As of the time this is scheduled to post… October 20th at 08:18 UTC (1:18 AM Pacific, 4:18 AM Eastern)… Amy will be exactly seventeen years old according to my calculations.
As of when this posts at 19:17 UTC (12:17 PM Pacific, 3:17 PM Eastern) I will be exactly 41 years old. Woo!?
Now, nominally my birthday is the 16th, not the 15th, but with properly taking into account leap days and the exact proper length of a year, etc, this is where it ends up. So I get to celebrate a day earlier than folks would perhaps normally think. Exciting, huh?
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!
I figured that since we are coming up fast on Alex’s 3rd birthday, I’d go ahead and post some highlights of his 1st birthday. You know, for the three or four relatives who will actually watch it. :-)
Edit 2012 Aug 17 07:35 UTC to swap video for slightly revised one adding in one clip I’d missed the first time.
Well well, here we are. As of this moment… 16 Sep 2011 at 13:28 UTC (6:28 AM Pacific, 9:28 AM Eastern) I am the number of days old listed in the subject, which also happens to be equal to a number of years that ends in a zero, and starts with a 4. Yes, indeed, I am 400 years old. Oh, woops. Wrong number of zeros. But yeah. 40. Woo?
Of course, I have pre-scheduled this post. At the actual time mentioned, I hope to be asleep.
As of the moment this posts, at 04:16 UTC on September 13th (9:16 PM on the 12th Pacific, 12:16 AM on the 13th Eastern), Alex is exactly 2 years old. Happy Birthday Alex!!! These two years have sure flown by. I have not really posted any general updates since he turned 18 months old. So here goes again I guess.
He is in that vocabulary explosion sort of stage. Using new words every day. Asking what things are called. He is using simple sentences like “Daddy Juice Mommy More” when he noticed my drink was empty, as he took it from me and gave it to Brandy to fill up.
He and the dog continue to play with each other all the time. He is starting to learn to be a bit more gentle and (sometimes) back off when the dog has had enough. Roscoe definitely plays back too, it isn’t just a one way thing.
He can now load the DVD/Blu-Ray player with the disk he has decided he wants to watch. Still needs help setting it up and getting it going, but that won’t be long now I’m sure. He already does turn off our entertainment system when he is done watching whatever he is watching.
He says “Uh Oh!” when things go wrong or he finds something broken. This sometimes combines with the last bullet, as when we are trying to actually watch something else rather than a kids show. He realizes what is on is not what he was expecting, and starts saying “Uh Oh! Uh Oh!” and heads over to our receiver and turns it off. This is not always appreciated.
He is generally a holy terror, running around the house and getting into absolutely everything. I understand this is expected at this age. But it is exhausting.
As you may have seen in the video he loves playing with the hose. We will do less of this as it gets cooler I am sure, but at the moment this is one of his favorite things, that he asks to do almost every day. In addition to spraying the dog as seen in the video, he also will call me over, “Daddy! Daddy!” looking all innocent and such, then spray me as soon as I get close, giggling gleefully all the while. And then he’ll say “turn!” to let me know it is my turn, hand me the hose, and have me spray him.
He is playing more and different games on our iPhones. One of the new ones is a Thomas matching game. He also has a physical version of this. He sometimes actually matches things, sometimes he just plays. Either way, he likes them.
He is still upset and cries when we drop him off at day care, but by all reports he is OK and having fun right after we leave.
He loves to climb. Anything and everything. It is only a matter of time before we find him on top of a bookshelf or whatnot. He loves to go to playgrounds, where he is climbing and playing on jungle gym equipment designed for much older kids. He is fearless. I stay directly under him, ready to catch him when he slips, but so far he hasn’t.
He loves to draw. He’ll find a paper and then ask for a “Cran”, which is of course any writing utensil. Then he will happily sit and draw. Of course, sometimes he will draw on other things too. Basically any white or off white surface is up for grabs. This is also not always appreciated.
When watching movies he is familiar with, he will talk constantly describing what is going on as best he can. We can’t always get exactly what he is saying, but he is clearly referring to characters and what they are doing.
He points at every plane that flies over and excitedly tells us about the “ane! ane!”
He points at every bus (or buslike vehicle) as it goes by. “Buh! buh!”
Cars are still the best toys ever. He has many many cars now, and plays with them all the time.
Well, as usual, I’m there is a bunch more, but those are the ones spilling out of my head at the moment.
In any case, Happy Birthday to Alex! I can’t believe he is already two! It was just yesterday we brought him home and he was a tiny little thing. Now he is so BIG!
That’s right, I said Month Twelve. And yes, I know at this point in mere hours (specifically at 04:16 UTC on the 13th, which is 9:16 PM on the 12th Pacific time, or 12:16 AM on the 13th Eastern time… which is a little over 14 hours from now as I post this) Alex will be Twenty Four months old, or a full two years old. But gosh darn it I got this highlights video out less than a year late. Barely. I’d also said that this would be the last of the month at a time highlight videos. After this I’ll just post little video snippets instead of these longer videos I have no time to produce (obviously, since it took me a year to do this one) and which nobody has time to watch anyway.
Regardless… enjoy highlights from year ago Alex. This covers 13 Aug 2010 to 12 Sep 2010. He is of course much different now at double the age. :-) But the personality hasn’t changed much at all. Definitely the same kid. :-)
As of right now, 16 Sep 2010 at 07:39 UTC (12:39 AM Pacific, 3:39 AM Eastern) I am exactly 14244.4458 days old, which is also of course exactly 39 years. Ouch. Those are getting to be big numbers. :-)
Calculation below:
Born: 16 Sep 1971 at 20:58 UTC (1:58 PM Pacific, 3:58 PM Central, 4:58 PM Eastern)
Julian Born: 2441211.37361
1 year = 365.242199 days
39 years = 14244.4458 days
Julian 39 Year Birthday = 2455455.81941
39 Year Birthday = 16 Sep 2010 at 07:39 UTC (12:39 AM Pacific, 2:39 AM Central, 3:39 AM Eastern)
