McKay is Growing Up!

I have noticed lately that McKay is acting much more grown up, especially in the sentences he uses.  When you are reading to him and ask him a question that he doesn't know the answer to, he will say "I don't know what that is," instead of just "ma don know".  Today I was just standing in the kitchen when all of a sudden he ran from across the room, gave me a big hug, and said, "Glad to see you!"  It was so cute.  I hadn't even gone anywhere!

Of course, with growing up, comes the realization of being afraid.  It has happened with each of our kids.  They are perfectly fine sleeping in the dark with the door shut, until about age 2 and 1/2.  Then all of a sudden they are afraid.  A couple nights ago, I told McKay goodnight and started to shut his door and he started crying, "Don't shut door, don't shut door!"  I turned the light back on and went to talk to him.  He said he was scared and when I asked what he was scared of he said, "Tiger."  I thought he had become afraid of the tiger in his favorite movie Kung Fu Panda.  I kissed him and left the door open and he slept fine.  The next night Mike was putting him to bed and started to shut the door and the same thing happened.  This time when we asked what he was scared of he said, "Tiger" and pointed to the wall next to his bed.  It was then that I realized what was scaring him.  Our toilet is behind the wall next to his bed.  He thought the toilet flushing was a tiger in the wall!  It made me so sad to think that our nightly toilet flushing was causing him so much fear!  We decided to show him that the noise was the toilet, so Mike went into the bathroom and I told McKay how funny it was when the toilet was flushed.  He laughed when he heard it flush and said, "funny toilet!", then insisted on the door being open (don't think that will change now.)  Once they know fear, it seems to stay.  

Tonight at dinner, Mike chuckled about something and asked McKay if he knew what was funny.  McKay got down and headed for the bathroom and said, "Toilet funny!"  then flushed.  He is so entertaining and fun.  What a sunshine he is!  Now if we could just get him to use the toilet!