At age three my little man is pretty much a teenager trapped in a preschooler's body. He can be irritable, bossy, difficult to wake, rejecting and will eat us out of house and home. At the same time, he is funny, caring, polite, responsible, meticulous, organized and loving. He is truly a blessing beyond comprehension and we cannot express how deeply thankful we are to have him in our lives!
So, what is our little guy like now that he has officially exited the toddler stage? Well...let me tell you (in no particular order)...
He is artistic and imaginative. While he does enjoy playing cars or trains like the other little boys I know, he prefers to build things or make things. He loves to do puzzles, organize and string his buttons, build things with his Duplos and play in his sandbox. He also loves anything creative such as playing play-doh, foot painting, coloring and especially coloring on the driveway!
He is a good helper. He seems to find enjoyment helping us out with things around the house. He will bring his dishes to the sink, "help" Daddy mow the lawn, fetch diapers for me and watch over his little brother, letting me know when he is doing something he shouldn't be.
He loves physical play. Kicking a ball around with him or having a fun wrestling match will be what he talks about for the rest of the day...if not more.
Asher is not yet potty trained and really has no desire to do so. We do not push him on the matter but do try to encourage him, bribe him or interest him from time to time...so far no luck. No bribes work and he is just content wearing diapers (although he does tell us pretty much immediately when he needs a change).
He loves food. He has always enjoyed eating and although we do have evenings that he will tell us he doesn't like something or isn't hungry, he continues to be a pretty good eater. These days he is often rewarded after eating his dinner with a treat or fruit, but if he refuses to eat something we don't push it...we also don't make him something else. If he doesn't want to eat, that is his choice, but I am not making him special foods. We do our best to try to encourage him to try things and not be picky. We also have not introduced him to specialized things (like taking the crust off of a sandwich). Sometimes he can eat PAINFULLY slow, making the meal take forever and other times he will shove pretty much his entire meal into his mouth at once to make sure that no one takes his food from him...I'm not sure why he does this, as we try to convince him that no one will take his food, but he does it nonetheless, often resulting in gagging. We tell him he needs to not eat so fast and chew his food good and he bounces his head back and forth as if the movement will assist his chewing abilities. His favorite foods are pancakes or cereal for breakfast, PBJs or salami sandwiches for lunch, pizza or tacos for dinner and popcorn, fruit and suckers for snacks and special treats.
Asher doesn't really have a lot of interest in TV and has very little attention span for it, but when he does want to watch it he usually requests Jake and the Neverland Pirates. In the rare event that he requests something else, it might be Chugginton, Thomas the Train or Curious George. In the realm of movies, he has only seen a couple, but of those his favorites are Frozen, The Lego Movie and Finding Nemo. Beyond TV and movies, he also enjoys watching YouTube videos of space shuttle launches, monster trucks, fireworks and dinosaurs.
He loves music. He loves to play instruments including the "violin" (aka guitar), "plano" (aka piano) and "sun set boom" (aka drums). He also loves to sing and most frequently sings "Jesus Loves Me", the "ABC Song" or "The Wheels on the Bus", but some times he will bust out some other familiar tunes or make something up entirely. Regarding popular songs, he loves the Frozen soundtrack, Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off", "Cotten-Eyed Joe", the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann, The Lego Movie's "Everything is Awesome" and a few others.
These days Asher is talking very well and we understand about 95% of what he says. As you can see from his instrument names above though, he does come up with words of his own for things at times. He also often mixes up his sentence structure and say things like "What that is?", which reminds me of stories I've heard of myself, where I'm told I frequently said things like "foot game ball".
Asher can now get undressed all by himself and with a little assistance can also dress himself, including putting on his own shoes (although they do tend to end up on the wrong feet). He loves to do things on his own and usually insists that we at least let him try. He also often insists on picking out his clothes (which results in his dinosaur costume from Halloween about 75% of the time), so we will usually let him pick one article of clothing and then find the rest of the required pieces to match.
Most of the time, he no longer puts up a fight about getting in his carseat, but does usually insist that Mommy buckle him in. He also says that he doesn't want to be tight, but I just tell him he doesn't really get a say in that matter.
