Ashton turns 3 - Part 2

We are a week past Ashton's birthday and yet, it is still going on somehow. At bedtime just tonight, I said, "What song should we sing?" and without missing a beat, his answer: "Happy Birthday Ashton". He asks for cake at least twice a day. Actually, it's more like he demands it: "Where my birthday cake? Gimme it!". And he still has presents coming in, so I'm not quite sure how to cut him off. We threw away the last of his cake last night so that's a start (he insisted that we put a candle in and sing, that's when I knew things had gone too far). I said, "One more bite, and this is going in the garbage." But I said "garbage" in the french style "gar-bajjj". Ashton looked really confused and asked why we would put his cake in the garage.

Anyway. As is tradition, let me tell you how Ashton spent his birthday weekend. Saturday Jason took him to his first movie, Disney Planes 2: Fire and Rescue. I implored him to get a couple of good pictures. You know, for the blog.

Mmmm notsomuch. Now, you know if I had taken him, I would have done "Ashton't first movie" justice with a good solid post. But according to Jason, there was nothing to say about the experience. They didn't even make it through the whole thing. Soooo useless. So I saved his ticket stub and what else can I do but move on?

Sunday morning August 3, his actual birthday, he woke up in his Bubble Guppies 'jamas and had a bagel. His favorite.

Because we were on vacation and time ended up getting away from us, Jason and I found ourselves with no presents at this particular juncture. We had pow-wowed about getting him a big boy bed, hoping he would associate turning 3 with growing up and not needing a crib anymore. But it was the day of! Even if we had the money for this ridiculousness, he would never see it within the next 8 hours. The only place we could think of to go, to get the whole kit and kaboodle and bring it home that day (bed, mattress, sheets, etc) was...Ikea (insert music from Jaws).

Pretty much any parent will tell you, Ikea is a f^%@&^$#%*#king nightmare with kids. Every time we go we ask each other why we did that. Honestly. But we braved it, Ashton picked out his new bed, we brought it home and set it up.

It's a little underwhelming, I agree. But for $40, that's what you expect. I've already thought about beefing up the headboard somehow. 

In the meantime, Ashton doesn't even sleep here. His crib was moved to the opposite wall and for now, that's where he feels most comfortable. We read books on his bed and I ask him if he's ready to try it, but no. I finally ordered a bed rail off of Amazon so when that comes, we might just disassemble the crib and try our luck.

We ended August 3rd with a little dinner, a little cake, and a few presents from people that were not Mom and Dad ;)

He hasn't quite gotten the hang of the bike yet, I think we need to raise the seat. My kid is learning to ride a bike and is heading to preschool next month. Whaaaaat.

OH MY GOSH. You guys. I can't believe I almost forgot to mention this. So in my last post, in my loving letter to Ashton, I told him we were going to need to ditch the paci now that he was 3. Out of all the things we need to conquer at this age, I was dreading the paci almost as much as the potty. Ashton is like an addict. He'll even double up if he gets the chance.

I know he has a secret stash somewhere because he'll just show up with one in his mouth. And he steals from Alex! It's bad. Real bad.

I'd read lots of ways to get rid of the paci. Take them to the post office and mail them to babies that need them, have the pacifier fairy come, cut off the tips, go to build-a-bear and put the paci inside, etc etc. I couldn't imagine any of these ideas working.

I came home from work last Thursday and Jen said, "Oh by the way, at his naptime today, I told Ashton I couldn't find his pacis and that Mommy must have them. He seemed to accept it and napped completely fine without them. He didn't even cry."

I think I felt something like this.

But I knew the true test would be bedtime that night. After his tubby, he started asking where they were. He said, "You have them!" and I told him I did not. We "looked" everywhere: under his new bed, behind the chair, inside his dresser drawers...I nonchalantly said, "Oh well! Guess we'll have to sleep without them. Now lay down so I can do your blankets..." and, no joke, he sighed and said, "oooooo-kaaaaay".

That's it. And guess what - he is now, like, five days sober! Oh he's almost relapsed a couple times. He'll pull Alex's paci out of my bag, hold it up, look at it, look at me, look back...but every time I've calmly said, "That belongs to Alex" as if I'm barely paying attention and he puts it back! This is, for lack of a better word, monumental. Overall, it seems he outgrew them on his own and was just waiting for me to notice. And until I did, the pacis were kind of like free food that's left in the conference room at work. You don't need it, but it's there, so you have some. Maybe you even go back a couple times until catering takes it away. That's me in this situation! I'm catering! And those pacis are gone.

The last installment in Ashton's birthday series, Part 3, is forthcoming.

p.s. sorry my ice bucket link didn't work in my last post. If you haven't seen it by now, and want to, *click here*.