new room.  I, on the other hand, have been in no hurry.  Although I did see the benefit of moving him before the baby got here so that he would have time to adjust before someone else was sleeping in "his" crib, I have heard numerous stories about kids completely dropping their nap and getting up our of their bed at all hours of the night, which made part of me want to wait as long as possible.

Because I am a planner, I wanted to wait for the perfect time to make the transition, and in the meantime, I analyzed every detail...Should we make the change at nap time or bedtime? Should I try it on a day that I'm home by myself or wait for the weekend?  Would one particular day of the week work better than the others?  And if so, which one?  And the list goes on and on.

We decided this weekend to start reading in his big boy bed as opposed to his rocking chair before both naps and bedtime, and then suddenly today, after the last book, Ben asked Jackson: "do you want to sleep in your big boy bed today?"  Wait, what?  This was definitely not how I imagined it going down, but because Jackson replied with a "yeah", we decided to give it a shot.  And thankfully, it couldn't have gone better.  He went down with no complaints and slept even longer than usual...so long that we ended up finally waking him after 3 hours.  And what's even better is that he went down tonight just as easily.  We're definitely keeping our fingers crossed that it stays this easy, but so far, so good.  I guess there's something to be said about being a spontaneous thrill-seeker.

As for the rest of our week, it's been busy but a very fun kinda busy.

I realize this looks like a parade {somewhat of a lame parade at that}, but it's actually just an evening walk...with some of our favorite neighbors.  7 adults, 8 kids {5 of which were on scooters}, and 2 dogs.  We were quite the scene.

The girls were so cute on their scooters and would move along in a line according to their rank.  Kate and Lila took turns being Captain and Co-Captain, and immediately after telling Harper and Evelyn their positions, they would ask them to repeat them, and more often than not, the twins would respond with "me don't know".  The boys on the other had were not quite so organized.  Charlie rode his scooter at top speed, and Jackson and Liam chose to be on foot so that they could run in every which direction and hit things with sticks.

Making pancakes with my favorite little cook.  When I asked him to smile for the camera, he gave me the fakest grin I have ever seen.  He may look like me, but it's moments like these that I know without a doubt that he is his father's son.

Would you like some pancake with that syrup?

This week, the demolition team next door also hammered out the concrete slab and apparently thought nap time would be the best time to get it done.  I knew it was going to be a loud afternoon as soon as I saw them attach the pointy piece to the excavator.

Jackson loved watching them work.

The only thing that broke his concentration was watching himself on the iPad.  Construction and himself...two of his most favorite things.

The loudest part of the whole operation was when the skid skeer would dump the huge chunks of concrete into the dumpster, so I waited until after they had hauled the full dumpster away to put him down for his nap.  I was hoping it would be awhile before it came back, but it returned about an hour or so later, and as soon as the first piece of concrete fell in, Jackson was awake and hollering "Mommy...scared!"  I rushed in to find my sweet boy crying and saying that he was scared of what he thought was thunder, so we spent the next couple of hours rocking in his chair.  Needless to say, I didn't get anything done that afternoon, but at least he got his nap in.

Mimi often has to bribe Jackson with candy to get him in the car at the end of the workday, but we found out this week that the slogan "melts in your mouth, not in your hand" does not apply to M&M's when a toddler is eating them.

On Thursday morning, Jackson decided that he didn't want to wear clothes or a diaper, so I decided to try a little impromptu potty training.  Every 30 minutes, I had him sit on the potty and rewarded him with a piece of candy.  Things were going great, but when he wanted to play on his big boy bed, I put a diaper on him, and he peed in it not long after that.  Oh well.  It was fun while it lasted, but I'm really in no hurry, and I don't think he is either.  I had always said that I'd try potty training over the summer, but now that it's {almost} summer, I find myself caring less and less.  He'll only be my "baby" for a little while, so why rush it, right?

I stepped out of the room for a minute and came back to find this.

I just wish he liked eating the apples as much as he likes cutting them.

Backyard lunch date...

...and an evening walk with Daddy.

We tried to make it to Stroller Strides on Friday morning, but as we were driving to the park, the drizzle turned to rain, so we decided to go grocery shopping instead and then met up with the other moms and kids for a playdate at Jumpoline.  Jackson is now particular about which cart he wants to drive, and on this particular day, he chose the biggest one available.  Pushing that Cadillac around the store was no easy feat.

Of course, Jackson had a great time at Jumpoline, and while all of the other kids mostly stuck to the toddler area so that their moms could sit nearby and chat, my son was all over the place.  At one point, while he was playing in the toddler area, I took my eyes off him for a minute or so, and then when I went to look for him, he was gone.  I knew he hadn't left the small toddler area because he would have had to walk right past me to do so, but I could not find him anywhere, and I quickly began to panic.  Thankfully a couple of other moms started looking around, too, and one of them spotted him hiding under one of the picnic tables...pooping.  I was so relieved when I found him.  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

After Jumpoline, we decided to join the other moms and kids for lunch a few doors down.  I was a little hesitant to join them just because our meals out aren't usually the most enjoyable, but thankfully, Jackson loved both the egg drop soup and the sesame chicken.  And, of course, playing games on the iPad helped, too.

