Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Three Years Old - Nap Edition

For I think the second time since Maria was born, both children are sleeping in the day. I figured I would take advantage and write a little bit about Anthony and what he is like, today, at three years old. WEIRD! He is WEIRD! Ha - I am kidding, but only kind of. Anthony wakes up super early and usually - usually - is in a pretty good mood. Yesterday morning Mike brought Maria in to me around 6:00 and she was nursing, we were all three lying in the bed and BOOM! we heard our door open and Anthony strolled in. We usually lock his door with a hook and eye so he can't wander in the night, but because the door swells in the summer, we've been just closing it. But he is strong as can be and he just bashed his body weight against it and opened it. He came up on the bed and said "Blanket!" which sounds to the untrained ear like "Owanket!" so we covered him up with the blanket. Then after another minute he demanded "Wugs!" which is "Wiggles!" to those of you not in the know. He loves The Wiggles, Signing Time, to sing and dance, cheese sticks, the marshmallows in Lucky Charms, donuts (which he calls bagels), bagels (which he calls bread), watermelon, and 'ice cream', which lucky for us, is what he calls no sugar added frozen fruit pops.

He loves to be kissed and hugged, - well I shouldn't say he loves it. He demands it, but when you start to kiss him, he usually rolls away, laughing hysterically. He will sometimes come over to me during the day and throw himself against me and say "hug", which breaks my heart a little.

He knows how to count to 20, knows all his colors, knows all kinds of animals. He's funny though - today we went to the zoo and I was holding him and pointing out the elephants - we were so close to them and the baby one was really moving around a lot so I thought he would like seeing them. He kept saying something, but it didn't sound like elephant. It sounded like "wake". I had no idea, there was water, so I thought maybe he thought "lake" but that's not one of his words. So we moved on and the wind picked up and sort of blew his hair and he said "wake!" and signed "wind" and I finally figured out that's what he was saying. Only Anthony would look at a big giant elephant and say "wind!". He loves to look at books. He loves to rub Maria's head and say "baby". He loves to hold her feet while he's watching television. I always say "nice! be nice!" to him while he's rubbing Maria's head. I'm so nervous he's going to be rough with her. So now when he rubs her head, he says "Nice!" and then he says "Nice to meet you!"

In three years, he's been to Florida twice (three times if you count when I was pregnant with him), and New Jersey twice. He's flown on a plane three times, and is about to go again next week, the first time he'll have his own seat.

He is still a pretty bad sleeper - lately he falls asleep right after 7:00 and sleeps all night but only until around 5:30 or 6:00, which is too early, we tell him! Since he is napping today, I am going to assume he won't go to sleep until 11:00 tonight.

He loves bubbles, and will ask for them by name. "Wow!", he'll say when there are a lot of them, or there's a particularly big one. "Wowee!"

He loves Elmo and Diego, and asks for them by name. He loves to sing Elmo's song, and we all cower in fear when he starts' 'playing the piano' on a table or floor because he can't exactly carry a tune yet and it can be pretty painful to listen to.

He hates to have his hair cut. We are hoping to cut his hair this weekend with the clippers, it's super long. He hasn't had it cut in like three months. We're hoping that we can cut it if we do it in one minute increments, over the whole day. Sometimes I can't believe all the stuff that we do to make it work for him.

Mike and I were looking at his case conference thing from IPS and it had his stated goals on it for preschool, summer school. By August 1, he is supposed to respond to someone saying 'no' or 'stop' four out of five times. He's supposed to engage in conversation and say three syllable words, and follow three step directions. By August 1. 2008! Mike and I will just be happy if his summer school is a good practice run for him for regular preschool which starts in August. We just want him to be happy and start talking to us, so we can talk to him too.

He's waking up so I better go - happy birthday Anthony, we love you!

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