As of the moment this posts, at 10:05 UTC (3:05 AM Pacific, 6:05 AM Eastern) Alex will be exactly three years old!
Once again it is amazing just how the time has flown by, and all the new things he is doing every day. I last did a post like this six months ago. Since then, here are some of the new developments…
It has been a long time since I tried to do one of these “You are about to turn X” interviews with Alex… I think the last time may have been at 12 months, but hey, for the first time he actually did have a little conversation with me about it. (If you haven’t hit play on the video above, do so now, K?)
No more diapers!!! In order to start preschool this fall, Alex needed to be potty trained. So in August Brandy started potty training boot camp. The first few days there was quite a bit of protesting and a number of accidents, but after that Alex gave in. He is now very proficient at all things potty. (Well, mostly. :-) )
Because he mastered that, he is indeed now in preschool. He’s only been there two days so far, and is still adjusting. But unlike last year’s day care, he is not so clingy when we leave him in the morning. He came into school the first day knowing and understanding what was going to happen.
I mentioned six months ago that he was really into trains. He is still really into trains. Over the last six months the track setups got more and more elaborate, taking up more and more space. Lots of branches, bridges, etc. Until about a month ago. After one of the times the tracks got cleaned up, when he got them out again he didn’t build another big layout. Instead he started building circles. Little circles, big circles, nested circles, etc. Just yesterday he built an elevated circle. Fun stuff.
He tells elaborate stories about things that happened to him, or just stories he has made up. For instance, he told a story about some ducks who were running away from a frog who was ribbiting at them (while acting out a really scary ribbit). Or just telling us about how he went to the fireworks on the 4th of July. Or how he went to the zoo with Papa Bill and Grandma Cathy.
Brandy said that over the summer when he was staying home instead of going to school all day long he would talk about how Daddy was at work, but when Daddy got home Daddy would play trains and cars with him. Awww…. (Makes me feel awful for the times I got home and didn’t play trains and cars… although usually I did. :-) )
He still likes his train videos and YouTube, and still has TV shows and movies that he likes, and games he likes on the iPhone, but he is less into those things than he was six months ago. Much more into the running around playing with physical things.
He has continued to work hard on the alphabet. (See Day 6 of Grandma Leslie’s Visit.) He’s getting better. But more to the point he is super excited about it. The alphabet song is the song of choice in almost all occasions. More recently, he has started working on actually “building” letters. Mainly “A”. He’ll make A’s out of trains and other things as well as trying to draw it. And he describes it: “Build A! Down, down, corner!”
He lies! Yeah, yeah, supposedly not a good thing, but shows imagination. For instance, as he drags his rug with roads and such out of his room and starts taking it down the stairs, and I say “Alex, your rug needs to stay in your room.” he says “No! Amy said! Amy said rug downstairs!”. Often his lies take this form, telling one of us that one of the others told him to do something, or it was OK to do something, when in fact none of us had… especially when the most recent person has told him no.
Along the lines of lying, there is more general acting. He has this fake laugh he uses sometimes. The first time I heard it was when he had just accidentally knocked over one of his elaborate train track creations. His face started to scrunch up like he was about to cry. But then out came this really disturbing fake laugh. Then he said it was funny. He still looked really upset like he was about to cry. I asked him if he was sad. He said “NO! Funny!!!” And then the disturbing fake laugh again. He later has also used the same laugh when the rest of us are laughing and he doesn’t quite know why, but thinks he should join in.
Amy says another new thing in the last six months is that he has turned into a cat. By this she means he has become fond of meowing and pretending he is a cat. And indeed, he does this not infrequently.
He will also pretend he is a dog. More specifically, although he did this before the last six months, he is more frequently greeting his special friends by licking them. He learned this from Roscoe. We tell his that this isn’t how people do it, but it is too cute to really be too insistent about stopping him. The most amusing of course is when he and Roscoe both are licking each other.
He has strong opinions about what he wants to eat, what he wants to do, etc and is now able to express himself clearly about these sorts of things. So when asked what he wanted for his birthday, he was very specific that he did NOT want a regular cake, he wanted cupcakes, and more specifically he wanted race car cupcakes. And after the last time we went swimming, he was very specific that after swim he wanted to go to the bookstore (to play with trains, not books) and then after that he wanted to go to the playground.
Amy says in the last six months he also got cuter… and eviler. By that she means that when he gets into the right mood, he can be an absolute hyper demon. Running all over the place, knocking things over, pulling on things, and generally being a “poop” (Amy’s word). He can run us all ragged. Luckily, this is not all the time. But when it hits… watch out! I believe these are the terrible two’s, right? Although I have heard from some others that the three’s can be even worse!
Anyway, as usual there is tons more, but I figure that it enough for now. Alex is three! Wow!
