Andrew is four years and two months old today--or the big 5-0 in months!! And here is what Andrew has been up to this past month.
His reasoning is definitely improving. For instance, one day, he wanted to watch Mary Poppins on the iPad, but I didn't want him to. He then tells me that I should becase we missed the beginning of the show in New York. He loved telling people that we were late to the show because we went in the wrong direction.
There was one night when James was teaching a class at night and I was putting Andrew to bed by myself. He asked me to "lay with me until Daddy comes home and then you can leave because he coming home late".
One night as I was laying with Andrew he asked me how Matthew got up to Heaven. I asked him how did he think Matthew went up to Heaven. He replied that "Two angels take matthew up to heaven" and that he thought Matthew was "sleeping when he went up to Heaven and woke up when he got there so he could play".
The mimic said "What the hell!?" a couple of times, which is not good, I know. But it could have been worse, right? But we just said "hell" isn't a nice word and now he will say "What the?!"
His favorite songs lately are
Let It Grow and
How Bad Can I Be from the
Lorax soundtrack. He also likes
Glad You Came by The Wanted. He still wants to listen to
Real Gone and
Life is a Highway from
Cars.
We are trying to get him to fall asleep faster at night so we have told him he can only have three songs and then we turn it off. The CD in his radio are
Real Gone,
Route 66, and
Life is a Highway so usually it ends up being those three songs. And if he doesn't put himself down for bed nicely, he doesn't earn music for the next night. He knows that means "no yelling" and "no coming out". It is working so far. We do usually let him slide by if he yells out "I love you!" one or two times. If he doesn't earn music, then he will ask for me to sing to him. And usually, his requests are
Jesus Loves Me and
Fireman Sam. And he loves for us to rub his back while we are laying with him.
Ngoai bought him a Trunki from Melissa & Doug a few months back and he was so excited to bring it with us to New York. He loved riding it and pulling it. And now, when we go to League City and Austin, he wants to use his Trunki instead of sharing a bag with me.
Andrew is much more into superheroes like Superman and Batman. And he is obsessed with good guys and bad guys. He even draws bad guys along with police stations, policemen, and police cars. We will ask me how to write out "police" too. The last few times he has asked for the LEGO City sets where they include bad guys. Moreover, he talks about killing bad guys with guns. I am not too enthused about this, but I figure it was inevitable.
In addition to police stations and fire stations, Andrew now adds stairs to his drawings of houses and will also draw grocery stores and schools. Drew likes playing Chase and Hide Go Seek. He still plays a lot with his LEGO City toys as well as his Cars diecast cars. Lightning, Mater, and Francesco are his favorites. He will set them up against the villains or race Lightning against Francesco.
Drew has been playing this new Smurf game and "Where is the Water?" app on the iPad that Albert downloaded. I also got him the
Fireman Sam app and he loves it especially the game where he takes the fire truck through a maze to go to the fires and another game where he aims the hose to put out the fire. He is still playing Bakery Story and even James and I are playing too so that we can all be neighbors on it. He is really cute about wanting to gift us items and tip our bakeries. It is the first thing he asks to do in the morning after waking up.
He still watched a lot of
Cars and
Cars 2 on the iPad. And during his nebulizer, he has been watching
Looney Toons especially Bugs Bunny and the Roadrunner. He finds it so funny that he laughs hysterically out loud.
He's been in a kolache phase asking to eat it for breakfast almost every day. And one day, he asked for me to let him have for lunch at school. I didn't see any harm in it so I did and he's been wanting it almost every week now.
Also in the mornings after we play Bakery Story, he will sometimes eat cereal with Daddy in the morning. Once he is finished eating, he will drink the milk from the bowl. Another new tradition in the morning is that he will drink orange juice. We used to get us the regular Minute Maid or Tropicana. Then, he liked the Simply Orange brand. But now after trying the sample at the store, he likes the HEB freshly squeezed orange juice. He has even told me which ones are better than the others.
For snacks, he still like vanilla wafers and has added cheese crackers with peanut butter into the mix as well. With it getting warmer, he is enjoying ice cream cones more and more. He is pretty much entirely eating Chick Fil A sandwiches when we go there, but is adamant about "no pickles". He can put down about 2/3 of it usually. And he normally always asks for fruit and French fries.
He is doing much better at putting himself to sleep at night and for naps, when he takes them. He is definitely taking them less and less nowadays, but we still make him do "quiet time" or "rest time" in his room in hopes that he will eventually fall asleep. We tell him if he does not yell or come out, he can get reward sticker.
Andrew is learning to work the system when it comes to his reward stickers. Sometimes when we praise him, he asks if he can get a reward sticker. Sometimes it is warranted, but when it's not, we just tell him and he's okay with it. Andrew has been dry more and more at night and will tell us "I stay dry last night" and then asks for a reward sticker.
When we have gotten him a sitter, he will be really open to it. He was excited about Ms. Scarlet watching him in NYC and asked if she could babysit him next time we go to New York. And with her and Ngoai when she watched him for our anniversary, he kept asking "when you leave?" With Ngoai, he told us that he wanted us to go on a longer date next time.
He is having lots of fun at gymnastics with Coach Cortney who is really working him hard. Andrew has a great time with some of the boys in his class especially an older boy named Liam with whom he had gotten in trouble a few times for having TOO much fun. But Coach Cortney is great about keeping the boys in check and they listen of course. We have seen lots of improvement with Andrew's balance and stregth.
Andrew is also have a good time with soccer as well. And this season, he is really into cheering for his team and yelling "Go" so and so or "Good job!" After one game, he was hearing Daddy and me talk about the game and interjected "I'm proud of my team!" I love that he is learning that kind of comraderie. Another thing he likes to help out with is helping setting up the cones during practice and a few times, he has told Daddy what he should do for drills during practice. Maybe he's a soccer coach in the making!
As for grieving, Andrew still asks questions including how Matthew got to heaven. But then he answered himself and said that he thinks that "two angels took him" and that Matthew was "sleeping on the way there and woke up to play". So sweet.
After his second therapy session with Mrs. Brenda, he at first told me that they didn't talk about anything. And when I prodded him more, he said he talked "about his feelings and what's in his heart". He said he was sad about not seeing Matthew. That was the second time he has said that. I am not sure if it means that he didn't get to see Matthew at the hospital or that he doesn't get to see him now.
Here are some pictures of Andrew at soccer practice yesterday.
