Big Boy Bed, Pink Eye, and More

Start with the worst, the pink eye. First off, giving Jack eye drops, not much fun. There has to be an easier way to give kids eye-related antibiotics. (Tomorrow Emily's calling to find out what it is.) He cries, he screws his eyes up, he twists away -- always at the exact instant the droplet of water, in slow motion, finally falls off the eye dropper. We did it for five days as instructed, 3 times a day, but either because we missed a couple of doses or some of the ones he did get were flawed in the delivery, or because he was re-exposed, or something else entirely, we're thinking he might have it again. So we've started giving them again, with jelly beans as before; it's about the only way we can get him not to pitch a fit about it. Giving a crying child with a runny nose (yes, he also has a bad cold) jelly beans creates a whole new set of problems, but you can probably figure it out.

The runny nose, also frustrating. He's not happy about it ("I have a BOOGER!" he wails), we're not happy about it, and it's all very messy, unsanitary, and probably not good when you're trying to get pink eye cleared up. The times when he doesn't have a cold seem to fly by, the times when he does seem to drag.

Despite that, there's some been some fun recently:

- Today, at Reanna's birthday party, the girls drew a hopscotch board in the driveway and started jumping around it. Jack, who primarily didn't want to give up the big car, which he loves, nonetheless got out of it to join in. But Jack just basically wanted to jump in the air and then drop on his knees, kind of like a frog. He doesn't quite get hopscotch yet.

- At the same party, all three of the girls were in a silly post-dinner mood, and wanted to entertain. Which was fine with Jack, who acts like he could sit there watching them sing and shout and jump around forever. Later came the running circles around the yard, pretending to be a train (Jack chimed in with saying "Choo-choo" and putting his fist in the air) and the dessert portion of the day, where Jack started out wanting cake and ended up drooling over apple pie, ice cream, and strawberries. I think he ate an entire strawberry patch. Grove? He ate a lot of strawberries, let's just say that.

Last Saturday we got Jack a mattress, and then this Saturday we picked it up. We kind of thought he might take a while to really get interested in sleeping on it, and felt the same way when we got it home and told him what it was for and he basically had no interest in it. Even after I cleared a spot in his room and put the mattress down, he was kind of like, eh, okay, I guess. But the idea of him sleeping on it seemed pretty remote.

And then Emily put nice sheets on the bed and all his stuffed toys and little blankets, and just like that, when he and I went in there after his bath, he acted like he'd been sleeping on it his entire life. Crawled up onto it, stretched out onto it, asked me to read him stories on it, and when I'd read all the books he picked out -- the same 8 short books I've been reading to him before and after virtually every nap and bedtime for the past week -- he said "Good night, Daddy." And lay down. I got up, said Good night, and left the room. And a few minutes later I listened at the door and he was singing Tyrone the Mailman quietly to himself, and when Emily and I looked in on him an hour later, he was sound asleep. Slept through the night. We're on night No. 2 and sleeptime No. 3, and so far, so good.

He didn't even need me to sing to him, as I always do when putting him into the crib, and while part of me was glad -- lately the songs have tended toward silly stuff like, yes, Tyrone the Mailman -- part of me also really missed it.

The next morning after his first night in the bed, of course, we were profusive with praise. And you could tell, he was pretty proud about it. So much so that when we talked to relatives that day, we put Jack on the phone. "Jack, where did you sleep last night?" "I slept in a BIG BOY BED!" he said. Darn straight.