Dear Parker,
How is that you are THREE YEARS OLD?!
I see you run up and down the hallways at school and think, where did my
baby go? Your legs are getting longer
and your face is thinning out some—you look just like a little boy, now. You are definitely tall for your age, most
people think you are turning four rather than three. You certainly act like you know it all,
that’s for sure. So, let’s see.. since
your last update, what all has changed?!
Well, one thing would be that you sleep in a big boy bed! We converted your crib to a full bed. You helped me pick out your sheets you sleep
right in the middle of your bed. Big
Elephant acts as your pillow and I’m not gonna lie.. Big E has a deodorant
problem. He stinks! Which means your head stinks, too. But, you must sleep with him, so the stink
doesn’t bother you. Mom has to Lysol
spray and Febreze Big E every week! You
didn’t bat an eye at transitioning. I
bought you a book about moving to a big bed and it had you convinced to have your own big
boy bed within a week (thank you Elmo).
You stay in your bed and won’t get out until someone comes and gets you
in the morning.
You love reading books at night and we rotate through a pretty large
collection pretty regularly. Some of
your favorites are the “Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site,” “Mighty,
Mighty Construction Site,” “If you Give a Mouse a Cookie,” a Thomas &
Friend’s book, “Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom,” and the Bible. You love reading about how God made the sun,
moon and starts as well as Noah saving the elephants. You can recite most of the books back to me,
it seems.
You recently mastered making numbers with your hands from zero to
five. This was a big accomplishment to
get your fingers to do what you want!
Now you are so proud to show me how you are TWO but you are going to be
THREE. Mom also makes the church, the
steeple, the doors and all the people with her hands and that fascinates you,
too. You try to mimic what I’m doing
with my hands. You can count to 10 and
say your ABCs (if you are in the right mood). You also like to sing B-I-N-G-O
to yourself. You can even put your shoes
on and off your feet and like to do the Velcro strap yourself. It’s pretty fun to watch you concentrate on
this task.
Some of your most favorite things are still elephants. You love little E, big E and even your gray
elephant from Mary Beth which alternates with the name “Mommy Elephant” or
“Daddy Elephant” depending on who is your favorite right now. Mom got you a life-size baby elephant for
your birthday and jumped up and down over and over when you saw him. You also have a fascination with anything
Thomas the Train or trains in general.
You refer to trains just as Thomas.
We have to cross railroad tracks to get to the highway from our house
and one day while we were crossing the trains I could see one coming, so I
pulled into the post office next to the tracks and we watched it go by. You loved it.
And now you think I can summon a train every single time we cross the
tracks. So, I basically set you up for
future disappointments. Ha! You also have an extreme fascination with
garbage trucks—it would be your life’s mission to see the garbage truck pick up
the trash every day. We see the trucks
pretty regularly on the way to school in the morning, so you get all jazzed up
about it routinely.
We went to the beach in Port Aransas in late March with DD Nana and
T-Pa and you had a great time. You slept
in a bed all by yourself with no problems and really enjoyed playing on the
beach (just like you have in the past).
You did really well in the car (of which Andrew did NOT). You also got your first real stomach bug that
lasted for a whole week. You were
throwing up and having diarrhea regularly for a whole week and were
miserable. You also passed on your
stomach bug to your mom and dad. I think
Andrew got away scotch free—lucky soul.
It was a miserable existence for those days. You didn’t understand what was happening to
you and you looked so sad. In general,
the month of April was not a good month for you. You got the stomach bug and a random virus
that made you run fever for 7 days, too.
Mom and dad had to miss a lot of work in April, but we all survived!!
You still enjoy splash pads and fixing things with dad. Mom donated a TON of your toys to goodwill
recently, but you haven’t seemed to notice.
You’re back to playing with some of your magnetic blocks and regular
blocks. You also love the train table
you got for Christmas. You do a lot of
independent play at your train table.
Play-doh is also a win-win at our house.
