Evan: 34 months

Evan is quickly approaching 3-year-old status…just two more months now (yikes, maybe I need to start planning a birthday party!).  I am amazed by how much he knows and is learning every day.  Between now and his 3rd birthday, it's hard to say just how much more he'll be capable of!

For now, here is a status on what he's up to at 34 months old:

Singing:
Evan is still singing a lot.  I get a kick out of how he sings along with lots of songs, especially the Thomas theme song, various tunes on Scout/Violet, the Mighty Machines theme song, and he even tried to sing along to the tones of our door bell (as he kept pushing it today).

See this video of "Evan sings and recites the Thomas intro." I think it's pretty cute how he jumbles up and mumbles some of the lyrics…I always have a hard time understanding all lyrics to songs too and recall as a kid making up my own lyrics for what I thought things sounded like or mumbling my way through the parts I didn't know. (My most vivid memory of a mistaken song lyric when I was a very young girl was "Row row row your boat, gently down the street".  Then another one I recall was that me (and my siblings too) sang "Geronimo" for "You're not alone", a song by Chicago…I feel silly admitting this, because I just googled the song to listen to it just now and clearly hear the proper lyrics…we must have had some imagination back then!)

Watching TV:  
We let Evan watch TV every morning while we get ready.  It just helps things move faster when he's happily entertained watching one of his shows.  He was really into Super Why last month, but this month he shifted to want to watch Thomas all the time again…and then he started watching his Mighty Machines DVD as his normal morning show after that.  That DVD had a preview for a show called "Pocoyo" at the end, which John and I thought was cute (fun music, cute and yet simple animation)…so we also started watching some of those and now he watches it a lot too.  It's less educational I think, but cute to watch for sure.  The good news is we're not watching the exact same thing over and over.  Sure he has favorite episodes of each show, but at least he's rotating shows that he watches a bit more than before.

Evan had to get in some photos with Emma on her 8-month birthday shoot

Playing: 
He hasn't played his Nabi much lately…mostly because when he thinks about playing it the battery is flat (we haven't been so good about keeping it charged!).  He will use our phones to play games though (he still likes Puzzingo), and he likes to play on the computer too (John has some flying games).  He plays with his Thomas trains a lot otherwise.  That's probably what he plays with most these days.  And as a result of his love of his trains, we've started giving him new pieces as prizes for keeping his pants dry and clean all day.  We have a box full of extra train track pieces and some extra train cars that he gets to choose from. So far he's chosen some new train cars from the prize box, but there are lots of extra track pieces in there too if he wanted more track to make longer and new formations.  He comes up with new ways to put the tracks together all the time and is so proud of his creations ("Mommy come see what I made!") and he's very protective of his trains and tracks from Emma.  Unfortunately for him, she loves his train tracks and loves to pull them apart (I call her the Godzilla of the railway) and whenever we don't have her cordoned off in the living room she makes a bee line for his tracks (which are in the dining room floor…for now until we get, or make, a train table, but who knows when that will be).

Evan has started to have an interest in more of his toys in the play room too.  He and I built a big castle of MegaBlocks last weekend.  He found some of the Little People trucks and things I had bought at garage sales awhile back and has started playing with them too.  He still loves to "fly" airplanes or his space shuttle around the room too.

Evan and his MegaBlock castle (with the tower that was a little "wobbly")

Picnic in the backyard

Evan still loves to play outside.  If we're not going to the park (his top choice), the most common things are for him to ride his tricycle, which he's getting very good at peddling and doing all on his own now, and play with the hula hoop.  He likes to look for bugs all the time too.  He can spot tiny ants, but he still likes to look for roly poly's.  He gets very scared of flying insects, especially larger ones that fly past his head.  In fact, he left the back sliding door open one day and just as I was telling him to close it so bugs didn't get in, a big fly flew right in.  He was terrified!  He kept calling it the "flyer" and how he was scared of the "flyer" and for me to get the "flyer".  He cried very real tears of fear when it flew right by his head.  Wonder if that will teach him the lesson not to leave the door open?

