Happy 39 Months Gabey!

Cute picture, huh? It's amazing what a handful of candy will do for a 3 year old's cooperation level.

September is a month of endings and beginnings, the most notable being the end of summer and the beginning of school. You started your 2nd year at Miss Debbie's Little Thinkers school in White Haven...and as expected, you love it. School is still just one day a week, but since you are now in the preschool program it lasts 2.5 hours and is a bit more structured. You work on letters and numbers and in just 2 weeks of school you have learned to trace and to cut with scissors. Each week has a theme based on the letter you are learned to write, complete with a related snack, craft, and story. You also get to pick out a "library" book to take home, and you enjoy this very much.

First Day of School 2010!

I had a proud mommy moment when I picked you up last week and Miss Debbie was full of nothing but compliments about you...how well you picked up letter tracing in just one week, how well-behaved you were, and particularly how affectionate you were. I'm truly thankful that we came across Miss Debbie, she has been a wonderful role model and I have to say I'm amazed that not only are you enjoying school and reaping the social benefits, but actually learning too! Its going to kill me to move you next year, but it only makes sense to attend the "pre-k" year of preschool at one that is geographically closer to the elementary school you will attend. I've already started researching, even though the though of your little self going into a new school with new teachers and kids breaks my heart. But, until then, these are your classmates:

Ben (currently in an "I hate the camera stage), you, Theresa, and Annalie. Only Maddie was missing.

Aside from what you are picking up in school, I've noticed some changes in your smarts in other areas. One example would be your understanding (or at least verbal use of) abstract phrases. Words like "any", "forever", "all day", "yesterday", "never" "now" and "later" are a regular part of your vocabulary. There is nothing cuter than me instructing you to eat breakfast and you telling me forlornly that "Mom I never, ever want to eat breakfast today." Or talking about something that already happened and you stopping to confirm whether it was "yesterday" or "this morning". I need to get a calander soon and start showing you what the days of the week are.

Monster Jam

Your love affair with monster trucks continues. I snapped this picture a few weeks ago to document what is a daily scene in our house...you, with your little trucks and matchbox cars all set up on the coffee table. I would say you spend a good portion of your playtime playing "Monster truck jam" on the table. I have no clue why we even continue to buy and allow other people to buy you toys...with the exception of books nothing else holds your interest for very long. You also have medium, large, and remote control monster trucks...but none of these are the same as your little ones. I have no idea how many you have (20?) but you know all their names and you know the ones that you DON'T own yet as well. I love watching you play these both because your creativity in sounding like the announcer of Monster Truck Jam and the fact that it keeps you busy for hours (yes hours, not exaggerating.)

You also have a routine most weekdays with Daddy that you go down in the basement and watch Monster Truck Jam (often the same dvr'd episode again and again) while Daddy works out. Usually if I go into the basement I'll find an assortment of couch pillows lined up meticulously on the floor--you pretend to be a monster truck jumping over obstacles as you watch. Monster trucks in the "spacement" with Daddy is without a doubt the highlight of your day.

In other ways I see you growing and maturing all the time. There's lots of little basic things that you can't do for yourself that you "should" be able to do...such as dressing, undressing, getting into a chair, and going to the bathroom unassisted. I've read a lot about how first children/only children often do these things later because their parents assist them much longer than they do subsequent children. You also have a personality that is such that you will half-heartedly try something and then immediately give up, crying "I can't DO it! Help me! Help me Mommy!" in a voice so pathetic one would think I threw you outside in the snow naked and instructed you to pick the lock to get back in. Nonetheless, you are slowly fostering new ways to learn to do things for yourself...

You can't redress yourself, and you don't always hit the bowl, but watching your hilarious "dismount" (think: gymnast on a vault) makes the extra time to let you do this yourself worth it.

Yeah, we're still working on the getting dressed thing.

And so, time marches on. The next time I write to you, Halloween will be a thing of the past and it will be NOVEMBER (how?? Already??) The holidays will be just around the corner, and the dreadful post-holiday winter months will be looming. But until then, I'll definitely enjoy sharing the aspects of fall with you...hayrides, Halloween, playing in the leaves, fall foods and the return of warm sweaters and winter jammies.

Happy Fall, Buddy. Thanks for making every season, every month, every holiday and every experience that much more memorable for us:)