Andrew's speech continues to make vast improvements and progress. We are still going to speech therapy every week. One new thing I love is that he asks now, "Where's my Daddy?" versus "Where's Daddy?" So possessive already! But he is constructing several word sentences and his pronounciation is making leaps and bounds. In therapy, we have been working on Andrew pronouncing the final consonants in words.
The inquisitor still asks "why" all the time. It can be very draining at times to answer all the questions, but we try to answer him as best we can. We don't like to say "because I said so", but I have had to use "because God made it that way" a few more times than I would like to (when he asked me why we have two arms). And we also will turn it around on him to see if he is really listening to our answers. Like if he asks me why to something, I will just him why right back and more than half the time, he knows the answers. Sometimes, we just think he likes to ask us questions and then maybe he just likes to hear our answers for affirmation.
When playing trains with Andrew, he takes it upon himself to build the other person a train to play with versus letting us make one ourselves. I do try to tell him that sometimes I like to make my own train and he's okay with that. He's also been obsessed with freight trains versus passenger trains lately. When he plays Thomas, he likes to passenger trains and freight trains. Sometimes, he mixes them, but for the most part, he keeps them separated. And he enjoys telling us what freight the trains are carrying for their cargo like milk, lumber, animals, etc. As for other toys, Andrew has been really enjoying building with Legos more and more. He is getting better with putting them together. Additionally, he still enjoys playing with fire trucks and garbage trucks.
One of his little buddies, Jack, gave Andrew a kids' game very similar to Charades called "Kids On Stage". There are three colors of cards--red, blue, and green. Red cards have action words, like sleeping and washing hands. Blue cards contain animals like duck and horse. Finally, green cards have other objects like backpack and refrigerator. At first, Andrew kept saying the word before acting it out, but after a few games, he got the hang of it. He is pretty good at acting things out and even better at guessing. Daddy and I love how Andrew uses his creativity and imagination. Drew also likes to play with another birthday gift called Marble Run. Daddy does most of the building while Andrew loves to send the marbles down the tubes.
He still loves playing outside and asks for it most every day. Drew the Daredevil loves riding his scooter in the courtyard. We got him a helmet (green, of course) and he's pretty good about wearing it. He looks so cute in it!
When he wants you to play with him, he will say "come on" and then will you’re your hands leading to wherever he wants you to play. Sometimes, if it is more pressing, he will say “Hurry, come on!”
He also likes his Thomas Big Storybook collection book. We have been reading one story from the book a night. He also likes that we keep our place for the next night with bookmarks.Andrew has also been very into his Curious George books especially the one that Uncle John and his family gave Andrew with the older stories, which are quite long. We think one of the reason he likes them is because of their length and thus, allows him to delay night-night time longer.
Drew has been into coloring books and shows improvement with coloring inside the lines. It is like a big blog of color right on top of the object and a little around the object. He draws stick figures with arms and legs and will draw eyes, nose, and a mouth on faces. He will drive a square and a rectangle for fire trucks and then add a ladder and circles for wheels.
Andrew is doing great continuing to learn his alphabet and numbers. He recognizes just about all of them and can recite them as well. As for numbers, he knows 1-10 and can count into the teens at times though it’s not perfect all the time.
Drew still loves Down by the Station and The Eyes of Texas. He will totally just bust out into song sometimes and sing to himself. It's so cute! As for television, Andrew still likes Team Umizoomi and Max & Ruby.
Andrew still has computer time at night and is getting much better with his ability to use the touchpad and arrow keys. He now can navigate through some of the websites to get to where he wants to go and can also start games on his own. Drew still enjoys www.nickjr.com and www,pbskids.org probably the most. He still has been playing lots of the Team Umizoomi and Max & Ruby games online, but he will also play Curious George and Dinosaur Train.
As for food, he has been really digging fruit lately especially grapes, apples, strawberries, and blueberries. As for vegetables, the only one Andrew will eat consistently is broccoli. He will eat potatoes every now and then, but broccoli is by far his favorite. He will sometimes pick it out and eat them first.
One of his new favorite drinks is lemonade and loves to order it in restaurants. He will drink pink lemonade, but he definitely prefers the greenish/yellowish one. Also, he loves having ice in his cups with his beverages. He will get them via the ice dispenser out of the fridge. We have had to tell him to only get a few cubes because he will get an entire cup full.
I know I have said that Andrew loves pizza, but I don't know if I have mentioned before that Andrew loves Totino's pizza in particular. He loves Pizza Hut probably the most, but maybe Totino's second. We do buy the more expensive frozen pizza, but Andrew never goes to town on it like he does his Totino's. He's been eating half of the pizza lately, while I eat the other half. I can't believe he can put down as much as me!! At first, I had to pick off the pepperoni, but thankfully now, he's starting to like meat on pizza.
He has also been eating french fries and potato chips more and more these days. He will dip his fries in ketchup, teriyaki sauce or barbeque sauce. He is also likes the cheese crackers with peanut butter probably because he sees us eating them. Andrew still loves to eat chicken nuggets (especially with barbeque sauce) and grilled cheese sandwiches. He has been more in an apple juice phase and not drinking as much milk.