Alex is now on his second box of cars (after also finishing a box of trains). Two weeks ago he was completely refusing to even contemplate such things and would yell and kick and scream and try to get away when asked. Now he is rushing to do it whenever he can, because, hey, new car! Of course, he can’t get cars and trains for this forever, but, for the moment…
Note: I actually stuck the second set of cars into the box from the first set of cars for this picture, as only the first box has the explanatory label.
Today we are at Alex’s very first birthday party. (Other than just us celebrating his own at home.) One of his friends from school is turning THREE and he invited Alex. Alex spent the first 20 minutes clinging to my neck with all his might, but is now playing and having a good time.
So, the letter officially and publicly announcing my mom’s retirement came out last month, and I meant to post this then, but well, I got busy. Oops. The full pdf of the letter is here.
The most relevant parts for those of us in the family are these:
I write to inform you that I will be retiring, with my final day being June 30, 2012. The Association Covenant team accepted my letter with regret at its February meeting. With this timing, I will complete exactly six years as Association Minister for SONKA. They have been good years.
…
Why leave? I turned 70 years old in February and wish to do a few other things while still healthy. It will be good to have time for my own priorities instead of mainly filling my hours meeting requests of others. I will be able to do more with issues I care about and with nurturing personal relationships, as well as reading, writing, art, music and taking some classes long on my “someday” list.
…
If/when my house sells, I will move for a while to Washington State where my only son and his family live. I have told him it will be my next 3-year adventure, not my permanent retirement home.
…
Blessings always.
Ruth M. Brandon
SONKA Association Minister
This was of course not a surprise to us. We’d been talking about the upcoming plans for quite awhile before they were official. I am very much looking forward to having my mom nearby for the next “3-year adventure”.
If all goes as planned, that means she will be here as Amy finishes high school and moves on to college, and as Alex continues to grow and moves from day care to pre-school to kindergarden to elementary school. Those are important years.
As much as Alex enjoys video chatting with Grandma on the computer and on my iPhone, I’m sure he will enjoy having her around in person even more.
As of the moment this posts, at 19:11 UTC (12:11 PM Pacific, 3:11 PM Eastern) Alex will be exactly 2.5 years old. I haven’t posted one of the “things Alex is doing now” kind of posts since he turned two, so here is another one of them, with just a few things I can think of off the top of my head. It is of course nowhere near complete.
TRAINS! He liked trains before, and would play with them when there were sets in bookstores or toy stores or whatever, but he got a set of wooden trains and tracks for his birthday. Then he discovered he didn’t have to be limited to the table, and could build out his tracks on the floor. The track setups became more and more elaborate and sprawling. At the moment we essentially have a whole room where the floor is nothing but a train track set up, and he spends hours playing with the trains. Which lead to train videos of course. Which in turn led to…
YouTube! In the last couple months he has become a major fan of YouTube. It started with the trains, but expands from there. If you give him the iPhone YouTube app, he is completely and totally proficient in navigating around, going from video to video to video, following his interests. (Where he ends up can be interesting sometimes.) He has even been known to save videos he likes as favorites. The only thing he can’t do is spell and type, so he’ll tell you what he wants to search for as a starting point. On a laptop, he hasn’t mastered the trackpad yet, so he points at what he wants to watch next. Of course there are trains. Then there is a whole genre of people using toy trains and cars and such to act out stories. Then there are adults reviewing children’s toys. Then there are a wide variety of children’s videos from kids songs to full episodes of TV shows… in many languages! And all sorts of other things. Very entertaining!
He loves walking Roscoe! He will bring the leash and say he wants to walk the dog. I attach a second leash for safety, but he holds his leash and runs with the dog and loves it. In general, he and Roscoe play and chase and have a great time. Roscoe usually tires of it and wants to be left alone before Alex is done, so then we have to separate them, but until then Alex has fun. :-)
He has friends at school! He now has friends at school that he plays with regularly and calls by name when he arrives or leaves. “Bye Zoe! Bye Zoe!” And they call “Alex!” when he arrives as well. They run around and play and talk to each other. They are definitely little kids now, not babies any more for sure, and barely “toddler”. Hitting that “Preschool” phase instead now.
I mentioned YouTube, but in general he is a master of the iPhone. He navigates effortlessly from game to game. Within games he quickly figures out what you are supposed to do and can navigate through multiple levels of menus to get to things if needed (although he prefers the ones where that isn’t needed). He can also open up his movies on there and choose which he wants to watch, etc.
