As I raise my little boy from toddlerhood into boyhood, there are countless moments that are trying, tiring, and challenging to say the least. There are even some times that are just downright frustrating and seemingly unbearable. A few mornings ago was one of those kind of moments (see my recent post "A scream can do you good"), but the good news is that those moments are often fleeting. They come on as quickly as they pass, and then I am reminded of the super cute and sweet little boy I have in my life. For the past few weeks I've been collecting some of the super cute stories that bring the big smiles to my face and that warm my heart, along with the other major milestones he's going through.
Messy face!
1) Singing
Evan has really started to sing a lot. He sings along to every song in the show "Super Why" (theme song and all the other little ditties in it). One day I hope to record it, as it's pretty cute. He also sometimes sings some of the bedtime songs I sing to Emma with me (Rock-a-bye baby, I love you/Barney song). And he loves to sing his ABCs (either with the Super Why Alpha Pig or on the Fisher Price play guitar that Emma has…he'll spin the "dial" over and over to get it to go back to the ABC song for him to sing along with it!). Check out this video of "Evan rocking out to ABC" on Emma's toy guitar. After having spun the dial through many songs already, he knew the ABC song was coming up, which is my favorite part of this video…I can't get enough of that cute grin!
2) Jumping
Evan will jump off anything these days! Stairs, furniture, his step stool, just around the floor, you name it. He is not allowed to do it however, but he does it any way (to test his limits…and to have fun of course!). He also likes to bounce on things, such as our big exercise ball. The other day he'd rolled it up from the den into the living room, then sat on it while holding the arm of the couch and was just bouncing like crazy. We told him not to because we didn't want him to fall and hurt himself but he wouldn't listen...so we let him have some fun. It ended with him bouncing in a way that he went over backward and to the side...luckily he didn't hit his head, just hit his knees hard on the floor when he landed. What a boy.
3) Cheeseburgers and "bah-sketti"
Evan currently loves going to restaurants. Granted we don't do it very often, but over the past month since John's been working Friday nights I will pick them up from daycare and then go through a drive through to get us cheeseburgers. A few weeks ago it was a really nice spring evening so I figured we'd get the food and eat it in a park to enjoy the night. Evan got really excited when I picked him up from daycare and said we were going to get cheeseburgers and have a picnic at the park. When we arrived at the park he was just so excited…it was priceless! His love of spaghetti (or bah-sketti as he pronounces it) kind of began when we went out to an Italian restaurant a few months ago. He loves it when I make it though too, and so I try to make it about once per week since I know it's a meal he'll devour.
4) Big boy things
Evan started weeing while standing up at the potty in the past month. This is often a bit messier so I've been trying to convince him to always sit to pee for the time being at least. The funny thing was that the first time we saw him do it, he had gone on his own into his bathroom one morning. And when John went to find him he was standing on his stool weeing into the toilet. John called me up quickly to see it too. What a big boy! Guess he wanted to try to do it like daddy does?
We're still working on the potty training, though. He had a phase where he was pooping in the potty well, but having wee accidents. Now he's in a phase where he would rather go in a corner and poop his pants, but he's not having as many wee accidents. It's definitely a slow process.
Evan had a dentist visit in the past week and while he didn't let the dentist look inside his mouth much (he freaked out a bit about that) the dentist said he was old enough to start using fluoride toothpaste and that he thought he saw some tartar building up on his front teeth so Evan needed to brush more and better. The good news is that Evan lets me brush his teeth really well now with the kids fluoride toothpaste on the toothbrush. The bad news was that up until the past day or two Evan was swallowing the toothpaste. Rather than have him swallow lots of the fluoride toothpaste to learn how to spit, I had him practice "drinking" some water from a little cup and then hold it in his mouth and spit it out. The first several days he clearly was just drinking it right down, but in the past day or two he's started to be able to spit it back out! Hooray! Now if only he could reach over the lip of the sink and get all of his spits into the sink itself…
I've been trying to encourage Evan to start trying to learn how to get himself dressed and undressed. Sadly he often says right away "I can't" (and he has John's accent when he says this by the way). I am trying to get him to learn a motto of "When things are hard, we try harder", because I'd like to see him not get so easily frustrated or be so willing to give up, and build his drive to strive harder when things don't come easy. So while this is currently about him learning to get dressed, it's broader in the sense that I would like to help him learn how to overcome obstacles and not give up at the first sign of trouble. So I've gotten harder on him in instances where I ask him to put on his own pajama pants, or have him pull up his own pants after having used the potty. He usually tells me he can't and then I tell him to try harder. And then if he starts to flat out give up then I get hard on him and say I'm not going to do {insert something that he wants} until he does it on his own. I'm not sure if this is the best tactic or not, but sometimes I feel like he just needs something to push him to try more. Anyway, as he figures it out, I love the gasp sounds he makes when he realizes he's figuring it out! As well as the proud smile on his face when he finishes. I hope he'll start to remember how good that feels so maybe some point in the near future I won't have to push him so hard and he'll want to start trying more on his own.
