Nathan is 3 Years Old!

Happy Birthday to our precious baby boy! This is going to be a long post, but I want to be sure I document all of these special memories. Last Friday was Nathan's 3rd birthday. He is such a big boy now! Since we were going to be going out of town on Friday, we decided to have an early celebration with Nathan. Daddy stopped by the store on his way home from work and got Nathan a little birthday cake. When Daddy got home, we made Nathan wait in our room until we got everything set up. Wayne and I put on our party hats, got Nathan's present ready, and put the candles on the cake. The only thing left was to light the candles. Wayne went to get the grill lighter, but it wouldn't work. So Wayne found a second lighter, but that one was out too! Daddy started scrambling to find another lighter, matches, ANYTHING, to light these candles. And all the while, Nathan is wanting to come out of our room to have his party. As you can imagine, Daddy was a bit frustrated (to say the least!) And then I started laughing at him because he was getting so mad yet he had this silly hat on his head! After 15 stressful minutes, Wayne finally got the candles lit, and everyone was happy again :)








Nathan has been wanting this dragon for a while because he saw the movie "How to Train Your Dragon." After singing to Nathan and opening his presents, he wanted us to do it again and again. He was so cute about his mini party

In Nathan's 3 years of life, he has done so much! Wayne and I are so proud of the little boy he has become, and we are so grateful and blessed that he is in our lives. Here is a summary of what Nathan is like at 3 years old:

Nathan is all boy! He has so much energy that I am so happy he was my first and that was all I knew...He has definitely raised my stamina! I think Nathan has a dominant personality. He really isn't shy at all and adapts pretty well to new situations and people. I love that he will talk to anyone. Along with not being shy, he's also not afraid to try new things and has no fear when it comes to playing (that can be a bit scary for me!) He is also very imaginative. I love to watch him play with different action figures and have conversations with them. He even does different voices for different characters! It's really neat to see how he plays differently with some of his same old toys as he gets older. Where he used to just push the buttons to make sounds on one of his toy houses, now he uses little animals and people to act things out in the house. He doesn't just push his trains around the tracks. He has them talk to each other about going to Thomas' house to get a snack or going to win a big race with Lightning McQueen.

Nathan is also getting more "grown up" with what he watches on TV. He still loves cartoons (Scoooby-Doo is his new favorite), but also loves watching Animal Planet or National Geographic. He calls it Nat Geo Wild. In the evening, after dinner, Nathan usually hops up on our bed and says, "Let's watch a show about bears Daddy." Or he'll just say, "You want to watch Nat Geo Wild wiss me?" And whenever we find a show about animals, he'll then go to his toy box and get that same toy animal to watch it with him. He has a whole bucket of safari animals to choose from! If we're watching snakes, he gets his snake. If we're watching lions, he gets his lion, and so on.

And when it comes to talking, he has no problems there! I love that we can have converstions together about almost anything. It amazes me how much he knows! He can say all of his sounds, but he's gotten into the habit of using the "f" sound for blends (mainly blends with C). For example, baby Charlotte "fries" instead of "cries" or Lightning McQueen "frashes" instead of "crashes." So Wayne and I will practices with him like this: Nathan, say 'cu, cu, cu-ra-sh' and we draw out all of the sounds. Then Nathan will say, 'cu, cu, f-ra-sh' So we still need to work on that...at least I know he can say the sounds :) His favorite question right now "What time is it?" and if I ask him the same thing, he always answers, "It's 7:14." He also thinks that whatever he needs to say is more important than what someone else is saying. For a while, if Wayne and I (or anyone else) was having a conversation, and Nathan wanted to say something, he'd say "Hey! Hey! HEY!!!" over and over until we talked to him. So we had to teach him not to interrupt by saying "Hey." We told him to say "excuse me" and then wait. After practicing a few times, he finally got it, and it's so cute to hear him say excuse me when he wants something. To keep him in the habit, if Wayne and I are talking, and he says excuse me, we always stop talking and turn to him. The only problem is that not everyone else does that for him. One time he was trying to get one of my friend's attention by saying "excuse me" but she kept on talking. He said it nicely again, but she still didn't hear him. Then he screamed, "EXCUSE ME!!!!" at the top of his lungs. We both died laughing!

At 3 years old, I can honestly say that Nathan is finally potty trained. Our goal has always been to have him potty trained by the time he's 3 and before he starts back to Mother's Day Out. It was hit and miss at the beginning of the summer, especially since Charlotte was born in May, but in the last month, he has really gotten it. Now, we only wear diapers or pull-ups at night and during naps. But there are actually lots of times that he's dry even when he wakes up. It is such a huge relief to have this conquered. He still likes to tease me though. He'll say, "Mommy, do I have on a pull-up or big boy underwear?" and I'll say, "You have on big boy underwear." And then he'll smile a mischivous smile at me and say, "I went tee-tee in my big boy underwear." And I'll run over to him and say, "Nathan! Did you get your underwear wet?!" and he'll laugh at me and say, "No, I just kidding Mommy." He thinks this is so funny, and I fall for it every time.

Although Nathan is really a good boy, he does have his moments that test my sanity! Nathan likes to do things, "all myself" and gets very frustrated when it doesn't work. If he can't get the train track to fit together just right, or can't get a piece of food on his fork, he'll get really mad and scream out or cry saying "I just can't do it!" Sometimes he'll get mad and just throw whatever it is that's frustrating him. We have to keep reminding him to calm down and just ask for help. He still goes to time-out when he doesn't follow rules and that really does help to calm him down. And he gets the occasional spanking when re-directing and time-out don't do the trick. The main thing that he gets in trouble for now is being too rough with Charlotte. He loves her and wants to be with her ALL the time. He wants to hold her constantly, kiss her constantly, and touch her CONSTANTLY. Sometimes he's really gentle with her, and other times, he treats her like one of his toys. I know he's not intentionally (most of the time) trying to hurt her, but I do think he likes to get a reaction from her and just doesn't realize yet how easily she can get hurt. One time he scratched her arm and she started crying, and I said, "Nathan! Why would you scratch her like that?" And he said, "She just had an itch Mommy" like it was no big deal :) Wayne and I have both noticed that now that Charlotte smiles and laughs more, Nathan has become more interested in making her smile than making her cry. So I think we're moving in the right direction!

Favorites:
Cartoon: Scooby-Doo

Character: Daphne (from Scooby because she pretty)

Movie: Cars

Toy: Dinosaurs

Food: yogurt, fruit snacks, pasta

Drink: apple juice (we should buy stock in MOTTS)

Hobby: swimming, playing trains and cars

Sayings: "How you been doing today?" or "I like that, who got that for you?"

Routine: Rocking before naps and at bedtime...he's still very baby in this way, and I love it!

Animals: He loves ALL animals but dogs are definitely his favorite!