W turns 3!

2 weeks ago our beautiful, lively, fun-loving, clever first-born turned 3!

It may be one of the biggest years he will ever have in terms of development – since he turned 2, his language and vocabulary have progressed like a dream, he was potty trained at about 2 and a half… but the biggest milestone he’s hit is becoming a big brother!

Becoming a big brother

It must be very strange for little ones when a younger brother or sister comes along and they stop being the sole centre of attention, but he’s dealt with it admirably – never really shown any jealousy, and absolutely dotes on his little brother – always keeping an eye out for him and trying to cheer him up if he’s grouchy by singing and dancing for him!

The other day he said to me..

‘When S is bigger can he play cars and trains with me? When S is bigger can he play paints and play-dough with me?…. can he eat chocolate and ice-cream with me?’ I answered yes…..

After S’s nap that afternoon, W said ‘is he bigger yet? can he walk?!’ !!!

Personality

Yes, he has bags of it! As with most toddlers I’m sure, he doesn’t stop!!!! Pretty much from the minute he wakes up til the minute he goes to sleep, he’s on the go…. chatting, asking questions…. ‘do you like….?’ ‘mama, come play with me’, emptying toys on the floor… playing cars… lining them up and then driving them on to imaginary beaches, volcanoes etc! I just read the other day that first-born children are more likely to have imaginary friends and use their imagination in play because they don’t have another child around them yet.. and that was certainly the case with me too!

He has a great memory and great imagination… loves relaying stories from days out… ‘and we went to barry island… and aunty Sioned bought me chips… and then I did a wee wee in a bucket!’

He’s generally kind and polite – we always tell him to use his p’s and q’s and I think it’s helped when meeting other people! One of the best compliments I’ve ever had was when a friend said to me that he was ‘the best-behaved child ever!’

He’s generally pretty easy-going, he’s just started pre-pre-school nursery and I think they were quite surprised at how easy-going he is, isn’t bothered when I leave him and happy to follow the activities as they happen.

Of course he has his moments – he’s gone through a phase lately of telling people (including me!) that he doesn’t like them! And if something doesn’t go his way he will do like a fake cry which is a bit annoying… trying to teach him that he just needs to try again etc!

If he’s in the middle of something, he has to finish it before moving on to the next thing e.g. if I call him for dinner… he’ll say ‘one second mamma’ and finish lining his toys up!

So yeah overall his personality has developed loads over the year – he’s a funny, fun-loving, imaginative, energetic, kind, curious 3 year old 🙂

Oh and he’s just started asking ‘why?’ a lot… this should be fun!

Food etc

He probably has a slightly wider variety of food now than a year ago, but not hugely! He still loves pasta as his favourite food but he also loves pizza, noodles (usually – not this week!), egg (whites only – no yolk!), sausages and fruit.

Sometimes when he’s playing up I have to spoon-feed him like a baby e.g. meatballs and rice this week – I don’t mind as I’d rather get some food down him than not at all. Then other times he’ll surprise me – usually when I put carrots on his plate he leaves them but a few weeks ago he started munching away on them, and after weeks of seeing his younger brother eating avocado he finally tried it and seems to enjoy it (on his terms, when he wants it!). Last time we ate out for dinner, I ordered a whole trout for myself… and afterwards I was showing him the fish’s face – eyes, teeth etc – trying to explain it was where fishfingers came from etc…. he stuck the fish’s face in his mouth and tried to munch it! So yes, food is still fun!

I have no idea what his weight or height is but he’s lean and slim and probably a little bit shorter than average for his age. So tops he’s in mostly 2-3 and I’ve just started buying him 3-4.. bottoms, he has a slim waist and so is mostly in 18-24 month trousers which is tough as they’re often  a little bit short.

As I said, he’s been potty trained for a while and during that process we had some issues with constipation – you’ll be pleased to know these are long gone and no we have regular movements and then commentary – ‘it’s a gruffalo poo!’

Routine

Up until he started pre-pre-school (cylch meithrin) he was still having a 2 hour nap every lunchtime but he’s had to drop that unless he has a power nap in the car…. or if it’s the weekend… different rules!

We still do the bath, book, bed routine that we’ve done since he was a baby and he’s usually asleep by 7/7.30. Every now and again he wakes in the night – usually just for a cwtch,

He’s still in a cot bed with the sides up but as soon as we move house, within the next month or so, he’ll get a proper toddler bed…. this should be interesting! And he still takes a baby bottle of water to bed with him… new house, new bed… no bottle!

Activities

I try and get him out every day – he loves the outdoors, whether it be the beach, forest, park etc. He equally loves soft play etc!

Every Friday afternoon both boys have swimming lessons. W doesn’t enjoy it most of the time and is quite nervous but it’s something we want to persevere with – I don’t want them to be scared of water like I am!

A few weeks ago I took him to a gymnastics class for the first time – he absolutely loved running around and trying out all the equipment but he didn’t quite enjoy as much following instructions and taking part in the group activities! He is a free spirit 🙂 I was well impressed that he could swing on monkey bars without being taught.

Favourites

Sometimes he’ll happily play by himself but a good way of getting him to chill out is putting cartoons on for a while. His favourites are currently Paw Patrol and Rusty Rivets. That reminds me – his vocabulary still astounds us every day – the other day he said some eggs were ‘hatched’ and just today we were talking about the circus and he referred to the ‘ring master’… I think he picks up so many new words when he watches cartoons!

Favourite phrases at the moment are ‘I’ve got a good idea….’ and ‘I’ve put a stinky net on you’ (from Superworm!), ‘do it properly’ (if I’m doing something half arsed!) , ‘I’m teasing you’ (if he does something naughty and is about to get told off!!) and ‘Do you like…..?’

He loves singing, his favourite songs to sing are Wheels on the bus, grand of duke of York and ‘rain, rain go away, me and Charlie wants to play’!

He’s always loved books, he loves all the Juliet Donaldson ones like ‘the Highway rat’ and ‘superworm’ but his current favourites are ‘oi, dog’ and ‘oi, frog’ and ‘Keith, the cat with the magic hat’

Favourite foods – pasta, chocolate, ice cream!

Favourite toys – probably his ever-growing collection of cars, and in particular his Paw patrol ‘vehicles’ and their matching characters

Favourite parent – defo his dad, a real daddy’s boy!

Favourite places – Cardiff Bay, Dyffryn Gardens, Barry island

His 3rd birthday

Another thing he loves is dinosaurs and in particular ‘triceratops’ so on his birthday we went to Dan-yr-ogof showcaves and dinosaur park – he loved it! The only present we got him was a balance bike… he’s not very interested in it yet

A few days later we hosted a birthday party for him for the first time – I’ll blog about it separately but the stress was worth it – he had a whale of a time, we had a brilliant bouncy castle, two of his favourite Paw patrol characters turned up and he loved his Paw patrol cake so much that he just kept stroking it!

So that’s it – another year gone! In September he’ll be starting nursery at school – then he will officially be a big boy…. *sobs*