The dirtiest mouth on the block

Does your kid put everything in his or her mouth? I'll admit it, mine does. I thought it was just a phase as a baby, you know testing what is in the world around him. But it continues, Dylan is 3 years old, surely we have taught him what food is by now you say. We have! I promise! He knows what food and drink are, I'm pretty sure he knows that there is a difference between food and golf balls. I don't think he's necessarily hungry or thirsty when he puts something in his mouth either. Sometimes he's mad. For example, when he's hitting golf balls he likes to hit them off the tee, but sometimes it takes him a while to get the tee straight and the golf ball on it so he will stick his head down and bite the tee in frusteration. As painful as it is to watch him try and put the ball on the tee for five minutes (and no, he will not let anyone help him, he can do it himself thank-you-very-much) it's worse to watch him put his face down to the grass and bite the golf tee.

Here's a list of what has gone into his mouth (or he has licked) over the past week.

A golf tee
The railing at the baseball game we were at
A golf ball
Water from his sand and water table
A stick
His fingers, ALL THE TIME
Water from a squirt gun
A squirt gun
Bath water
Bath toys
The sprinkler
Playground equipment

There is a lot of water on that list. Lest you think he is thirsty, this kid drinks a of lot of milk, water, juice, you get the picture. He doesn't seem to want to eat whatever he's putting in his mouth either, just bite it a little or lick it, maybe to see how it tastes? We tell him when he puts the stick/squirt gun/golf tee in his mouth that he should only put food in his mouth, but so far that doesn't seem to be working.

But you know what? For a gross as he is, this kid does not get sick (knocking on wood now). He has thrown up twice in his 3 years. And one time he threw up once and then was fine the rest of the day. So maybe he knows more than I do, maybe he's just building up his immunity. He goes to daycare and while they do a great job of keeping things clean, he's still exposed to lots of germs there too.

So maybe having the dirtiest mouth on the block isn't so bad.

The Big Boy Bed

We got Dylan a big boy bed last week ( I think we picked it up on Wednesday?), it sat downstairs airing out for a few days and Dave finally got it up in Dylan's room on Friday. Since then we have been trying to show Dylan that the bed is for sleeping in and not just jumping on, but we had been unsuccessful until last night. He finally went to bed in his big boy bed and stayed there until he woke up this morning (after 8am)! I was already on my way to work, but Dave said he was up getting ready and heard Dylan open the door to his room and say "hello" so Dave stuck his head out our door and said hi to Dylan. (and told him how proud he was of him for sleeping in his big boy bed all night)
We have kept the crib in Dylan's room so it is rather full with the crib, Dylan's new full size bed, change table, rocker, toy box, armour, etc. Hopefully this will be the beginning of the end of Dylan's crib and we can finally take it down and get rid of it. (It's a drop side crib and apparently they are dangerous, so IF we have another baby we will be getting a new crib. BTW, we haven't had any problems with the drop side on our crib and Dylan has shaken the hell out of the crib).
So, wish us luck tonight that Dylan sleeps in his big boy bed again! (and let me know if you see any fire truck sheets, because I am having a terrible time finding them, all I've seen is a fire truck quilt, not quite what I'm looking for).

Big boy bed?

Dave and I have been throwing around the idea of getting Dylan a big boy bed. What do you guys think? Is it too early? Dylan still seems to like his crib and isn't able to climb out of it yet, so maybe we are rushing things. Also, how do we keep him in the big boy bed once that's his bed? I think he just might climb out of it and play in his room all night if he isn't confined to a crib. He's never slept in a bed before and he just plays on our bed (but does pretend to nap on it). We just think that he is out growing the crib and since he will be two next week maybe now is the time to move him up to a big boy bed. And what size bed do we buy? A twin, full size? So many questions!

Any advice anyone has would be much appreciated!