Friday, January 24, 2014

Three and a half

Sweet Wesley is now 3.5 years old.

I baked him a cake because he asked for one when I told him it was his half birthday. I figured, "why not?". It delighted him, and he delighted all of us by how gleeful he was for his special day.

"Sabien, did you remember that today is my special day. It's my birthday!"


Music
He has increased his love for singing and his ability to recite songs. He also makes up songs of his own. "Bulky item truck coming up the road, crossing the train tracks, bulky item truuuuuuck". He loves to tell people about his favorite songs. They are:

Monkey and the Locomotive (by David Rawlings Machine)
Life's Railway to Heaven (by The Amazing Rhythm Aces)
Canyonero (from The Simpsons tv show)

Social Know-how
His mastery of social banter makes us smile. At Uncle Jesse's birthday, they were out there building a fire. Wes had gone inside for awhile, and from a distance I saw him walk up to a few people sitting around the fire....
      Silence
      Wes: So....that fire's really goin now, huh?

"Take a picture of me with my smoothie mustache...it's funny"

Just spot on small talk.
Also he knows how to be funny to lighten the mood or to cheer people up.

Motor Abilities
He is a balance biking king. He can pedal bike, though hasn't been able to get started on his own. He prefers to strider. He loves to run...his legs look so long now striding out in a full run, but he's still just a little guy upon second glance. He can hop on one foot. He can trace letters pretty well now.


Interests
He now is at least equally interested in trains as he is in trucks. I was curious to see how the shift away from heavy machinery might happen. He still loves his trucks, but there are other interests (such as planes and trains) that are creeping in, too.

He has a new interest in numbers and counting. He spontaneously counts things in daily life, and he exclaims, "I know, let's count to see how many there are!" at any given moment.


He loves letters and reading words. He's getting more capable of blending and knowing some of the trickier letter sounds ("Y" at the end of the word sounding like "ee", the silent "e" at the end of the word, the bossy "e" at the end of the word that changes a vowel sound, etc). He looooves to play words with his little guys and trucks, and so do I.

Siblinghood
Wes and Sabien are learning how to play more now that Sabien has higher motor and impulse control. It helps their days together go much more smoothly. They can play cooperatively, particularly with gross motor games like hide-and-seek, chase, running around, towing each other out of holes, etc.


They can have conversations, and Wesley is enjoying the communication and is exerting more effort in getting Sabien to talk back (which Sabien loves to do, of course).


They take naps together in the double jogger most days. They are looking pretty cute together as two little kids these days.

Identity/Imagination/Play
Wesley says he's "A Two Railed Train" on most days. He reminds me a few times a day, "I'm a two railed train, and I'm going to be a two railed train until we go to Southern California and until we visit the train at Old Time Sacramento". These are things he considers to mean "for a very long time". If he sees another truck, he'll say, "I'm a tow truck, and I'm going to be a tow truck" and often says he will be a tow truck until he's four or five or something quite long. He likes to be referred to then as "my little two railed train", etc. It's pretty adorable.

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