So what's up with my big boy lately?He's become such a great eater. He eats everything we eat at dinner now. All the veggies (even kale), soup, tacos, meat, quiche, everything! Now, he doesn't always eat it willingly. We still have to promise cookies for dessert but, hey, it works. He also requires ketchup on meat. He loves meat, though. He thinks it's all chicken, but under that guise he happily eats chicken, beef, pork, lamb, and fish. We definitely still have some nights where he just refuses to eat, but those are rare anymore, and it's such a relief! He still will only eat a grilled cheese or peanut butter and honey (which he calls a "honey bear" because the honey comes in a bear-shaped bottle) for lunch, but I figure he's getting variety with dinner so I don't push it.
He's learned most of the lowercase letters and we're working on understanding that each letter has a sound as a first step towards reading. I don't think he really gets the concept of this yet, though. For awhile he thought all letters said "tuh" like a T. He's now differentiated that W makes a "wuh" sound, though, so I think we're making progress. He knows how to spell his name. If you ask him how to spell Will he says "W, I, L, nother L". He can't write any of the letters yet, of course.
He still loves singing. He sings to Charlie a lot. He sings to himself at night and at naptime when he's alone in his room. He has a "Farmer and the Dell" book that he loves to sing with Tim and me. We hear him reading it and singing the song aloud through his monitor a lot, which is cute. He also makes up little songs, which I'm sure he got from me since I sing silly things to the boys all of the time.
He's doing 2 three-hour days a week at the preschool down the street in their two-year-old program and loves it. He gets the social interaction and all of the activities without the daycare feel. We're in the process right now of having to register him for 3 year old preschool in the fall and I'm having a hard time deciding which one to send him to. The one he's going to is a very caring, fun environment. There's another one nearby that's better known for it's academics, though, so I'm torn which one would be better for him. Also, the idea of thinking about "academics" for a 3 year old seems bit ridiculous to me anyway. I'm sure he'll do fine wherever he ends up.
He's still really into trains and construction equipment. He likes to play cars a lot and build "high towers" with his blocks. We usually watch a half hour or so of TV in the morning and then again at night. He has lots of favorite shows (Barney, Caillou, Wiggles, Elmo, Fireman Sam, SuperWhy). He also enjoys watching the two Thomas movies we have and the Disney Cars DVDs.
We're in the process right now of the finishing half of our basement to make a playroom for the boys. I think that will be nice since the toys are TAKING OVER THE HOUSE. It's getting out of control. And it's really just Will's stuff at this point. All of the baby stuff is still packed away since Charlie's still little. Once all of that comes out we're not going to be able to move on the 1st floor.
I love him, but this child is wearing me out. It seems like everything is a fight lately (for instance, wanting to wear short-sleeved shirts in the middle of January). Also, he can't decide on anything. (First he wants toast for breakfast. No, wait! Cereal. No, toast. No, cereal. Definitely cereal. Why is there cereal in front of me? I wanted oatmeal! Cue meltdown.) The biggest hurdle currently, though, is the crankiness brought on by him refusing to go to sleep at night. We take him up to bed at 7:30, leave him in his room by 8, and some nights the child is still awake after 10pm. It is RIDICULOUS! Last week he was so cranky one day (after staying up until 11 the night before) that he was horrible at school. His teacher took me aside when I picked him up to talk to me about it. He had what she calls "busy hands" (only a preschool teacher!) all day and was pushing, hitting, kicking, and throwing things at the other kids. Apparently he even threw a toy car at a kid WHILE the teacher was scolding him for throwing toy cars at kids. We've tried everything to fix the sleeping - lights off, lights on, yelling at him, reasoning with him, laying in there with him to make him sleepy. It's just not working. SO FRUSTRATING!
I think part of the problem is that he's been napping later and later (especially after the time change). I'm not ready to eliminate the nap completely yet, though, because: 1) He still needs it. Without a nap on most days he is a horrible nightmare by 6pm and 2) Mommy still needs nap time. Having Charlie around is severely limiting my ability to get stuff done around the house and get work done. Even with Will in preschool a few hours a week I feel like I'm falling behind on everything. So I really need nap time. I think even if he doesn't sleep we're still going to have a "quiet time" up in his room every afternoon for an hour or so. The problem is that sometimes he ends up falling asleep near the end of the quiet time and then napping until 4:30 or 5. So now I'm just cutting off the sleeping at 3:30, regardless. If he naps, great, if not that's OK. If he does fall asleep I wake him up if it goes past 3:30. It's worked OK so far this week. He's still been awake until almost 9 a few nights, but it's better than 10:30 or 11.
We also had a nanny/babysitter start last week. She's watching the boys here at our house from 9-3 on Wednesdays and 8:30-11:30 on Thursdays so I can get some work done and really try to make a go of this consulting thing. Now all I need are some clients! It's frustrating right now because I'm spending a lot of time doing things to get the business going (as well as maintenance that's needed to be done for awhile but I haven't had time to do - like prep for taxes). The problem is that that none of that pays. So when she comes I'm barely billing enough hours to even pay for having her there. I just have to keep telling myself that it will pay off and I have to invest some time up front.
Anyway, her name is Debi. She has two grown sons and a lot of previous childcare experience. She's only been here twice so I'm still feeling her out. She seems to do well with them, but being the control freak that I am it's hard to watch someone else deal with your kids differently than you would. It's really hard because I'm sitting in the office and hearing what's going on and I never know when to intervene. I feel like I need to let them be so that she can learn how to handle the kids on her own. It's hard when Charlie is screaming or I can hear Will acting like a brat. It's a nice setup, though, because I can come out and eat lunch with Will and can nurse Charlie when he needs to eat.