Our three year old continues to try to become more and more independent. Usually, this is a good thing, but not when it is him fighting naps. There are have been a few days this past month where he will sit in his room for over an hour before falling asleep, which can be very frustrating. I wish I could make him realize how awesome naps are and how much he will wish he could take them when he's older!! I also wish I could make him realize that he still needs his naps! He is totally not ready to drop them completely. If he skips his nap, he can become very ornery by the late afternoon. On those days, we just put him down for night night super early so he can catch up on his sleep.
More signs of Andrew's independence is that he is trying to dress himself (and undress himself), washing his own hands, and getting food and drinks from the kitchen. He's also gotten good at taking off his shoes and socks.
He definitely knows his mind. He never likes to take band-aids off so now won't ever want one on like after his shot at his three year checkup. And when he gets scrapes or cuts of any kind, he might cry a little bit, but will be more concerned about not putting a bandaid on. He also loves to show boo boos to people
He is more into taking showers rather than baths, which is nice for us because it's less messy! We don't have problems with him spilling water out of the tub!! Sometimes, he will try to get out of baths or showers. He’ll sometimes tell us "I no take bath. I not dirty.
Andrew is still loving school especially his classmates. When he sees any of them in the parking lot, he will want to run to them and walk to the classroom with them. Same for leaving school too--he will tell him he wants to "follow" whomever and walk with them to the parking lot.
He does asks me about whether it is a short day at school and if he has to go night night there. For whatever reason, he is apprehensive about taking a nap at school. But apparently it's all talk because he hasn't ever missed a nap at school. I think he just likes to nap at home better for whatever reason.
Andrew can totally crack us up with the things he says and does. For example, one day, Andrew and Daddy went on a little grocery one (I think I stayed home to rest). Daddy was listening to some song on the radio. Andrew then tells James he wants a train song. So Daddy replies back "what does a train song sound like?" Andrew candidly replies "train songs go like this 'whoo hoo, all aboard!'"
And in imitation, he has learned to give the evil eye stare down when he's not happy. I do this to him all the time--sometimes joking, but usually in seriousness. When he first did it, I laughed hysterically so he thinks it's just a funny thing to do and now will do it on command. I will definitely have to take a picture of it soon.
Drew has also shown a little bit of becoming a smart alleck too. Since he turned three, we have bumped up his time outs to three minutes. Well, one day, I told him to go to timeout and told him he had to sit for three minutes to reinforce the new time length. He then asks me "one minute?" like he used to ask when I told him two minutes before. So I ask him "how old are you?" to get the point across that he has to stay in timeout for as many minutes as how old he is. He calmly replies "one year." The punk!!
I guess he misses our road trips because he asks all the time to go to Uncle Anh Tuan's house and Nonna's house. And he keeps asking when we will go to Aunt Anh Thu's house again. I have to tell him we probably won't have any trips until after Daddy's test and he doesn't give me any grief over my answer. But then a few days later or when he thinks of it, he will ask me again.
He asks all the time when we pull into the complex that he be allowed to drive the car. I let him about 20% of the time. He's pretty calm at the steering wheel. I was hesitant at first because I thought he would go crazy turning the steering wheel back and forth.
We have been trying to work with Andrew about cleaning up after himself. He's always been pretty good about picking up his toys. But now, we try to get him to pick up whatever toys he's been playing with last before he gets a new toy out. It's working so far, but we have to keep after him.
Also, we have kept at trying to instill a reward system with Andrew. We tell him if he can put himself to bed without too much difficulty, he can earn his TV time for the next day. We tell him he needs to lay still, not come out (too many times), and go to sleep fairly quickly. Granted it's a fairly objective standard, but it does seem to be helping.
Recently, Andrew has been sleeping on floor. I don't know if he's because he doesn't have enough room in his toddler bed (which uses a crib mattress) or if he just finds the floor more comfortable right now or maybe this is just a phase and he just needs a change of scenery. I joke that he is like his mother liking to sleep on the floor, but I wish he wouldn't be. But we are letting him for the meantime and see if he goes back to his bed or not.
He has always loved spending time at Ngoai's and Papa's house, but he is totally obsessed now since we have been spending even more time there so Daddy can study. He asks all the time when we are going to go to their house. He never wants to go home. He tells me all the time that he will stay there and I can go home and pick him up later (like when Daddy and I have date night). One time, I threatened that I was going to go home without him and he just calmly replies, "bye bye Mommy". But when I do get him home, it's all about Daddy. He just likes to stay where he is. But I understand why he loves going to League City...Ngoai and Papa spoil him rotten. And he is over the moon when Papa plays with him. It's so sweet. I just feel bad that Andrew never gives Papa a break! Luckily, they love having him there just as much as he loves it, so it all works out.
Here's my little boy in yet another new shirt--the shirt from his birthday party. I was sad the guests didn't get to see another cute creatiion from Aunt Thuy, but I guess we will just have to blame the cooler weather and live with it. But Andrew loves to wear it whenever he can.
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