5) Teething
Yes, it is finally time that his last set of molars came in. Over the past few months I had noticed his lower left coming in, but he has recently been complaining his teeth hurt and sure enough he's getting a new molar on the lower right now. His upper molars seem to mostly be in already too, so not sure when those popped out, but they must not have bothered him too much.
6) Other cute stories
Evan has become quite the polite little boy. He often says thank you after receiving something, without any prompting from me. I love it!
Evan loves the relaxing sensation of touch, just like I do! At bedtime, he's started to ask us to tickle his tummy or back (gentle touch tickles, not make him laugh tickles), back scratches, or for "foot rubbers" (i.e., foot rubs)! lol. Aside from bedtime, we also do a little game to give each other chills. It was something I did as a kid and then did with my niece and nephews and now Evan's into it. It goes like "spider crawling up your spine, cool breeze, tight squeeze, crack an egg on your head and now you've got the chills". Evan learned how to do it and likes to do it to me too. It's pretty cute.
The other night we were driving home from a friend's house and Emma was crying and tired. I was flipping through the radio stations to find slow soothing songs. The music definitely helped calm Emma down so if a slower song ended and a faster one started, I'd flip through the stations to find another slow one. Well, as I had just flipped the station Evan started demanding he wanted the "happy song". I knew what he meant, because we had heard it earlier in the day…he meant the Pharrell Williams song "Because I'm Happy" (which I guess is from the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack, which is a movie he has seen a few times…). Anyway, I told him that if it was on we'd listen to it, but it wasn't on just then. However, as I flipped back to the station we had previously been on I heard it! He must have heard and recognized the beginning of it from before I flipped away from it! Amazing!
If he sees someone's backyard with a swing set he'll call it a park and ask "what park is that? can we play in it?" I tell him it's not ours, but belongs to someone else. Then he has also started to reply "if we ask them, can we play in it?" lol.
Favorites:
Toys: Thomas trains/tracks, airplanes, cars/bus (things with wheels or wings!), his Nabi
Puzzles: he has finally gotten interested in his clock puzzle
Books: An Aussie Night Before Christmas, Go Dog Go, The Best Balloon Ride Ever (little golden book),
TV shows/movies: Super Why (he watches this every morning before, and sometimes even during, breakfast lately), Andy's Airplanes (on his Nabi), Cars 2 (we've watched this countless times!)
Nabi activities: A new game called The clumsy ninja (makes him laugh out loud!), watching old videos that we took of him
Fun and games: piggy back rides (he calls them piggy rides), wrestling/chase games
Evan can be trying, but he has definitely got a very sweet and loving personality. He is very good at giving me big and long hugs lately. I cannot get enough of those! If he recognizes that I'm upset with him, he's occasionally started to preemptively say he's sorry and give me a hug telling me that he's sorry that I got mad at him. Talk about a way to quickly erase any anger I may have had! He is quite talkative and becoming more inquisitive too. I'm definitely head over heels in love with my little guy!
Evan has really started to sing a lot. He sings along to every song in the show "Super Why" (theme song and all the other little ditties in it). One day I hope to record it, as it's pretty cute. He also sometimes sings some of the bedtime songs I sing to Emma with me (Rock-a-bye baby, I love you/Barney song). And he loves to sing his ABCs (either with the Super Why Alpha Pig or on the Fisher Price play guitar that Emma has…he'll spin the "dial" over and over to get it to go back to the ABC song for him to sing along with it!). Check out this video of "Evan rocking out to ABC" on Emma's toy guitar. After having spun the dial through many songs already, he knew the ABC song was coming up, which is my favorite part of this video…I can't get enough of that cute grin!
2) Jumping
Evan will jump off anything these days! Stairs, furniture, his step stool, just around the floor, you name it. He is not allowed to do it however, but he does it any way (to test his limits…and to have fun of course!). He also likes to bounce on things, such as our big exercise ball. The other day he'd rolled it up from the den into the living room, then sat on it while holding the arm of the couch and was just bouncing like crazy. We told him not to because we didn't want him to fall and hurt himself but he wouldn't listen...so we let him have some fun. It ended with him bouncing in a way that he went over backward and to the side...luckily he didn't hit his head, just hit his knees hard on the floor when he landed. What a boy.
Amazingly, this kid likes salad! Usually if I have one, then he wants some. This time I made him his own and he devoured most of it!
3) Cheeseburgers and "bah-sketti"
Evan currently loves going to restaurants. Granted we don't do it very often, but over the past month since John's been working Friday nights I will pick them up from daycare and then go through a drive through to get us cheeseburgers. A few weeks ago it was a really nice spring evening so I figured we'd get the food and eat it in a park to enjoy the night. Evan got really excited when I picked him up from daycare and said we were going to get cheeseburgers and have a picnic at the park. When we arrived at the park he was just so excited…it was priceless! His love of spaghetti (or bah-sketti as he pronounces it) kind of began when we went out to an Italian restaurant a few months ago. He loves it when I make it though too, and so I try to make it about once per week since I know it's a meal he'll devour.
