Erick jinxed us.  We’ve been expecting Joshua to realize he can climb out of his crib for about a year now & last February, I bought a toddler bed rail in anticipation, so that we’d be ready to convert his crib to a daybed as soon as he started to escape.  The rail was sitting in its box for 11 months in our guest room pretty much ignored however we were putting some things away on Saturday in preparation for a friend coming in town for the inauguration & then he said it—Erick said “why don’t we put the box in the basement because it’s been there a year & we probably won’t need it for awhile.”  That’s like saying “it’s pretty quiet” in a hospital because then it gets flooded with patients, or like saying “what’s the worst that could happen?” because then something often does happen.  Well, less than 15 seconds after Erick said that, we heard a thud coming from upstairs & then a cute little toddler comes walking down the stairs with a big smile on his face.  It’s as if Joshua could hear us talking & finally realized that it was possible to get out of his crib.  We took him back to his room & put him in the crib, & he showed us how he did it.  The good thing was that at least he landed on his feet, but I didn’t want him to have a bad fall just in case so we spent the next hour or so converting his crib into a daybed & then taking the bed rail out of the box (which it was perfectly happy being in!) & installing it.

Needless to say, we’ve gotten a lot less sleep in the past few days.  That night Joshua fell asleep pretty much immediately since he didn’t nap with all of the bed-conversion going on so it seemed like it would be a nice transition but we were wrong.  The following day, I was at Obama’s inaugural kick-off concert in DC (which was totally awesome!!!) so Joshua stayed home with Erick.  Erick said it took about an hour & a half for Josh to finally fall asleep but eventually he dozed off.  I woke him up after I got home so that he wouldn’t sleep so late & not go to bed that night.  It worked, & we had another easy night.  But the next day, it took about 2 hours to get Joshua to go down for his nap.  I tried all of those tricks that Supernanny says to use but he wasn’t getting tired or giving up.  I swear, it was a bad parenting moment.  Joshua thought it was a game—he’d get up & jump on the bed or climb out, then I’d put him back, & he’d do it over again.  He was even having fun tickling me or playfully pulling my hair to try to get me to smile (I didn’t, although he was very cute & it was hard not to!).  Eventually Erick came to relieve me (which is not something that Supernanny advocates but I couldn’t help it) & awhile later Joshua finally gave up & fell asleep.  Naptimes are the worst but I know he still needs them so I’m not going to give up trying.  We’ll get there.  Once he does fall asleep, he’s out for a couple of hours so I suppose all the hard work is worth it, but it’s sure a lot harder than just putting him into the crib & going back downstairs to get things done!

Because of my long day away on Sunday, I didn’t go down to DC for the inauguration even though I know I’ll regret not going.  I couldn’t find anyone to watch Joshua all day & Erick couldn’t take off his study time to watch him.  Plus, it was cold (although fortunately that wasn’t a problem at all at the concert because of the crowd-generated body heat!).  So Joshua got to watch the inauguration & other festivities with us.  He was upset sometimes because the TV was on so he expected to be able to watch a cartoon or something fun.  But he seemed to know who Obama was & even said “Obama, Obama” when he’d be on the screen.  I know that 3 of his grandparents wouldn’t like that, but he’s a democrat in training (sorry, folks).