Three and a Half

And now for an update on our first born. It's ridiculous how much I love this kid.

Health.

We took him to his first dentist appointment. Pediatric experts say to start dental visits at 1 year old. One. That seemed a little difficult to imagine. At 3 1/2 years, I thought only just now would be the first possible age that he could sit still in a chair. Well, mostly sit still. He did pretty well for his first visit. We took him to a pediatric dentist office attached to his pediatrician's office -- toys in the waiting room, colorful murals on all the walls, and one large shared space with about six dental stations/chairs. (No individual offices.) During the wait between the tech and the dentist he was invited to get out of his chair and play on the various games mounted to the walls around the room (including iPads!) and after his visit chose a prize from a treasure chest.

School.

We had a parent-teacher conference at school and were told that he is cognitively advanced for his age. He has moved up to the 3 1/2 yr room early. Every day when I pick him up he asks, "Where are we going to?" He never seems satisfied with "home".

At school he learned about fire safety and what to do in an emergency. (For a boy who has always loved firetrucks, this is right up his alley.) Every day he points out the smoke detector to us, tells us if we're ever on fire we are to stop-drop-and-roll (and sometimes demonstrates), tells us to crawl if we see smoke, and in the event of a fire we go outside and stand by the fence. (We've amended this and he now tells us we go next door to Mr. John's (neighbor) house. We call 9-1-1 and tell the fireman to come. {Of course, with modern cell phones, I don't think he would know how to pick up the phone and dial!} We're prepared in the event of tornados, too -- at school he goes to the bathroom, at home to the basement. It's great to prepare him but it does throw me a little when he, out of the blue, will say, "I'm glad there's no smoke in our house, Mommy." That makes two of us, bud!

Numbers/Words.
Have I already mentioned his fascination with countdown clocks? He notices the time-remaining clock on basketball games and loves the microwave for that reason. He wants to push the numbers himself (we like to do everything "all by myself") and has been known to run from the other room when he hears the microwave just to watch the numbers count down to 0. He'll stand there until it does.

He still reads signs as we drive. I had to laugh the other day when he saw a "No Outlet" sign and then asked me where the "Yes Outlet" sign was.

Songs.

He doesn't sing quite as often as he used to but still will throw out a line or two, especially from Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. Have you ever heard of it? For those of us that grew up with Mr. Roger, this PBS cartoon takes place in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, with Daniel the tiger, Prince Tuesday, Lady Elaine, and the irritating cat who says meow, meow all the time. I enjoy this show more than any other kids programming. Each episode has a lesson, usually accompanied by a song. He'll start singing a verse when he encounters a similar situation, such as:

• When you have to go potty, stop and go right away.
• When you wait, you can play, sing or imagine anything.
• Making something is one way to say 'I love you'
• You can take a turn, and then I'll get it back
• Everyone is big enough to do something
• Stop, think and choose
• If you can't do it alone, work together!
• Clothes on, eat breakfast, brush teeth, put on shoes and off to school!
• Bath time, pjs, brush teeth, story and song and off to bed!

He sometimes uses that last one as a stall tactic at bedtime -- make sure we have all the bases covered!

Baseball
Speaking of bases, we've been to a few baseball games, both major league and minor league. He really enjoys the peanuts and popcorn and all the crowd participation cheers. His favorite part is the 7th inning stretch.

And if you want his piano version...

He loves to help me with "sprinkles and showers" (a line from his Brothers Forever book meaning watering the garden), though we've had to give some instruction on how and when to pick vegetables.

We've been working a lot on sight words and can now read his Sight Words books all by himself. (Did I mention he likes to do things all by himself now???)

He still loves his cars and he instead of lining them up in a "train", he now makes "traffic."

He is sweet with Sam, often giving him a toy or saying, "It's ok, Sam" when Sam fusses.

And as evidence of how proud of a mama I am, I even take pictures of his doodles.