3-Year Update

I'm 2 days late, but for the sake of my own record keeping, I want to make some notes about Nicholas as of his third birthday:

• He is making amazing progress with pre-reading skills and knowledge.  He can write his name (although he can't moderate the size of the letters and makes some odd decisions about where to put the last few letters when he runs out of room), he recognizes all capital letters and around 1/3 of lower case, and he is able to identify what letter many words start with by sound.
• He can usually count to around 30 with no mistakes and can get to 100 with only 4 or 5 corrections.  For the most part these corrections come at multiples of 10.  In other words, he hasn't yet reliably memorized what comes after 39 or 49, but he understands the concept of the progression of numbers and so once you prompt him that 40 comes after 39, he can then get to 49.  He knows that 100 is one hundred, but has a lot of trouble putting together two-digit numbers.
• He is great at playing games.  In general he is an incredibly logical and rational kid, so anything that involves rules is good for him.  There are some spatial things that give him trouble (for example, on Connect 4 he only reliably sees the horizontal sequences) and he can't read, but he can handle the rules for most little kids games.
• His favorite station at school is dramatic play, which is ironic because imagination is one area where he lags behind, particularly in relation to the girls he is friends with.  He likes to play with pretend kitchens, dolls, and so on, but he plays with them in very straightforward ways.  Just in the last couple weeks he has been doing a little more creative play, but in general he mimics what he saw an adult or another kid do.  He likes to hold dolls and stuffed animals, but he just names them as whatever they are (babydoll, elephant, doggie, etc.).
• He still needs a nap each afternoon, but he has gotten to the point where he can push through without one quite late.  During the week this means he sometimes refuses to nap at school and then falls asleep on the way home.  On weekends if we're home he still sleeps right after lunch, but we are starting to be able to push him if there is an activity that goes through the early afternoon.
• He still sleeps 11 hours each night, approximately 7:30-6:30.
• His absolute favorite thing in the world is spending time with his aunts and uncles, followed by any other group where he is the center of attention, followed by zoos and playgrounds.
• He is loving gymnastics class.  We have had to ban somersaults outside of class because he does them with too much gusto.  Instead of just putting his head down and rolling over, he stands up and basically jumps into them.  It looks really impressive, but completely terrifies me.
• He is a pro at his tricycle, getting good at hitting a baseball off a tee, and has an amazing throw (and soccer kick, for that matter), but catching is still beyond him.  He doesn't seem to understand the idea of anticipating where the ball is going and moving his hand.
• He loves all modes of transportation, both looking at them and going on them.  Airplanes and trains are his favorites.
• Right now Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is his favorite show and Toy Story and Cars are his favorite movies.  He likes to watch the same episodes over and over and over and over again.  He gets two episodes a day, one in the morning and one while we make dinner, and he knows it.
• He can mostly dress himself.  Pants he has down, as he does his summer socks.  Socks that are tighter and higher up he gets about half the time, shoes he can put on by himself but often mixes up which foot each goes on, and shirts he can take on and off by himself about 2/3 of the time, but the smaller ones frustrate him.
• He is most definitely not potty trained.  He has the ability but has decided that he wants nothing to do with it.  In fact, he has so much physical control that since he has decided he will not use the potty, he can ensure that if you sit him there that he won't go, even by accident.
• His language constantly amazes us.  He has begun regularly sprinkling his conversations with three-syllable words.  So, for example, he is as likely to describe something as "beautiful" as "pretty" or as "terrible" instead of "bad."  He has also picked up on many of our phrases and tones, which just sound funny coming out of that small of a person.  The grammar element that trips him up most often is past tense conjugations.  What he actually often ends up doing is adding "ed" to things but after he has already conjugated them into the past tense.  For exampled: "playeded" instead of "played" or "wroted" instead of "wrote."
• He often gets shy when put on the spot (telling him he has to ask someone or tell someone something almost always fails), but he relishes being the center of attention when he feels comfortable.  He absolutely lives for the laugh and when he gets people to laugh he will repeat the phrase or action over and over again.
• He wants so much to be a grown up and to fit in with the adults.  As an only child and since so many of the people we spend time with don't have children, he is quite often the only child with a bunch of adults.  And he has picked up on many of the social cues.  So if all the adults laugh, he laughs too, even though he has no idea what was funny.  We also quite frequently have conversations about how old he has to be before he can do certain things.
• He worries so much.  He can be reassured pretty easily, but you have to be careful what you say around him because he will take it seriously.  So if I get frustrated about something while driving, it upsets him and I have to reassure him that even though I missed the turn it is okay and I can make the next turn and fix it.  Or like this afternoon when he woke up from his nap and was almost at the point of tears because he thought he had forgotten to say goodbye to Uncle Patrick and thank him for his birthday present.
• He still likes to snuggle and when he is upset he still just wants Mommy.  I know I don't have too many more years of that and so I accommodate it a little too much.
• He is still in a crib because it has never occurred to him to try to get out, but he is getting a big boy bed in a couple weeks and is super excited about it.  Given how he latched onto the idea, I wonder if this is something he has been thinking about for awhile.
• He has started to get a little bit of an attitude and is testing out responses and tones and phrases that he must have heard at school.  I really hate hearing him tell us to "go away from me" or saying "you're not my friend anymore," but I also know that he is testing those phrases just like he does phrases like "aw, shucks" and that he is still truly the sweet boy he has always been.  This becomes very clear when he starts to cry when you explain that those phrases hurt people's feelings and that he made you feel sad.  He is actually simultaneously going through a sensitive phase where being reprimanded in front of people can lead to tears.
• He loves school and gets excited about school days.  His favorite part of school right now I think is having jobs, although outside time is right up there as well.  The wide age range of his school exposes him to some social interactions he doesn't quite have the maturity to understand (hence, the "you're not my friend anymore" comments), but also challenges him in lots of great ways.
• When he becomes a pain in the butt that is generally a sign that he needs a snack.  I have never understood the effects of low blood sugar so well.
• He is a great sport and while I find myself really missing the toddler he used to be (although not the infant, because while I like to look at the pictures, those first few months were really rough) and getting a little too clingy, I really do relish the comparative freedom of our lives with a big boy, particularly one who is so agreeable.

Somehow 3 for me marks the transition into full blown childhood and it is making me a little wistful.  I love all the fun stuff he can do now and the conversations we can have, but he is clearly not by baby anymore.  They weren't kidding when they said it goes by quickly.