You love to use your play-doh scissors to cut your play-doh. We took you to your first Monster Jam and you
had a blast!! We did that in February
and literally, at least once a week, when we get your underwear out for the
morning you will hold up an extra pair and say, “I’m saving these for the
monster truck show.” Of course you
are. You also saved a brownie for the
monster truck show (don’t worry—mom ate it when you went to bed). So, monster trucks are big thing around here,
too. You did so great at the monster
truck show—you didn’t mind the loud noise and really loved getting to eat
popcorn.
Let’s see.. you also went to an Astro’s game with your dad on a school
night! You had so much fun with
him. I would say these past few months
you have really become a momma’s boy. I
think it stems from you being sick and mom taking care of you the most. So, I know your dad was happy that you had a
really good time with just you and him. You
also really like doing puzzles. You can
basically do a 12-15 piece puzzle all by yourself. It amazes me. Mom is no good at puzzles, so this is a
skill I can appreciate! You also love to
play with legos, blocks, etc. You like
having to build things and when you’re done you always say, “Look, mom! I builded you an elephant!”
So, I’ve talked a lot about what you love and things that bring joy to
your face, but let’s talk about what you don’t like. And that’s swimming. I’ve put you in swim lessons and you hate
it. HATE IT. You cry, you scream and are, in general, just
miserable during the lessons. The water
really scares you. You like splashing,
but you do not like being submerged in water.
But, I’m not going to lie, last night, I stepped out of the bathroom to
get your towel for 5 seconds and came back to you blowing bubbles in the
water. This is a HUGE step. The most you would do at swim lessons was
kiss the water. And you didn’t like
that. So, I’m hoping you’ll come to like
swimming in your own time. We stopped
taking gymnastics lessons for the summer so you could do swimming. So, we’ll revisit in August what we should do
about swim vs gymnastics. We also got
you started in Soccer Shots! You do that
at school at 8:30 AM on Wednesdays—and appear to be having a great time with
it!
You also are not having the greatest time with your baby brother right
now. You try to play with him, but you
generally take toys and say “CRUSH HIM” and then pounce on him like you’re a
lion going in for his prey. But, Parker,
Andrew ADORES you. He crawls after you
and just wants to be doing what you’re doing.
I can see his admiration for you.
You are a bit jealous that he can pick up all of your toys and you get
even more frustrated when he drools on them.
But, at the end of the day, you still give him a big hug and kiss at
night. I know you love him, it’s just
another transition phase we’re going through now that Andrew is mobile.
You love with your whole heart.
You like to run into the house when you’ve been gone and say, “mom! I’m home!” as though I’ve just been sitting
there anxiously awaiting your arrival.
You give big hugs and sweet kisses.
I’ll laydown with you at night for a couple of minutes and you will just
talk to me about your day. You have many
friends at school love showing off elephant (and recently turtle). You’re favorite friends are Beckett, Ethan,
Molly, Zee, Vince, Jace, Lily and a handful of others. You just moved into the three year old class
at school and left some of your good friends behind for a little bit. You had a rough transition, but seem to be
getting the hang of it, now.
You are fully potty-trained during the day, but not at night. Mom just needs to give you less to drink at
night, but it’s hard since we’re so active.
We’ll figure it out one day. You
weight 31lbs, wear 3T shirts, but 2T shorts.
The 3T shorts just fall off your waist.
You wear size 9 shoes, but will probably be a size 10 by the time summer
ends. You still love yogurt—strawberry
banana yogurt if we’re being specific.
You also like spaghetti, chicken, steak, quesadillas, chips, oranges,
blackberries, raspberries, yellow bars, oatmeal bars, goldfish and a few other
foods, too. Some days you eat great and
some days, not so much.
We had your third birthday party at Discover Gymnastics. You had a ball and were great during you
party. You understood that people “sing
first and then blow out the candles” as you kept reminding me throughout the
day. I had so much fun watching you
enjoy your special day. Mom and dad got
you some Lego Duplo sets and digger underwear.
DD Nana got you this fun building set and Mimi & Papa Randy got you
some balls to play with outside. We
haven’t opened all the rest of your presents, just yet. I like to leave those for a rainy day.
You will always be our first-born… our baby who made us parents for the
very first time. Mom and dad love you
baby boy, always and forever.
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