Typical day at the park…loving the slide!

Growing up:
Evan moved into his big boy bed this past month and has been doing great sleeping in it.  No problems what so ever with that so far.  I'm also very happy with the bedrail that I bought for it…it's very sturdy and would recommend it to others for sure.  We lined the edges of it with a foam padding, just to prevent bumps on any sharp and hard edges.  He's already knocked his head into his headboards once by flopping down too hard and fast onto his pillow.  He certainly needs to learn to not be so rowdy in his bed!

Evan has been staying up later at night lately.  Bedtime for both kids had been 8pm, but he rarely would go to sleep easily at that time, so we started seeing what would happen if he stayed up a bit later (Emma is still in bed by 8pm).  He rarely sleeps later in the morning though (he still wakes up around 6:30-7am), but at least we can just play with him and/or do something other than go back and forth to his room getting him back into bed (or spending all that time snuggling, which usually makes me get so sleepy that I go straight to bed right after him…also one reason I haven't been blogging as much!).  So I'd say his bedtime is more like 9pm now.  He wakes up many times through the night….either calling or crying out for Daddy (which then John goes up there and usually ends up sleeping a few hours in his bed with him) or by coming down to our room.  Depending on how tired we are, sometimes John will take him back up to his room, while other times we let him climb into bed with us.  I must say he usually sleeps the latest (past 7am) when he sleeps in our bed.  He still takes a good 2 hour nap in the afternoon, usually from 2-4pm.

Pooped out and in need of a nap after attending a fun birthday party

Evan has been doing very well at potty training lately….finally!  For about the 4th day in a row he's gotten a "special train" as he calls it from that box of trains and tracks I mentioned earlier.  I'm thinking that if we can go a few more days in a row that maybe we can talk to daycare about him just wearing his underwear there too instead of pull ups?  Could it really be time?  Either way, we'll keep the pull ups for naps and nighttime for awhile yet I'm sure.

Evan got new shoes recently…he's moved into a size 8.  I think they're a bit too big on him still because he's tripped a few times in them, but his size 7 shoes were getting a bit tight.  He wears mostly 3T clothes, but still fits into some 24 month or 2T things.  I just bought him some new pajamas in size 4T though, since his pajama shifts often seem to be too short on him.

Evan loves to hold onto his baby sister ("to make sure she doesn't fall")

Evan amazes me in words that he can pronounce sometimes.  Just tonight he pronounced "intestines" very well.  However, he still struggles with some of the same words (legos are still mangoes, breakfast is bressmuss, so he just says brekky).  He also seems to be learning his lowercase letters now too.  Maybe he's been learning that at daycare or from Super Why?  Either way, reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom helped show me he knows them.

Speaking of books, he's starting to ask for a variety of books at bedtime now too.  Sure, we still go through phases of reading the same ones, but he rotates through more of them now.  Popular books lately are: Why I love Christmas, The little engine that could (a new book I just got for him this past month), Mozzie, Potty book for boys, The little red caboose, What made the snowman smile, We wish you a ripper Christmas…yes several of them are Christmas books, but I guess we're keeping the holiday season alive year round!

Being a big brother:
Evan still loves Emma heaps, but he's also starting to show signs of being more annoyed with her.  He desperately fears her crawling into the dining room where his train tracks are.  He is more rough around her and with her…either just playing or also if he's frustrated because she's playing with "his" toy.  Amazingly even though he will sometimes take things away from her that he suddenly decides he wants or he at least doesn't want her to have, other times he'll deliberatley share things with her.  He likes to help me by getting a diaper for her when I'm changing her, and he likes to sit behind her "to help make sure she doesn't fall".  That at least makes for nice photo opps of the two of them together. :)

"Greatest Big Brother" and "Little Sister"