Cool Baby has been maturing faster than we would have ever imagined. His paternal instincts are kicking in, and his little cool baby is named Albert, as in Albert the Alligator, the mascot of the University of Florida.
Two things to note in the following video:
- I have conversations with Albert for CB’s entertainment in which Albert has a deep, scruffy voice. CB has picked up the routine, too, and I’m glad to have gotten it on camera before he loses interest.
- CB is a better swaddler than we ever were! He dotes up on little Albert so gently and lovingly. He knows just how to handle a little one. We may start advertising his babysitting services.
You know, I think I’ll wait on posting that babysitting ad for a while.
Last time, I boldly proclaimed that it was time for Cool Baby to leave babyhood behind, specifically in the areas of bedtime and potty training. Here is the much-anticipated
COOL BABY NIGHT-NIGHT UPDATE
We’ve almost always had to be in the room for CB to fall asleep. We had a bedtime routine, and while the routine stayed the same, it started at a different time every night. And we never knew when he was going to fall asleep–sometimes it took 30 minutes, sometimes it took an hour and a half. It was especially frustrating on nights when we had plans (ok, i’ll admit–when LOST was on).
A couple of weeks ago, we were determined for a change. One night, I started the routine at 7:00. I briefed him on the night’s agenda ahead of time and at every step:
- put on PJs
- brush teeth
- read 2 books
- sing 3 songs
- I go out so he can go to sleep
CB going to sleep in his room by himself?! That was the stuff of dreams. I was always amazed by our friends who put their kids to bed early and alone.
The night’s routine went well until the moment of truth. I broke the news that I would be leaving the room so that he could go to sleep. He resisted. I was sure that it was going to end badly. But then I was inspired by a glimmer of wisdom that could have only come from God.
I reasoned with CB that his best friends go to bed all by themselves. And so does the little boy in his favorite book. His mood shifted from despair to curiosity. I could see the gears turning by the look on his face:
(insert friend’s name) goes to bed all by himself? I guess I’d never thought about that…
And the battle was won. CB agreed that going to bed all by himself wasn’t something to be feared, but was something that the cool kids did. He wanted in. I guess that the neurotic desire to be like the cool crowd starts early. Maybe it’s genetic – poor guy never had a chance.
Since that night, the bedtime routine has been nearly automatic. No longer would I put him to bed only to realize that it was then time for me to go to bed.
This new freedom has been so sweet, and it wasn’t even hard fought. Now if we can just get him to take naps.
Doo doo doo, oh
Doo doo doo doo doo doo (oh)
Doo doo doo, oh
I know that those lyrics pretty much give away the whole post, but I’ll go ahead with it anyway.
It was only two years ago that we had a tiny Cool Baby who smiled toothless grins and made sweet-smelling poo (a benefit of nursing). Eventually, the baby started crawling, then walking, but he was still wobbly and generally wordless. Now, there’s no question that we have a boy on our hands, and I’m accepting that with a little reservation. It’s because I really love the baby part of Cool Baby. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve realized that there are areas in CB’s life where he has to leave babyhood behind.
CB is one of the last (if not the last) of his contemporaries to be potty-trained. I felt a little better when I heard about kids who weren’t potty-trained until they were four, but it’s time to get CB out of diapers. Soon, life will be too hectic to deal with soiled bottoms.
For all of CB’s life, we’ve helped him fall asleep. When he was young, the cry-it-out method didn’t work at night. He would cry for hours and not fall asleep. We always had to be in the room with him.
When we moved up here, we couldn’t choose whether we wanted to be in the room with him. Living in a one-room studio kinda makes those choices for you. Even when we moved into a place with innovations like a door separating the bedroom from living room, we still helped CB fall asleep. To be honest, I liked it. It was nice, quiet daddy-son time after I got home from work. continued…
Jesus is the #1 reason for the Christmas season. However, it’s a little known fact that the #2 reason for The Season is for your family to discover how horrible of a parent you are.
This is how a holiday vacation goes from a Merry Christmas to your family wondering if they should’ve kept the birds and bees to themselves.
- You, your adorable son (we’ll call him Hobart), and family are having a peaceful time at home.
- Aunt Gertie says that Hobart should do something that sounds fun to her.
- You ask Hobart to do it; he says no.
- You politely tell Hobart to do it; he says no.
- You tell Gertie, “Maybe later.” Gertie insists, “Now.”
- You reason (wrestle) with Hobart, who eventually concedes (cries, screams, gives up).
- Gertie tsks and declares, “If he were mine, I would…”
So, Aunt Gertie puts your li’l Hobie in a situation that he fights against, leaving you to struggle with getting him to cooperate AND possibly disciplining him, all while Gertie sits back and sympathizes (videotapes it for YouTube). The irony is that while Gertie admonishes you on what you should have done, you know that you would have never created the situation in the first place because you know better!
The situation that inspired this post was brief and relatively harmless. I just found the irony of it amusing. My family actually thinks that we are good parents. Mainly because we send them pictures of him hanging out with reputable celebrities.
Today, I was hoping to unleash a huge announcement that would change our lives forever. Unfortunately, the judges of the babyGap Casting Call didn’t have the same, correct vision.
babyGap and GapKids are holding an online casting call. Parents submit a few pictures of their kids, and judges select finalists for the public to vote on. We figured that Cool Baby had a good shot because
- As the R&B trio TLC would say in a kid-friendly way, CB is crazycutecool.
- Because there is a judging process, CB would have a better chance than other popularity contests where people get their friends and family to just votebomb the site (which is not cool).
To my disappointment, I checked the Gap Casting Call site this morning to see that the finalists were selected, and CB was unrighteously not among them. I haven’t tracked down the finalists’ selected photos, but I guess they were galaxies better than the ones we submitted for CB.
With 900,000 photos submitted, I know that the odds are not necessarily with us, but CB’s extreme cuteness should have given us some advantage. My plan was perfect: submit the pictures, have the judges do their duty and select CB as a finalist, and then, of course, have you guys votebomb the site.
I’m wondering what recourse we have now. Naturally, my first instinct was to find out Gap’s biggest rival and get CB to become their spokestoddler. Have his peanut butter complexion, big brown eyes, and curly locks make him THE face of childrens fashion and leave the Gap to rue their missed opportunity. Then, I decided to just make chocolate chip pancakes.
So, the only big announcement I have is that Cool Baby is still crazycutecool, and I’m still grateful to God to be his Cool Dad. I guess that makes me the big winner. Cute.
