Our little guy is three and a half. Time is flying. He is growing like a weed. His imagination and vocabulary are out of control. His naps are sparse. And we're more and more in love with him and feel so grateful to be able to watch him grow. Here's the mid-year recap on Luke:
The first half of 3 was "challenging," as many told me it would be. Several mommy friends warned me. I wasn't sure that I needed to worry ... I did. I can't put my finger on exactly what was the challenge. I guess because it was just EVERYTHING. Luke spent several months testing all of the limits and just being difficult in general. The good news is that we seem to have come through it and for the past few weeks he has been the most pleasant, agreeable, patient, kind boy. I hope that boy hangs around for a while :)!
Imagination and make-believe are the main parts of Luke's days. He LOVES to pretend. He has all sorts of scenarios playing out at all hours of the day. Some involve real people and real things, others involve things and characters that are most definitely not real (the pack of 10 dogs and 10 cats, for instance, who apparently live in our storage loft). Sam, Luke's pillow pet, is also a main player in all of the make believe. It is pretty cute and amazing to hear some of the stories that he comes up with ... then again, I don't find it quite so "cute" when he blames the shove that he just gave his sister on Sam.
After meeting with the social worker at Luke's school in November, we have completely figured out the potty situation. We basically gave the potty power back to Luke (since he had it all the time anyways) and it essentially "fixed" the accidents that he was still having. So, I can now say with complete confidence that he is potty trained and hasn't had an accident in 2 months! Woo hoo!
He's still the pickiest eater I know. In fact, things that he used to like have started to fall of the list - leaving an even shorter list of Luke-approved foods than before. I've decided that I'm giving Luke the power back on this one also (after all, he's in control - I can't force him to eat anything). So, I cater most meals to his tastes, adding in a non-approved food from time to time just to expose him to it. I sneak vegetables into fruit dishes and juices. Whatever ... hopefully he'll grow out of it. In the meantime, his growth is right on track....
Speaking of which, he seems to have grown a tremendous amount in the past month or two. I have no idea how tall he is, but I took one look at him a few weeks back and was shocked to notice that his 3T shirts are no longer fitting. They are all too short in the torso and arms. Amazing! 3T pants still seem to fit well. As of this month Luke weighs 34lbs.
Napping has been slowly dwindling down. For a while he was "resting" and falling asleep on most days, but we're down to a real nap about 1-2 days a week now. He takes a "rest" everyday from about 2/2:30 - 4:00, which means he's in his bed during that time with some books. The nice part of him not actually sleeping is that (after a short period of complete insanity before bedtime) he is 100% ready for bed at 7pm. He doesn't complain and there are no late-night antics. He just passes out immediately. :)
In terms of health - he's been relatively healthy this winter. Only one ear infection! One tube is out (right ear) and the other is still in. We'll just see how he does, but we are optimistic. Luke's speech sounds to us like it has improved dramatically. Most people seem to understand what he says the majority of the time. We'll double check with his teachers next month during our conference, but I'm hoping that he has made some progress and will continue to do so until he has caught up with his peers. He's at no loss for vocabulary! Some of the stuff to comes out of his mouth amazes me. This month his teachers at school did notice Luke having some trouble focusing his eyes and one of them wandering a bit, so he will be seeing a pediatric opthamologist in a few weeks to have them looked at.
At 3 and a 1/2 Luke has a full schedule - school 3 mornings a week, a pre-soccer class/program on Tuesday evenings, and swimming lessons on Thursdays. Although there are times when he tells me that he doesn't want to go (his favorite thing to do is to stay in his pjs all day long!), he really loves all of his activities once we get there. He's becoming more social at school, but overall is still pretty quiet in a group setting and takes a while to warm up. I say he saves all of his talking for Mommy and Daddys' ears!!!
What a sweet, sensitive, energetic, curious, loving, imaginative, silly, cute boy we have ... so lucky!
