Big Boy Changes

This summer has been full of transitions for Christian. The biggest being that he has to be patient since Mommy has to share her time between him and his little sister. Last night when I was organizing my scrapbooking gear that I plan on bringing to our beach vacation (what else can I do at night other than drink margaritas on our porch?), I started making a list of all the little things that have changed for Christian since he got out of school the first week of July:

1. NO MORE BINKIE! I know, I know...any SLP will tell me that I was hindering my little guy's development by letting him use a pacifier. However, to my defense, he only used it at night. I was worried about the transition, but his surgery to remove his adenoids helped make it a little smoother. Before he went to bed the first night, we told him that his doctor didn't want him sucking on anything at night because it would make his nose hurt more. He gave me the binkie, and that was that. HOORAY!

2. NO MORE CRIB! All my girlfriends in my neighborhood know what a toss-up this was for me. We wanted to keep Christian in the crib as long as possible, mostly due to the fact that I didn't want to deal with newborn sleep issues from Lily, while also trying to help Christian transition into his new bed. Well, a couple of overnight trips helped make that transition easier. He sleeps on his air mattress when we go away and LOVES it. While I was with the kids in Michigan, Chuck converted the crib to a big boy bed. AND HE LOVES IT

3. NO MORE GOOPY NOSE! We are beyond pleased with the results of Christian's adenoid surgery. Poor kid has been walking around since October with the crusty nose. He's sleeping better. He's breathing better. And his face doesn't have boogers all over it. Thank God.

4. Progress on the Potty While we're still struggling a bit, Christian has made MAJOR progress on the potty. I know when he's reading this blog archive when he's 16 he'll be mortified that I've chronicled his bathroom habits, but it's been such a big deal in our family that I feel like I HAVE to! We've gone from not using the potty at all, to using it about 75% of the time for #1 and about 25% of the time for #2. He runs to the potty for #1, and always tells me if #2 has happened, or if it's "Too Late". He's used public restrooms, and has started waking us up in the morning to make his "pee pee". I hope by Thanksgiving that I only have one kid in diapers....

All of these transitions have impacted Christian's speech in a very positive way. He's slowing himself down and catching articulation errors that in the past I had to remind him to correct. He's consistently speaking in at least 6-7 word sentences. And his repetition of questions that he does not know the answers to has really taken a dip as well. Other than our weekly Early Intervention visits (which have been more like monthly since our travel schedule), Christian has had no formal therapy this summer. I am so glad that we took the summer off. He starts back into his rigid routine of 5 days of school, plus weekly Early Intervention, plus an additional day of Speech Therapy in just 3 weeks. He's had an AWESOME summer, and I am SO proud of his progress in everything!