Some Ludwig Family Milestones.

Max isn't the only one around here who hits important milestones. From time to time, the others of us do as well. Last Tuesday, November 6, 2012 was a big milestone for Chris. He was able to vote for the first time as a US Citizen in the Presidential Election. He has been looking forward to this day since he first began paying taxes in the US but was unable to vote. Since he officially became a citizen in June, he was now finally eligible.

So, we all decided to go vote together around 8 AM on Tuesday. I guess I don't really remember voting in the last Presidential Election, but I did not remember it being as crowded as it was on Tuesday! Our voting precinct is actually Mimi and Pop Pop's church, which is right down the road, so the 3 of us rode over there and were surprised to find that the parking lot was filled to capacity and there were cars parked along the road. But we were not deterred.

We headed inside to find a LONG line winding through the church. I was slightly nervous about how Max would hold up in such a line, but he managed to hold it together, even entertaining the other voters with his random exclamations of "Obama!" from time to time. I tried to explain to him that it's unlawful to campaign in the precinct, but he's apparently a political rebel. (Just so everyone is clear here: the Ludwig family did NOT vote for Obama. I just think that Obama is more fun to say than Romney, at least for a kid).

So we finally made it to the front of the line and were able to cast our votes. A big day for our new US Citizen!

Max was pretty excited about it too....

and he spent the rest of the day pontificating on political issues...

Sadly, late on Tuesday night it was determined that our guy didn't win. Looks like we're going to have to endure 4 more years of Obama's style of "Hope and Change", which apparently are his words for "unemployment, gay rights, entitlement, and desperation". Max was less than happy when I told him the results on Wednesday morning.

Sorry, buddy; hopefully America survives the next 4 years and your next voting experience is more positive.

Max conquered a much happier milestone this past weekend, when we finally decided it was time to convert his crib into a "big boy bed", which really just meant removing the front rail of the bed, resulting in this:

There were a coule of reasons why we felt it was time to take this step. #1, Max has been able to climb out of his crib for some time now, although he didn't do it often. #2, we're going to be needing this crib for the baby in a few months so we needed to start the transition to another bed for Max. However, I have been extremely nervous about taking this step, envisioning Max refusing to stay in his bed once he can so freely escape. I kind of liked him sleeping in his little prison that he was somewhat unlikely to crawl out of.

I guess this is just one step of many as Max grows up that Mommy has a much tougher time with than Max does! He immediately loved his big boy bed, and the first night went off without a hitch. He slept through the night with no problem, and even waited for me to come and get him up in the morning. Naptime was a slightly different story, as he took about 2 hours to finally settle down to sleep, but he is slowly getting better with naptime too. (Although I am afraid that he's trying to give up naps altogether - great timing with the baby coming!)

Now if I could just convince him that using the big boy potty is as much fun as sleeping in the big boy bed we'd be golden!!