"Do It On My Own!"

Well...here we are, another kid milestone. We made the switch, we sealed the deal, we gave Brevin ultimate freedom if he so chooses. Brevin made the move to a big boy bed! After much discussion for the last 6 months of when to do this, is the timing right, are we ready? We finally took the plunge of acknowledging that our little boy is growing up (How many times will this be said in the next 20 years?). In the end, even though I knew we weren't all totally ready, this was as good of a time as the next to take the next step towards independence.

We have heard "Do It On My Own!" many times over the last few months (How many times will this be said in the next 20 years?). It has been said in regards to getting in his new big boy bed, getting in the car, walking into a store and the list goes on...Hearing this does make me have a "twinge" of wanting to pull Brevin in and let him never do anything on his own, but once I get past that short lasting "twinge", I relish in the fact that we have a little boy that wants to be independent and "Do It On My Own!" I think as parents it is easy to fall into the trap of reacting to that "twinge" for own selves vs. pulling back and realizing what we do now will set up our kids for later success. By letting Brevin do it on his own now, there are many successes that come along with an "I DID IT! (clapping, clapping)" But there are many times that he can't do it and he fails even at the age of two. This is where it becomes imperative to not react to the parenting self fulfillment of that "twinge" as it is KEY for him to make mistakes now when the price is low. It is important for us to guide him to learn how it feels not to succeed so he will learn the skill of learning from his mistake and doing better next time around. This is life, right? I won't take up time listing out all of the times this has happened to me in the last 6 months just regarding parenting, but it happens to the best of us including our kids.


Parenting continues to be one of the most rewarding and humbling experiences of my lifetime that requires a lot of hard work, re-grouping and knowledge. I have had some amazing mentors in this area and continue to keep myself fresh. Heath and I took the Parenting With Love and Logic Class at church and would recommend ANY of the books to anybody. And for those with young children you can find a great listen on the Elephant in the Nursery and for those of you with teens the Elephant in the Teenagers Room, these two have been very much highlighted to me by many parents I see weekly in Kid-O-Deo!http://www.eaglebrookchurch.com/resources/messages.html

Brevin transitioned well into his new big boy bed!! He has yet to crawl out or fight going to bed and he sleeps much better on his new comfy mattress. He is very proud to announce to anybody that will listen where he is sleeping these days. We did it! (clapping, clapping)