Sam's bed

Tonight before Sam went to bed we were watching an animal program on Discovery. The intro to the program showed animals such as elephants, cheetahs, lions and the narrator said the words, "Life...death...starvation....struggle....sex....birth..." and so on as the animals were shown doing various things. Of course, Sam picked up on the word, "Sex" of all the words. We're just wondering in what untimely situation he will reproduce the word.

Then I took Sam up to bed and I thought I'd talk about what Sam goes to bed with. We already know about BaaBaa and baboosh, which are the most essential and really only needed bedtime elements. However, over the past few weeks Sam has acquired some other things that he must sleep with. He has a number of other stuffed animals in his bed: a teddy bear, Mouse (from the If you Give a Mouse a Cookie book), Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Two fleece pillows with construction trucks on them from Grandma Verna. He took Matthew's two pillows for awhile but I returned those to Matthew as Sam's bed is only so big and the pillows were taking up too much room. Also, a Toy Story blanket. Then there are the miscellaneous items--a Valentine's Day card and the DVD case for one of the Wheels on the Bus DVDs plus the insert from the DVD which has pictures from the DVD and words for the songs in it. On occasion Sam will grab a book to sleep with too, but tonight he did not. He nestles into his pillows and stuffed animals, covers himself with his blanket and holds onto his card or the DVD case and goes to sleep.

As I mentioned, Sam has been getting up really early lately, usually between 5 and 6. Exhausted from his early risings, I perused Amazon for some toddler clocks and found a few that are like night lights and change colors when it's okay to wake up. However, the clocks were anywhere from $40-60 so I wasn't ready to spend that much money on a fancy color changing clock. So last night I told Sam while we were getting ready for bed that he was getting up too early. He said yes, that he understood. I then told him that I wanted him to stay in bed until Jason or I opened his bedroom door in the morning. He said okay, that he understood. Twice during the bedtime routine, Sam said, "You open the door in the morning." I was somewhat hopeful that it would work but realistically thought it would not. Anyway, by 6:30 when Jason's alarm went off, Sam had not emerged in our room yet. It worked! We'll have to see how it goes tomorrow! Sometimes Sam amazes me with his compliance. I wonder what Sam will wake up tomorrow? Compliant and obedient or non-compliant and defiant? You never know what your day will be like with a toddler.