He is a pretty good sleeper these days and sleeping through the night almost all the time. He does have a difficult time going to sleep at night though (which probably isn't helped by the fact that he can hear what we're doing in the house and our office is next door to his room), and often in the morning he is difficult to get up and would prefer to sleep in a bit later. He still takes afternoon naps ranging anywhere from an hour to three hours depending on how tired he is. He also is not exactly a morning person. Although he is almost always up by 7am, he usually isn't chipper right off the bat and needs some time to wake up in the mornings.
He likes to read books and says his favorite is Bear Wants More, although he also loves to request his Micky Mouse books, "the Jesus Book" and his ABC books. All in all though he has a pretty good collection and likes a variety when it comes time to choose his stories before bed or naps.
Asher can be a little bit of a loner at times and will often choose Eric or I to play with him over the opportunity to play with friends (he can be a little shy). When he does play with his friends though, his best buddies are Theo or Elias from church, or Noah and Hannah from daycare...although he may tell you that Christina (his caretaker) or Kaylin (her daughter) is his best friend. He also has his play buddies that snuggle him while he sleeps every night. Of those cuddly little toys, he says his favorite is Eyore, but he also loves his Jake, Mickey and collection of stuffed dinosaurs.
Finally, Asher is loving. He is always very concerned when anyone gets hurt and will often tell me I need a bandaid to feel better! Although he really isn't a snuggly guy, he does like to get some cuddles before bed and likes to get some good bear hugs from Mommy and Daddy now and then. He also loves his little brother and loves to be a big brother. He is great at watching over Avery to make sure he doesn't get into trouble and will often tell him "you fine Abry" or tell me "Mommy, Abry wants you", or "Mommy Abry wants up." Although he can be a bit rough with his little bro he also can be very gentle and his great at giving him hugs and kisses. Probably one of my favorite things about being a parent altogether is watching my little guys interact with each other!
So, that is Avery at three years of age and I look forward to seeing what this fourth year will bring! Even though we celebrated him a couple of weeks before his birthday with his cousin, on his actual birthday we did have a little celebration including just the four of us:
On Monday night before his birthday I decorated his bedroom door to surprise him when he woke up:
Video: Asher's Birthday Wake-Up
The next morning, as Eric and I were getting ready for work, Asher just kept sleeping. Finally we decided to wake him up and get him ready. Like a teenager in a three year old's body, he was not quick to pop out of bed, but did finally get up when we reminded him it was his birthday!
The birthday boy and his little brother spent the day at daycare while Eric and I worked. Then we all came home to celebrate together (he couldn't wait to get back to see his "decerations". We enjoyed a "birthday" pizza (Asher's favorite) for dinner, and then followed that up with presents!
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| Asher with his loot. |
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| He went right for the biggest one! |
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| A farm set (this happens to be the toy that initiated our leaving Target early a few weeks prior). |
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| Some new driveway colors! |
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| The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game. I am so excited that Asher is getting close to board-game playing age. My family always loved to play games, and I am hoping to continue that fun with my own kids! |
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| He insisted on opening the game and playing with the pieces before continuing with his presents. Every nut had to be in all of the matching color holes before he would continue. |
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| A space shuttle puzzle!! |
Video: A Tar!
One of the presents that Eric and I got him was his very own guitar. Lately he has really been interested in playing my guitar (which he calls a violin), so we decided to get him one of his very own. I took this video to capture his reaction and get him saying "violin", but as soon as he saw the picture on the box he said, "a tar!" ...as soon as I stopped videoing, he called it a violin again.
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| Too cute! |
Video: Jammin'
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| From Auntie Julie, Uncle Dave & Emmett, Asher got his very first remote control car...it was a BIG hit!! |
Video: Race Car!
When all of the presents were opened, we headed back to the dining room to sing Happy Birthday to our little man and enjoy some yummy cake. I'm pretty sure that at the age of three Asher already know that no birthday is quite complete without cake and presents!
Video: Happy Birthday Asher!
After the cake and presents, we played for a bit longer and then it was time for bed. It was a great day and I still cannot believe that our boy is already three years old!!!
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| Asher also is a HUGE fan of the farm! |
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