What Grant is up to...at 3 and a half

"Turkey!!"

Grant at 3 and a half...Random list of stuff:

Conversation:  Mommy, "Grant what's that toy's (army guy, doll, stuffed animal, insect) name?"  Grant, "Howdy-Don"...have no idea where he got that name, but every toy and imaginary friend is named this.

He loves to play with his imaginary friends...(most named Howdy-don), I love to listen to his long conversations he has with them, it's super cute.

Grant, still can't pronounce "L's" and "K-sound"...still pronounces as a "T" and pronounces the following words incorrectly...Movie-->Wovie, Vitamin-->Spiderman, Milky-->Nokey...Lincoln (one of his exercise school buddies)-->Megan, foggy-->froggy, cool-->tool, cold-->told and I'm not in any rush to fix them...well maybe the Lincoln one...not sure if his buddy likes to be called a girl's name.
Amendment:  So, I recently realized that Grant doesn't pronounce most words correctly...I just understand "Grant speak", so in my mind he speaks clearly and pronounces everything but the above words correctly...ya not so much ; )  Maybe it is time to start correcting him ; )

Playing 'baby'/'big brother' constantly!  I am "baby" and he his "big brother"...he brings me toys, makes me (baby) laugh and is constantly asking, "Do babies like 'X"?"

Want's a big tummy like mommy, so he eats all of his dinner and once even fought going "smellies" (poop) because he knew the more he has in there the bigger his tummy is (gross right?)...

Just like his Daddy (and "Ol' Man"), if he is fed, he is perfect little boy...if he is hungry...WATCH OUT!!!  But the problem is he never tells me he is hungry!!! UG!

Still taking one afternoon nap...they are usually 2-3 hours long, so he gets up at 5pm.  Nap is great for me and him (as I can get chores done and take a nap too!).  Only downer is his bedtime is later than usual...we put him down at 8, but typically doesn't fall asleep until 9ish.

Favorite foods:  Hard boiled eggs (really eggs anyway), all fruit and vege's, olives and still tomatoes!  If I give him choice between, cookies, nuts, oranges...he'll choose the oranges every time.  He tolerates all food...but needs 'pushing' to 'take a bite'.  Feeding himself is still not happening all the time...but we are working on it ; )  Eating is his least favorite activity, for sure!

Loves playing outside...collecting sticks is his latest love affair.  He collects them EVERYWHERE!!  My car is full of sticks!  He collects them because he likes them, but also to give to Daddy for the fire pit ; )  We have bred yet another pyromaniac...great right?  Oh and he loves riding his bike...thinks he's the fastest little boy ever!!

He has made friends at exercise school, which is super fun ; )  One of his friends at exercise school teased him about his 'big ears', though Grant didn't realize that he was being teased...he just thought the kid was putting his hands behind his ears and saying, 'big ears big ears'...he thought it was some game...typical Grant!

He did get his feelings hurt for the first time, when I met one of my Mom friends for a 'playdate' at a park and little boy Vince didn't want to play with him, Grant was super upset, I told him to just go play (suck it up, basically...it was really hard to do) and have fun anyway...he got over it, started playing with the other kids at the park and of course Vince came around to play with them too.

Grant loves to sing and mostly he just makes up his own songs.  My favorite is a song has lyrics that go something like, "Jesus will protect me from the monsters, Jesus will protect me, Jesus loves me, no monsters...Jesus is in my heart".  It warms my heart every time he sings it...I mean I don't like the fact that he 'sees' monsters, but love that fact that he knows he is protected from them ; )  And that he just made up a song to go with it, at church he is still in the nursery and we just let the little ones play...no singing or bible stories...so all of this is just coming from Him, so cool.

By the end of summer he was a pro-swimmer!  Which is super exciting for me...makes me a lot less nervous near bodies of water...at least for a few more months!

Still no plans for preschool.  For now just exercise school M-F for an hour or two then story time at library's twice a week, where he goes in the story room without me...kinda good practice for preschool...for both of us ; )

Counting...when his not put under pressure, he is an awesome counter...but when I ask him to count something he chokes or he is just screwing with me.  Same thing with colors...knows all most of them...then when we ask him he screws up.  A classic example was one day Auntie Rach was watching Grant and he looked at the TV and was like, "Wow look at the big blue guy!" and Rach asks, "What color is he?"  and he proudly yelled "Green!".

Sleep walking...Grant talks in his sleep just like Daddy...but his latest trick is sleep walking!  It's gotten so bad that Eric put up baby gate at the top of the staircase.  Eric has found him in the office pointing at something and jabbering on about who knows what and of course he comes into our room too...it's kinda cute, but clearly dangerous if he turns the wrong way.  He still has nightmares/terrors every once in awhile...he never remembers them and usually falls asleep immediately after he is settled back into bed.

"Why Mommy?"...he is saying this again!!  Now my new game, "why Grant?"...which he thinks is hilarious   And the first time I played it he was like, 'now you are saying 'why'!"

Class clown...every kid loves attention and Grant is no different.  He has learned that when he is goofy (especially at exercise school) he gets a lot of attention from the other little kids and they laugh...which he loves!  He is constantly making a noise or a face and then looks at me and says, "was that funny?"...like he's practicing his material on me before he brings it to school.  I don't really picture Eric/Luke/Bo being like this as a little kid...don't think I was either...pretty sure he got this trait from his Uncle Dupe, who was voted "Class Clown" in 8th grade.  ; )

We recently taught him about strangers...which rapidly became is favorite game..."mommy, you be the stranger."  And we role play what to do when a stranger approaches him.  I think he understand the severty of the potential 'stranger' situation...but at the same time, he wants everyone to be his, 'best friend'.

He is still spoiled with love, he likes snuggling more then ever.
He loves Saturday mornings where he gets to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Transformer (and who knows what else) cartoons with Daddy, then afterward play "good guy/bad guy" with Daddy...Mommy usually goes to the gym and shopping (kinda sticking my head in the sand...what I don't know can't hurt me ; ) ), needless to say his favorite person is still Daddy ; )


And somethings just don't change...he's still a monkey and like his Daddy loves getting dizzy ; )