my almost three year old

in the words of one of my favorite book series, "do not panic! do. not. panic."

if any of you are into chic lit and have read the hilarious series by sophie kinsella, confessions of a shopaholic, then maybe you noticed that every single book starts with "ok, do not panic..." hahah it cracks me up.

if you haven't read it and don't care, please ignore, haha.  or read the books.

either way, my first born beautiful baby boy is not a baby.  he is almost three.  when he turned one, it was nice, one year olds are cool.  and it was fun when he turned two.  but for some reason in my mind three is a big deal.  maybe because he is definitely not a baby anymore and almost out of the toddler stage, more like a preschooler, or i guess now they are saying threenager.  which i am finding out is pretty accurate.  but, man.  i'm kind of freaking out.

a little while back i started noticing, much to my delight, that z was throwing tantrums less frequently.  which was so nice, because, i really have no patience for tantrums.  my first instinct is to walk away from the screaming child and let him cry it out and calm down.  but that never works well, the best thing is to hold him and hug him, and he calms down much faster.  but anyway. he still has some tantrums, and they are much different; more intense and include throwing objects and hitting things, and oh man the screaming--but they are generally fewer in number.  thank goodness.  so instead, we are heading into the phase of "i want to do it all by myself" and talking back and "why, why, why ,WHY???!!!" and all these other fun assertions of independence and control from a threenager.  i can usually handle them better than tantrums.

at first, when he started asking why to everything, i thought it was so great and that we could talk about stuff and maybe look up the answer if i didn't know, and investigate together.  that quickly turned into slight annoyance after the 760th time that day of why.  hahaha.  and sometimes the why doesn't really have a discernible answer.  like, he'll ask, is that a cat?  and i'll say yes, and then he'll ask why.  i don't really know how to respond to that.  or the answer is long and complicated.  like, is it raining? yes.  why?  um, because water evaporates from the earth and rises into the air until it cools and condenses and falls back to the ground.  why?  because of science.  i don't know.  haha.  anyway, i don't want to squash his innate curiosity and i want him to learn to investigate things and be discerning and not just listen to what people say and take their word as the truth without deciding for himself if it makes sense to him.  but, sometimes i think the why is just a reflex.  or sometimes a test.  or perhaps a request for more interaction and attention from us.  who knows, but either way i don't want to inhibit any of that.  so, any ideas?  i read some things online that other parents do, like making the kid ask a full sentence question rather than just why, or giving a lot of detail until the kid doesn't really want to listen anymore or somehow is satisfied by the answer.  but i think the best one i read was to ask the kid to tell you what they think the answer is.  so i started to do that, and he would answer, "because of the marathon",  i don't know why.  i don't know, i think he watched a show where the characters were training for a marathon or something.  but anyway, after he said that, when he asks me why and i give him a legit answer and he still asks why a million times, i say because of the marathon and he accepts it, says "oh, haha, because of the marathon!" and we move on. haha!  it's so funny!

we are working on potty training, on and off.  sometimes he wants to do it and other times he doesn't.

he loooooooves his baby sister.  recently, for two days or so he was kind of a punk to her, pushing her over if she was sitting up and stuff like that, but for the majority he is so sweet---looking out for her, sharing, giving her love, trying to make her laugh.  it makes me so happy.  things he says to/about baby sister that melt my heart:  baby sister, you are so cuuuute, i love you baby sister, how are you doing baby sister?, you are the best girl in the whole world, look at baby sister's pretty shirt doesn't she look pretty?

he is really smart.  i know, every parent thinks their kids are smart.  but he is.  he outsmarts us all the time.

there are a million things i could write about this kid, he is simultaneously the most challenging, keeping me on my toes, and most sweet, wonderful and loving.  i'll write more for his 3 year old update, but wanted to get some of this down now since i've been thinking a ton about him being 3.