This weekend, Jackson spent the night with Kyle and Steve so that Ben and I could go out and use our birthday gift cards for an evening of pampering.  We both got massages {prenatal for me!} and had our nails done, and then after a late dinner at Peached Tortilla, we stopped by Tiff's Treats to pick up a few warm cookies.

Meanwhile Jackson was all sorts of bored at Pops and Memaw's house.  Nothing says true love like letting your grandson play with sand in the house...especially when you keep your house as clean as my mother-in-law does.

We've recently decided to stop waking Jackson up for church {mornings at the nursery don't go very well on the days that he doesn't get enough sleep}, so yesterday, the boys slept in while I went to church and to my board of trustees meeting.  On my way home, I called Ben, and he told me to meet them at the bowling alley instead.  Apparently Ben had told him to put whichever stuffies he wanted to bring in the bag, and after loading it up, he could no longer lift it and instead drug it over to Ben saying "too heavy".

We had never taken Jackson bowling before, and the two of us hadn't been in years, but we had been trying to think of ways to make all of the recent thunder less scary for him and had started telling him that it was just people bowling when we realized that he didn't even know what bowling was.  Kyle and Steve ended up meeting us there, too, and the guys had a great time bowling while the girls watched.

While Jackson's ball just barely made it to the end of the lane before knocking over a few pins {especially the one time that he kicked it}, Ben pretty much bowled all strikes or spares, and we just barely made it through the one game before Jackson was ready to move onto the next item on the agenda...a chicken nugget lunch.

This is definitely not a flattering photo of either one of us, but could those scowls look anymore alike?

When I think of Memorial Day weekends in the past, they've usually been spent in the water with a cool beverage in hand, but with the rainy/cloudy weather we've been having lately and my current "condition", neither of those are really an option this year, but thankfully Jackson took one for the team last night...goofing off with Pops and double fisting.

Today was another rainy day at home, but thankfully Holly and Nelson stopped by to say "hi", eat a snack, and do a little bit of joyriding.

I'm not sure what the weight limit is, but that truck's engine was hurting...to the point that I occasionally wondered it was going to flat out give up on one of the many slight inclines.

They also brought sweet gifts for both of our boys.  A shirt and jammies for the construction/lizard-obsessed little boy, and a new outfit and onesie that says "the last 9 months were my off-season" for his baby brother.  I mentioned to Holly that she and Josh are the only ones that have bought this baby anything thus far, and she said it's because they know what it's like to have nothing but hand-me-downs.  Poor thing...those {spoiled} babies have it so rough.

During Jackson's nap today, the rain really started to come down...so much that some areas along Shoal Creek {the creek near our house} experienced quite a bit of flooding.  Thankfully we're not close enough to the creek itself to really worry, but our garage has been known to fill with water in the past, and thankfully, we were able to keep it out by placing a spare baseboard in the joint between our garage and our driveway.  All of the neighbors decided to brave the rain and flooding streets and get together post-nap for a viewing of "Mary Poppins".  While Harper, Evelyn, and Charlie actually laid down and watched the movie, Jackson and Graham instead pulled out just about every toy and laid down only long enough for us to snap a quick picture.

After the rain let up, we took turns driving down to the nearest creek crossing just to see how much it had risen.  And wow...apparently this is what happens when you get 4 inches of rain in 5 hours.

Just for reference, here's a picture that I took two weeks ago.

Somebody else took this picture and sent it out on our neighborhood listserve, but this is what the park looked like.  Obviously it's designed to allow for the water to flow into during times like these, but it's still so crazy to see.

Again, just for reference, this is what it looked like just a couple of weeks ago.

This evening, Ben and Jackson went on another walk down to the creek crossing {I chose to stay home and off my feet}.  The water had already gone down drastically, and as we found out tonight, apparently there's more to cloud formations than just the cumulus, stratus, and cirrus ones that we learned about in school.

These are called mammatus clouds and are usually an indication that severe weather has passed and that thunderstorms are weakening.  I was a little disappointed about not seeing these beautiful clouds in person, but having a few minutes to myself with my feet propped up was not a bad consolation prize.

Thankfully, tonight's bedtime routine went just as seamlessly as nap time did, and now we're just keeping our fingers crossed that he stays there all night.

The good news is that I don't think he'll get lonely in that big new bed.  He's got Hobbes, Corduroy, "Battan", and Puppy...and Blanket, Tiny Blanket, and Other Blanket to keep him company, and I think they're enjoying the new digs {and the additional space} just as much as he is.