Last night around 11:00, I went in to check on the kids before I went to bed. When I went into Bean’s room, though, he was no where to be found. And neither were the sheets on his bed, his pillow, his comforter, and all his stuffed animals. It was just his mattress laying there.
He has done this before. He moves his bedding to some other part of his room and camps out there. But I checked all over his room, and he wasn’t in there. I went to look in Gracie’s room because I’ve also caught him camping out on her floor before, but he wasn’t in there either. Now I started to get nervous. I noticed the bathroom light was on, and I peeked in there to see if he was set up in there for some reason, but no luck. I searched that house from top to bottom. No Bean.
Finally, I decided to check his room one more time, just to be sure he wasn’t in his closet and I just hadn’t seen him (I’ve found him in there before, too). As I passed the guest bedroom on my way down the hall, though, something caught my eye. Buzz Lightyear was hanging off the guest bed. I didn’t have the lights on because I didn’t want to wake Bean, wherever he was, but I quickly flipped the hall light on so I could see better.
There he was. Sprawled out on the guest bed, snoring. He had brought all of his bedding and stuffed animals with him, and recreated his bed on top of the guest bed. He laid his bottom sheet down, had his comforter on top of him, Mr. Bear tucked in next to him, and all his favorite stuffed animals lined up along the headboard. It was too cute to move, so I let him sleep there.
This morning, Chris and I called Bean up to the guest bedroom after breakfast. I was ready to get on to him and tell him he had to move all his stuff back to his room, but instead Chris led the conversation.
“Hey, buddy,” he said gently. “How come you moved in here last night?”
“It’s just more comfortable than my bed,” Bean said. “I like this bed better.”
“Yeah? You like being able to spread out like this on this bigger bed?” Chris said, smiling.
“Yeah, all my guys fit up here with me.”
“Well, maybe it’s time we got you a big boy bed,” Chris said. “You want a big bed like this in your room?”
“YEAH!” Bean shouted.
I knew the day would come when we would move him out of his toddler bed. In fact, I knew it would come soon. He still fits in his little race car bed, but he’s not a toddler anymore. I just hadn’t gotten around to taking the next step yet. And I never dreamed that Bean would be the one to ASK for a big bed. I really didn’t think he knew the difference!
About ten minutes later, I went into Gracie’s room to get her dressed for the day. I took down one of her shirts that had a pig with sunglasses on it.
“NO PIGGY!” Gracie shouted, stamping her foot.
Well, this was new. Gracie never said anything about her clothes!
“No piggy?” I asked. “Why?”
“NO PIGGY! WANT TUTTLE!”
“You want to wear your turtle shirt instead of the piggy shirt?” I repeated, just to clarify. This had never happened before, and I wasn’t quite sure I was ready for it to happen now. Was Gracie getting PREFERENCES??????
“YES! TUTTLE SHURT!”
So, this morning, both my kids grew up within about 10 minutes of each other. I AM NOT PREPARED FOR THIS! I THOUGHT I HAD MORE TIME! We are having a yard sale in a couple weeks, and I have been pumping myself up to sell our baby crib then. I thought I had WEEKS left to prepare for my kids to grow up????
I CAN’T HANDLE THIS!
I am not ready for big beds and tuttle shirts!
14Apr
Bean has been cracking us up lately with his little comments. He will say some of the funniest things, but it’s not just what he says that is funny. It’s how his mind processed information to get to those comments.
We have been talking a lot about Sarah and her new baby. So, yesterday as we were leaving the house to meet Bean’s BFF, Elle, and her mommy for a play date at Chuck E. Cheese (germy, I know, but their tokens and prize exchange are GOLD for my kids, so judge away…), Bean says to me, “Elle has a baby.”
“Oh, you mean she has a baby doll? Like Gracie does?”
“No, her mommy is going to have a baby.”
So, then I sat there and thought about this because I am friends with Elle’s mom and I was 99.9% sure she wasn’t pregnant. But maybe she was and she hadn’t said anything yet?
