We are one month away from Andrew turning three years old!! Every month, he grows up a little more and I have to say, I am a little sad that he is growing up too fast, but I am so happy to see him develop and flourish into a little boy is so amazing!!
Andrew's speech continues to improve week after week. He is mimicing and repeating everything we say. He will constantly surprise by saying something that we have said a long time ago; and he will just whip it out in perfect context. Some of his little sayings that come out of his mouth are so funny. For example, he will literally say things are "so funny." Or he will say "Oh, my goodness!" There was one time we were playing trains and he exclaims, "Excuse me, ma'am. I'm coming through!" He refers to me more as "Mommy" rather than "Mama", which still makes me a little sad, but I am getting more used to it. Andrew is also using the word "and" and prepositions a lot more such as "in my room". He is also learning superlatives like "I am faster".
He can be a little smart aleck too. One time, Ngoai said "I love you." And up to this point, he will say "love you" back. But the other day, he calmly replied "I know." We just cracked up laughing!
Our little track master is still very much into trains. And in the spirit of The Polar Express, Andrew tells me all the time that his trains are going to the "North Pole". If I ask him, where else is the train going, he will answer "Sea World", "Galleria", and "Kemah".
When we play pretend kitchen, restaurant, drive through, or train concessions, we will ask him how much the food costs and he always replies $3. Furthermore, he will serve food on a pretend tray or platter and hold it like a real waiter would. We joke it's because he goes out to restaurants too much. He still loves Play Doh and is pretty good using the molds.
Andrew also loves to pretend he's a garbageman picking up trash for his garbage truck. He will collect garbage and dump them in a pile in the living room. This has also carried over to the grocery store where he will hang on the side of the cart and say he's a garbageman. Even if we don't need a cart, he will still want one just to ride on it. He almost always refuses to ride in them now--only if I am adamant about it and give him a reason like he needs to drink his beverage in the cart. And when we sometimes play with Andrew, he will get pillows and blanket for us to lay on. I have to give him credit for making us more comfortable when we are playing with our little man.
We have started giving Andrew thirty minutes of computer time to play educational games such as pbskids.org or nickjr.com. Thus far, Andrew likes to specifically play games on
Caillou (a train track game and cooking game),
Max and Ruby, and
Team Umizoomi. He also now has enough attention span to watch feature length movie. Thus far, he's watched
Polar Express and
The Cat in the Hat.
As for eating, Andrew still loves dim sum, spaghetti, alfredo, and grilled cheese sandwiches. He loves kolaches and waffles for breakfast. He asks for Asian noodles (lo mein and soba noodles) all the time now particularly when we eat at the mall. He loves to eat the broccoli with sauce whether it be alfredo or teriyaki. And his favorite fruits are oranges and blueberries.
If we give Andrew two choices of food, he will almost wants both of them. But of course, Daddy and I only offer up things we would be okay with giving him. Lately, Andrew has been eating lots and lots of oranges and drinking freshly squeezed orange juice since oranges have been really sweet as of late. For some reason, Andrew seems to prefer when Ngoai makes it for him rather than by Mommy!
With the colder weather, Ngoai and Papa like to light their fireplace. Andrew wasn't so sure at first, but will now ask to light it. And the second time, they were going to light it with him, he went over to their drawer in the kitchen to get the lighter. It's so funny what he remembers.
Our almost three year old grows more independent and wants to try to do things for himself more and more...even if Mommy and Daddy aren't ready or willing for them. For awhile now, he's been able to get an Eggo waffle out of the freezer, use the step stool to put it in the toaster, and push down the toaster button to warm it up. He also loves to get water and ice from the fridge using his tippy toes and not the step stool. He is also much better about playing by himself at times (even though he will still ask for us to play with him), but even more so that he can play on a different floor than us for a while.
Andrew can be a little punk always trying to procrastinate and negotiate things. When we tell him it's time to do something like night night, he will first offer up "five more minutes." When I say "no", he drops down to "four minutes" and will continue to countdown. Same thing for night night books. Drew likes to fight nap and bedtime, which makes it all the more fun putting him to bed. He will always ask for at least two more books than normally allotted (two for naps and five for bedtime).
We still haven't seen any interest in pooping the potty from Andrew. We have tried bribes and whenever we try to offer him something for doing the deed, he says he will pee in the potty. Nice try, but I don't think so.
One peculiar thing that Andrew does lately is that he will say "I no know how do it." And he says it to things that he knows full well how to do as well as somethings that he doesn't. I think he gets a little lazy sometimes and just wants us to help. Moreover, something that is pretty annoying or frustrating is that Drew can be indecisive at times and will cry when he changes his mind. We could definitely do without the meltdowns! Argh.
He uses logic to try to get his way. He will say "Mommy tired, go night night" so I will lay down with him in his room or lay down in my room instead of going downstairs after I tuck him in. And he will say "Mommy dirty, take shower" to try to get me to take a shower with him.
Drew has been really sad about Christmas time being over and still talks about Santa. He has even asked us when Santa is going to come back to our house and if Santa is going to come down the chimney again. He will even clear off the ottoman so that Santa can come down the chimney without difficulty.
He's getting excited about his birthday as we have been talking about it more and more. When you ask him how old he is going to be, he will usually answer "almost three."
His counting and alphabet continue to get better and can recognize most of the letters. He can count to thirteen sometimes without mistake. Andrew sings more and more all the time and can sing all the words to
Down by the Station and more words to
The Eyes of Texas.
Drew is still very concerned about others and enjoys being with other people. He wants to make sure that we all sit together to eat at the table. Andrew loves socializing including his little classmates at school.
Drew has a decent memory when he wants to. The things that he remembers are crazy, but then again, he can't remember other things that he should (like he needs to clean up before he gets new toys out to play with). For example, a few times this month, we will be sitting at the dining table before dinner and ask us to "hold hands" which was his way of asking us to say grace. To be quite honest and as bad as it sounds, we don't say grace every night. So, Andrew has only witnessed it a few times, but it's amazing how fast he catches on.
Here's the "almost three" year old playing in his kitchen.