Wearing his new shades, and bringing home his Easter bounty from daycare
Evan started weeing while standing up at the potty in the past month. This is often a bit messier so I've been trying to convince him to always sit to pee for the time being at least. The funny thing was that the first time we saw him do it, he had gone on his own into his bathroom one morning. And when John went to find him he was standing on his stool weeing into the toilet. John called me up quickly to see it too. What a big boy! Guess he wanted to try to do it like daddy does?
We're still working on the potty training, though. He had a phase where he was pooping in the potty well, but having wee accidents. Now he's in a phase where he would rather go in a corner and poop his pants, but he's not having as many wee accidents. It's definitely a slow process.
Evan had a dentist visit in the past week and while he didn't let the dentist look inside his mouth much (he freaked out a bit about that) the dentist said he was old enough to start using fluoride toothpaste and that he thought he saw some tartar building up on his front teeth so Evan needed to brush more and better. The good news is that Evan lets me brush his teeth really well now with the kids fluoride toothpaste on the toothbrush. The bad news was that up until the past day or two Evan was swallowing the toothpaste. Rather than have him swallow lots of the fluoride toothpaste to learn how to spit, I had him practice "drinking" some water from a little cup and then hold it in his mouth and spit it out. The first several days he clearly was just drinking it right down, but in the past day or two he's started to be able to spit it back out! Hooray! Now if only he could reach over the lip of the sink and get all of his spits into the sink itself…
Evan put his hat on himself…cutie pie!
Wearing daddy's slippers
5) Teething
Yes, it is finally time that his last set of molars came in. Over the past few months I had noticed his lower left coming in, but he has recently been complaining his teeth hurt and sure enough he's getting a new molar on the lower right now. His upper molars seem to mostly be in already too, so not sure when those popped out, but they must not have bothered him too much.
6) Other cute stories
Evan has become quite the polite little boy. He often says thank you after receiving something, without any prompting from me. I love it!
Evan loves the relaxing sensation of touch, just like I do! At bedtime, he's started to ask us to tickle his tummy or back (gentle touch tickles, not make him laugh tickles), back scratches, or for "foot rubbers" (i.e., foot rubs)! lol. Aside from bedtime, we also do a little game to give each other chills. It was something I did as a kid and then did with my niece and nephews and now Evan's into it. It goes like "spider crawling up your spine, cool breeze, tight squeeze, crack an egg on your head and now you've got the chills". Evan learned how to do it and likes to do it to me too. It's pretty cute.
The other night we were driving home from a friend's house and Emma was crying and tired. I was flipping through the radio stations to find slow soothing songs. The music definitely helped calm Emma down so if a slower song ended and a faster one started, I'd flip through the stations to find another slow one. Well, as I had just flipped the station Evan started demanding he wanted the "happy song". I knew what he meant, because we had heard it earlier in the day…he meant the Pharrell Williams song "Because I'm Happy" (which I guess is from the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack, which is a movie he has seen a few times…). Anyway, I told him that if it was on we'd listen to it, but it wasn't on just then. However, as I flipped back to the station we had previously been on I heard it! He must have heard and recognized the beginning of it from before I flipped away from it! Amazing!
If he sees someone's backyard with a swing set he'll call it a park and ask "what park is that? can we play in it?" I tell him it's not ours, but belongs to someone else. Then he has also started to reply "if we ask them, can we play in it?" lol.
Having his first smore!
Toys: Thomas trains/tracks, airplanes, cars/bus (things with wheels or wings!), his Nabi
Puzzles: he has finally gotten interested in his clock puzzle
Books: An Aussie Night Before Christmas, Go Dog Go, The Best Balloon Ride Ever (little golden book),
TV shows/movies: Super Why (he watches this every morning before, and sometimes even during, breakfast lately), Andy's Airplanes (on his Nabi), Cars 2 (we've watched this countless times!)
Nabi activities: A new game called The clumsy ninja (makes him laugh out loud!), watching old videos that we took of him
Fun and games: piggy back rides (he calls them piggy rides), wrestling/chase games
Putting his train tracks together
Evan can be trying, but he has definitely got a very sweet and loving personality. He is very good at giving me big and long hugs lately. I cannot get enough of those! If he recognizes that I'm upset with him, he's occasionally started to preemptively say he's sorry and give me a hug telling me that he's sorry that I got mad at him. Talk about a way to quickly erase any anger I may have had! He is quite talkative and becoming more inquisitive too. I'm definitely head over heels in love with my little guy!
1 comment:
Haha, Nora knows all the super why songs too... that's her favorite tv show for sure. I'm really impressed that Evan likes salad!
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