Monday night Calvin learned how to climb out of his crib. Calvin has never liked going to sleep. Once he’s asleep, he sleeps very soundly but getting him to sleep is much more of an art than a science. For some reason, Jaeger tends to have a better magic touch than I do. I don’t remember why, but it seems like Jaeger tried to put Calvin to bed later than usual. It didn’t work well. I was working on changing the batteries in our smoke detectors when I noticed that Jaeger tweeted, “Calvin can climb out of his crib.” This surprised me a little since every time I saw him try he wasn’t close. However, I figured Calvin probably wouldn’t be able to consistently climb out of the crib for a bit and so we had time to transition him to a toddler bed. We were not so lucky. Shortly after the tweet Jaeger came downstairs and informed me that Calvin had climbed out of his crib twice in a row. The second time he put Calvin back in the crib and then came down to consult with me. I went upstairs and opened the bedroom door to discover Calvin right behind it grinning widely at me.

For the next half-hour we scrambled around trying to get Calvin’s room into a semi-safe state for him to sleep in when not contained in a crib. We put his crib mattress on the floor and tried to quickly child-proof the room. We hadn’t done a thorough job of child proofing previously because we were either always in the room with him or he was stuck in the crib without access to anything interesting.

Unfortunately, the upstairs rooms do not heat well in the winter (or cool in the summer). Up to this point, we’ve had a space heater in Calvin’s room but this did not seem safe any longer with him being able to roam at will. We moved the space heater out and then dressed Calvin in a wonderful “snowsuit” that we use as an extremely warm pair of pajamas. This worked fairly well the first night.

I checked on Calvin throughout the night and, not surprisingly, he didn’t stay on his mattress. He did start out on his mattress but when I checked around 2 he had wiggled over to underneath the window. When I checked immediately after getting up in the morning, he had wiggled over to the opposite side of the room by the closet.

Circumstances became even more complicated last evening when our heater stopped working consistently. It would work for a couple of minutes and then stop and require some fiddling with the thermostat before it could be turned back on. We dressed Calvin in two layers of clothes, one of which being the snowsuit. In addition, we opened his door after he went to sleep and put the space heater in the hallway between our two bedrooms. I blocked off Calvin’s bedroom with a box. If he was awake, he would have easily climbed over it but I was counting on most of his wandering throughout the night being while half-asleep. This worked fairly well. The upstairs stayed a cozy 65 degrees due to the space heater even though the main level got down to around 55.

I was very fortunate to be able to get someone to come and look at our furnace first thing today. He said our flame sensor was dirty which was preventing the furnace from staying on. He cleaned it up and then asked if I wanted him to do a full maintenance of the furnace system. I knew that we were overdue for one so I told him yes. Since he worked on the furnace, it appears to be behaving.

This afternoon I worked on Calvin’s room to get it into a more toddler friendly format. I got most of the crib converted to a toddler bed (though I needed Jaeger’s assistance for one part since I was lacking appropriate screws). This will be Calvin’s third night outside his crib. I hope it goes well . . .

Down

• Our Sunday babysitter has quit. This is not surprising since she moved down to Denver. However, it’s always inconvenient to go through the process of finding another babysitter. Fortunately, she was able to suggest someone else that we’re currently in the process of evaluating.

Ups

• I cleaned the inside of the refrigerator Monday and the outside on Tuesday. It now sparkles.
• My new aerobic step has arrived. I got my old aerobic step while I was still in college. It is a ghastly teal and purple color that looks like this one. Every time I see it I cringe but it has worked well for many years. However, the top mat started pealing off a couple of years ago and now has gotten to the point that it’s becoming dangerous. I decided if I was going to replace it, I needed to get one with a color scheme I could stand. It turns out my only other good option was a black/grey version. However, I think black and grey is a reasonable color combination. I ordered it last week and it arrived yesterday. I was momentarily panicked when I saw it was packaged in the default teal/purple box. However, I opened the box up and was relived to discover the more boring grey/black step. The only other downside is it smells very plasticy. However, my old one did too when it was new so hopefully the smell goes away soon.
• Like everywhere else, we’ve been having cold weather this week. Our school district has canceled school for the last two days. I had a meeting Tuesday morning and was trying to figure out what to do if daycare closed. However, I was very happy to learn that daycare stayed open.

Calvin Moment

• Calvin can now take off and put on his sweatpants by himself. This is a very good sign for potty training. However, I think his execution could use some refinement. When he decides he needs to use the potty he pulls down his pants immediately, no matter how far away from the potty he is. Then he waddles over to the potty with his pants down by his ankles. It’s really funny to watch. He looks kind of penguin-like when he does it.

Simplification

• I entered into another book weeding project on Monday. This time I focused on our religious section. I discovered we have 9 NIV Bibles along with duplicates for quite a few other versions also. I pared down our selection to one of each version unless there was a sentimental reason to keep a specific Bible. I also managed to weed out quite a few other books. Some books, such as All the Women of the Bible I had been keeping in case we had a girl and she also enjoyed learning about interesting women in the Bible. However, I suspect this will appeal much less to Calvin so I got rid of that collection also. I also organized the guest bedroom closet and managed to donate another 3 boxes of clothing and books.