To the untrained eye, this is just an empty box. Well, now it is. It used to be filled with all things Costco. (Bless you, Costco, for giving up one of your precious boxes. I made 2 trips from the car to the house, rather than the typical 7 million.)
But to an almost-16 month old, this is a Magical Box of Wonders. Something to get into, crawl over, pull, and push. He spent forever playing with this thing today.
His favorite thing in the world is to get into things. This box, his bin of balls, the bin of balls at the Gymboree class, the laundry basket, the basket where we store our shoes, even my diaper bag.
He climbed into my diaper bag. While I was in the middle of cleaning it out. Just toddled over, climbed right in. Thought this was perfectly acceptable. Why are you giving me that look?
I don't quite understand this love of getting in things, I thought at first it was because Caleb would push him around the house in the laundry basket, but no. He's perfectly content to just sit there. Today his highchair cover was in the wash, and so I let him eat his graham crackers and milk in the laundry basket. That's where he wanted to be anyway, and it just so happened to make an excellent place for a snack. Dump the crumbs right into the kitchen sink. Voila! At Gymboree, he spends at least part of the time trying to get into the ball bin, and would stay there except that there's usually three other kids trying to get the balls out.
Maybe he likes the safe, closed in feeling. He doesn't make a peep when we put him in his crib for naps or bedtime, and will happily roll around and hang out in his crib long after he wakes up. As a baby he napped the best while in his carseat, and I ended up letting him nap in it for quite a while. I thought it would ruin him forever, that he'd never get used to sleeping outside of it. He'd be 12, and sleeping in a carseat, all folded up like a pretzel. Imagine the sleepovers.
Of course he didn't, he isn't, and is a fantastic sleeper. It was funny to go back over my old posts and remember what it was like with him. Your entire world revolves around sleep. That's all you think about. How to get them to sleep more? Longer? More regularly? And in the moment, it's so hard to see into the future. I couldn't possibly imagine sleeping an entire night ever again. The whole thing! From start to finish! I was so worried about getting him onto a schedule, despite my belief and trust in Dr. Weissbluth. And ya know what? He was right. And I can say that I wish my old self knew that it would get better, to just chill, stop stressing, and roll with it, but I don't think that's the point. I had to learn that myself to really cement it in.
I look back, and it seems so long ago. I used to worry about him sleeping in his carseat, and now he's pushing a box around and making car noises, and taking his pet alligator for a walk.
In just over a years time. It's pure insanity, I tell you. This is all going too fast.