He will talk to various people on video conference over Skype and the like. We’ve done this with him since he was a newborn, but now he actually actively interacts with the people on the other end, talking to them, showing them things, etc. To quote my mother’s Facebook post after one of these sessions: “Two year old grandson was on Skype with me quite awhile tonight – I was on a phone picture and he lay me on the floor in the middle of his wooden train set to show me cars so it was like I was lying on my back looking up at him doing things! But when the dog came and sat on the phone he was all upset – and had to be reassured that ‘grandma’s okay see here she is!’ Very interactive tonight but imagine! He is worried about the disappearance of my talking and watching head and carried me around to play with him – and sees that as ME! and cried that I was saying goodbye when I did! As if I were really there! Sigh!”
He likes the karaoke machine and will turn it on and start making noises into it himself. More recently he realized it can actually play songs he knows (like Old MacDonald) and he can sing along.
When he plays with his cars or trains, they actually play out stories. Sometimes he reenacts scenes from the movies or TV shows the toys come from, sometimes he makes up his own. But they have conversations and have adventures. They aren’t just being pushed around. We’ll hear him talking thinking he is calling us, but then realize that it is actually two of his cars having a conversation.
He can open the refrigerator and freezer on his own, and does so almost every day to get popsicles. But he can’t open the popsicle by himself yet, so he’s no sneaking anything past us… yet.
He is very good at articulating what he wants most of the time, and uses words to describe it. This includes things like saying what he wants for dinner, what drinks he wants, what toy he is looking for, etc, etc, etc. We don’t ALWAYS get exactly what he wants, but more often than not, he is pretty clear. He will sometimes even order his own meal when we are out at a restaurant. What do you want? FRIES! CHEESESTICK!!!
When we tell him it is time for bed, he protests and asks for more time. But when time is up, he’ll come to one of us and go to sleep. He still wants to be near us to go to sleep, not just left in his bed or whatnot, but when it is bedtime, he knows, and he may not like it, but he stops what he is doing and goes to sleep.
He will follow complex sets of instructions, like “Alex, would you please take this upstairs, knock on your sister’s door and give it to her, then come back?”.
He’ll also fill in the gaps on his own and take the needed action. For instance, if he indicates he wants to go outside, and we say “Sure, but you need your shoes and coat” he’ll go off and find them and bring them back to get ready to go out.
Most of the time when we are out at a restaurant and sit at a booth, he sits with me on the regular booth seat, rather than using a high chair. (He still needs a high chair when it isn’t a booth though.)
He says his own name! He won’t answer “What is your name?” when asked yet (at least I haven’t seen it), but when he sees himself in a mirror or on video or whatnot, he will say “Alex!”.
Most of the time he isn’t crying when we drop him off at school any more, although he still usually lets us know he really would rather stay with us and is unhappy with being dropped off. Except when everybody is playing on the playground. Then sometimes it is OK if we leave.
He tells stories about us. At school the teachers tell us he tells them about how Mommy and Daddy are at work. When I am driving him home after school he talks about what Mommy and Amy are doing.
He is very deliberate about his art, drawing very frequently, and telling us what it is that he is drawing (“train!”) and who it is for “Grandma!”.
We have “parent/tot” swim lessons every week and have had them for more than a year, but in the last couple months he is really getting comfortable and having more and more fun, participating with all the activities and getting more adventurous and brave every week. He had been starting to get that way last summer, but between the move and and people being sick and such over the winter, we had missed a bunch of classes and we switched to a new pool because of the move, so he had regressed a bit over the winter, but he’s completely come out of that now and is back to being super excited and enthusiastic about swim each week.
He tries to share things he is really excited about with the dog, but the dog doesn’t always appreciate it, and that makes him sad. “Look Dog, train videos!!!” (Dog looks blankly). “Look Dog, train videos!!!” (Waves iPhone around, holds it to Roscoe’s face to show him. Dog looks unimpressed. Alex gets sad.)
He likes to ride on my back, and will insist on climbing up and being carried that way from room to room.
He loves to wrestle and roughhouse.
He is still working on catching, but he is now pretty good at throwing a ball right to me for me to catch!
Alphabet! He is very excited about letters and numbers and learning to identify them. His favorite games right now are all games that involve letters and numbers. He doesn’t know them all yet, but he knows some of them, and is eager to learn the rest.
Well, there is probably a bunch more. There is definitely a lot more. Every day there are awesome moments and new things. But it is impossible to capture them all. Those are just a few that came to mind with a few moments of thinking. This is a great age. Lots of fun. But also exhausting. :-)
The library is set up and (mostly) moving box free. The tree is up. The presents are out. The stockings are full. Everybody but me is still asleep. (The teenager didn’t go to sleep for the night until after I got up for the morning though…). Soon the unwrappings will begin. Woo!
Fake tree this year for the first time ever. We just didn’t have time to get anything else organized, or to find all the holiday stuff buried in the garage.
