Becoming a Big Boy

Keegan has been going through a lot of "Big Boy" things lately.

He was moved up to preschool a couple weeks ago. Usually they don't move them up until 3 years old, but they moved him up early because his speech is so advanced and he is friends with the older kids that they were moving up. You would think he would be happy to move up. He was not.

They ended up transitioning him over to the new classroom over a week. Keegan was just very sad to leave two of his teachers. I agreed with him, I really liked his Twaddler teachers and am sad that we don't get to chat with them everyday. I also think, though, that his new teachers are also very nice. They have such a great group of teachers at his daycare.

This week is the first week that he actually enjoyed going to his new classroom. In the morning he is in with the "Big Kids" (the kids that go to school from daycare). A couple of the "big kids" have been very sweet to Keegan and let him join in on their games. It is funny to see him interacting with kids that are 4 or 5 years older than him. It was very intimidating to him...and I can see why. He would walk in and all these kids that are a couple feet taller than him would just stare at him. It got better though.

He is only in that room for the first hour and then they switch to the preschool room. He does love his preschool room. There are so many cool toys. They are learning things like how to tell time, read graphs (yeah I thought it was a bit early for that), do puzzles, and play games. He is loving it. His favorite thing is that they go to the big play Village room that the daycare has set up.

Keegan, like the lovable guy he is, has already won the hearts of his new teachers. Yesterday afternoon one of his teachers told me "Keegan never has a bad day and is so much fun." This morning a different teacher stopped me to tell me that "Keegan is doing great in his new classroom and is so funny." So I can breathe a sigh of relief that I am not leaving him in a room where he is miserable...I knew he would come around in time! Okay, enough about how proud I am of Keegan :-)

Then there are other big boy things. The potty training has regressed since Kee switched rooms. He tells us he doesn't like using the potty in front of his new teachers. Again, I totally understand. We laid off use the potty pressure for a couple weeks while he adjusted. Now we are back on him to start using it again. In his old room he rarely ever wet his diaper...so I know he can do it. Keegan is realizing that it's time to move on. He actually wants to wear his big boy pants now and the other night he asked me "Mommy if I keep peeing in my diaper, is Santa going to bring me baby toys for Christmas?" I told him that Santa might do that and he should start using the potty.

Right after that episode he went into this bed and handed me his nook and said "Mommy, big boys don't need nooks." I asked him if he would like to trade his nooks in for a toy and then gave him the night to think it over. In the morning he had collected all his nooks and told me he would like to trade them in for a toy. So that's what we did. He got this awesome little tractor and a small Duplos set for his nooks. He's been really good about that. Every once in a while he sighs and says "No more nooks for me..." kind of depressed...but he seems okay with it.

Then I let him buy Lightening McQueen toothpaste at Super Target, not realizing that it was real "contains fluoride" toothpaste and not training toothpaste. No worries, Keegan adjusted right away to rinsing his mouth and spitting out the toothpaste. In fact, I think he likes it a bit too much. Spitting out that water and toothpaste is quite a bit of fun for him.

So lots of new big boy things that Keegan is doing. He is getting so old! I can't believe he is almost 3! His reasoning skills continue to impress me and Lyle; sometimes we have to step back and remember he isn't even three yet. He's been a joy to have around.

We have gotten a lot of outside time the last few days. We have a snow tunnel that we made and we've been sliding in the backyard, we slide around on the ice on the lake, and have started building a snow fort. Too bad we will have to take a break because today it is just too cold to be out! Lyle and I are both looking forward to taking him sliding down some "real" sliding hills and to getting some ice skating in. I love that I have a reason to spend all this time playing in the snow. I always felt a bit stupid when I was in my 20's out in the yard by myself building a snowman all by myself :-)

Hope everyone is having a great holiday season. We are looking forward to my mom's birthday on Thursday and to my sister's arrival from London. Then Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!!!!