X Marks the Chromosome

Did I mention we're having a baby girl? We are. And seventeen weeks away from her arrival, we already have this pile of pink clothing hand-me-downs.

This pink is one of the reasons I freaked out a little over having a girl (although, let's face it, those clothes are adorable). It was a small reason, though, compared with the image of the teenaged girl I kept picturing in my mind. I immediately imagined a make-up wearing, nail-polished tween telling me how much she hates me and slamming doors.

Then I decided to get over that image and to enjoy the decade or so before it happens. Now I'm more chill about having a girl. Except for her name. We have a dozen or so boy names we like but cannot settle on a single girl one. We've ruled out Miley, though. So that's a start.

Lessons In Parenting. Continued.

We decided it's time to transition Sam to a big boy bed. The first step, we thought, would be to talk up the bed. Create a schema of sorts. When we first explained this big boy bed thing to Sam, he didn't quite understand. Dave thought that showing him a few pictures of toddler beds online could help. As you can imagine, when you Google "toddler bed," you find quite a few images of beds that look like cars and trucks and trains. We had not anticipated this, but thought we had explained clearly enough to Sam that he would not be getting one of those beds.

His standard wood (i.e. boring) bed arrived yesterday. He was thrilled to see the box and could not wait to open it. I told him he had to wait until his dad got home, and Sam wanted to call him to tell him to hurry.

We made this video message instead. I warn you, it takes a very sad turn near the end.

Eventually, the Pirates Booty did help comfort the crying boy. And now I'm shopping for a car themed comforter.

Winging It

Sam is super cute. And smart. And funny. Generally, he's a lot of fun to be around.

Those are the things I try to remember every time Sam hits or bites his dad. Which is fairly frequently these days. This morning was the worst of it. After giving him the "hands are not for hitting" lecture a couple of times, Sam gave it some thought, wound up, and punched Dave square in the jaw.

"That's it!" I said. "You are going to your room!"

I carried him in there kicking and screaming, put him down on the rug, closed the door, and listened to him cry for three minutes. He didn't even try to get out.

This was Sam's very first version of a time-out. He's not really a time-out kind of kid and we're not really time-out parents, but something had to be done. Mostly for my sake. Showing who's boss. That sort of thing.

We made it through the morning without a third round of hitting. I'm calling it a minor success.