What a year it has been!
Going from 2 to 3 is supposed to be tough and while we had our rough moments, I really felt like we kind of cruised through the last year.
Physically, he just looks like a kid, not a baby or toddler. He gained so much muscle this year with all his running and jumping and climbing and dancing and bike riding. (The kid moves, a lot!) He never had much extra fat in the first place, but now he is a very lean little boy. He's tall enough that I can dress him in big kids clothes, but I have to make sure to buy the "slim" fit. Even then I still have to buy pants with an adjustable waist.
In the last year he has learned to ride a tricycle, a bicycle (with training wheels) and has ditched the stroller. He walks or runs pretty much everywhere - around the zoo, at the farmer's market, out for family walks. It is great. The only time I put him in the double stroller is when I want to get a little extra exercise or when we need to get somewhere quickly.
He was fully potty trained (even at night) by 28 months, and it was a breeze. I take no credit in potty training him because he did it all. He decided when to start, when to hold steady for a while, and when to just be in underwear. The only thing we might have taken some credit for is realizing that he needed some privacy. We might have called him potty trained sooner, but we were a little nervous about jinxing the whole thing.
His love of books has exploded in the last year, along with his imagination and speech. Sam can sit and read books with you for an hour, by himself for about 30 minutes. Not only do we read to him, but he will read to us. He loves my old Sesame Street books and has memorized quite a few. He incorporates those storylines in to his imaginative play, too. I think his favorite game is "fireman", but he also loves to "camp" and put us to bed. He has his first official imaginary friend, "Miner" who helps Sam rescue people. It is so fun to sit back and watch him play or get down on the floor and play with him. We were a little worried about his speech, but in true Sam form, one day he just started talking like a big kid. He has evolved from talking in phrases to sentences to paragraphs.
Of course the biggest change for Sam this year was the birth of his little sister. He had a rough adjustment period (waking up at night, some potty regression), but we got through most of that pretty quickly. He is still having some trouble with extra whining, since he has realized that we respond to Rae when she cries, but we're working on that and have seen some huge steps forward in that area. As part of his role as a big kid, Sam now picks up his toys at night, cleans his room (with my help) once a week, and helps with other various chores around the house when he wants.
He is turning into such a big kid that sometimes it makes me sad and miss my little guy, but mostly I am one proud momma.
0 comments:
Post a Comment