“You mean, her mommy has a baby doll?” I asked for clarification.
“No, Mom!” Bean gasped, cleared frustrated with my lack of understanding about the birds and the bees. “Elle’s mommy has a baby in her belly. Like, a REAL baby. And it’s going to come out in…” (this is when he checked the watch he wears around) “…ten minutes!”
I later clarified with Danielle that she was not, in fact, expecting a baby at all, much less in ten minutes. And then we had a good laugh. Or, maybe I was the only one laughing. (Point of order: Danielle is tiny and thin and does not in the least way resemble a pregnant woman. I thought I should clarify.)
*******
Last week, he and I were snuggling on the couch and he casually says, “Mom, you need a leg hair cut.”
*******
The week before that, he put Gracie in time out because she “was being widiculous.” And, shocker of all shockers, SHE STAYED IN TIME OUT!
*******
I don’t think Bean understands my job. He knows I go to school every day, but I don’t think he understands that I’m the teacher. Why do I think that, you ask? Because he asks me every day if I had fun at my centers and what books I read in circle time.
*******
Every time Chris and I kiss or hug, Bean comes up and pushes between us, saying, “Hey, hey, hey! Break it up! Break it up!”
*******
Three-and-a-half can be tough. Those little curious minds process, like, EVERYTHING. And that spawns a thousand and one questions. Including the dreaded, “Why?” over and over and over again. But it’s a great age, too, because you get to hear them communicate ideas they are creating using all that information they are processing. Sometimes, they process just how they should and you suddenly think you have a little genius in your family. And then sometimes they come up with these crazy funny comments that probably sound “widiculous” to anyone but their momma. But as his momma, I understand. I know where he is getting the ideas and I can follow his train of thought, though it sometimes seems to outsiders to be erratic and random. And I love that. It’s one of my favorite parts of being a momma.
“Hey, Bean,” I said, as I got ready for work this morning. “You about ready to go get dressed?”
“Okay,” said Bean.
“I laid your clothes out for you on your table.”
“Oh, I don’t need those,” said Bean.
“Uh huh…” I said, too distracted as I tried to wipe mascara off my eyelid to pay attention to what he’d said.
So, Bean disappears down the hall, returning about 15 minutes later. Wearing this:
“Whoa, Bean Man,” I said, grabbing his arm as he casually strolled by me. “Whatcha wearing, Buddy?”
“I picked it out myself!”
“You did? Uh… Well… that shirt doesn’t really match those shorts, big guy.”
“Yes, it does!” Chris called from across the room. “I think it looks great!”
“Yeah!” said Bean.
“Well… um…. It doesn’t really… go together…” I stammered, not wanting to crush little Bean’s spirit, but also keenly aware that I was about to go out in public with him.
“Yeah, it does!” Chris insisted, ignoring my silent pleas with bug eyes for him to stop encouraging this. “There’s blue in the shorts and blue in the shirt!”
“And there’s white in the shorts and white in the shirt, too!” said Bean.
I checked my watch. 7:05am. Too early for any kind of argument. Especially insignificant ones.
“You’re right!” I said. “You look great! I’m so proud of you, Bean Bean! Way to go, man!”
(high fives all around)
Bean left the room, and Chris whispered to me, “You know, there should be a button or something you can put on your kid that says, ‘I dressed myself’ so that we don’t have to walk next to him in shame.”
04Feb
My dad’s funeral was on Saturday, so Friday evening, Chris and I sat down with Bean to talk with him a bit about what was going to happen the next day. We didn’t want to go into too much detail because we thought that might freak his freak even more than necessary, but we did want him to know where we were going and why.
“Hey, buddy,” I said lightly, “Do you remember where Granddad went?”
Without even looking up from the book he was reading, Bean goes, “Yeah, he’s at the North Pole with Lt. Dan.”
(silence)
“Well, no,” I said slowly. “He’s in Heaven, remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Bean. “With Santa Claus.”
Yeah. We probably shouldn’t have talked about Heaven so much around Christmas. We seem to have some wires crossed…
