He still loves to draw and has been drawing lots of dogs, giraffes, fish, turtles, vacuum cleaners (not sure how that came about), donuts, apples (usually on trees), people with faces, arms, and legs (and sometimes with roller skates on their feet instead of shoes).
Drew is also learning to write more and more letters. He can write "AJ" for his nickname since Andrew is a little long for him right now so we thought we would start with something easy and build up to that! But I love that he can sign his name like on birthday cards. He can write other letters and numbers from memory like T, O, 3, 8 and others from seeing them written out as a guide. He can right more letters with guidance or if we write them out first.
When he see toys or gifts in store, he will find lots of things he wants, but luckily, he can be placated by my telling him he can ask to get it from Santa.
He still enjoys computer time playing more Sid the Science Kid and Curious George on http://www.pbskids.org/. He is getting pretty proficient with the mousepad and arrows. As for television, he is watching more and more Fireman Sam.
Andrew is doing a lot of pretending and and make believe. He loves to have picnics at the zoo or on the train. Our little firefighter loves playing with his toy fire trucks. He also wants to put both the firefighters and fire trucks to bed when we are done playing with them. But most of time, we are pretending we are firefighters responding to an emergency, which is normally a cat in the tree where we put on fire helmets and pretend the couches are a fire truck and ambulance. No lie, we probably play out this scenario at least ten times a day for the last couple of weeks!
James has started to let Andrew watch full length feature films especially on long car rides. So far, Andrew has watched Peter Pan and The Jungle Book. We do try to break the movie up into smaller parts. So far, he likes them and loves the songs like "Following the Leader". I had to add them to our iPod in the car and burn a new CD for his radio in his room. Our little soccer player is still enjoying playing soccer and we are definitely seeing vast improvement. He is starting to grasp the concept of the game and is getting better at dribbling the ball.
Andrew is becoming a water baby. He has also been enjoying going to the pool and almost asking for it everyday. He is getting more and more comfortable just being the water. We have been working with him trying to teach him to move his arms (like turtles) and kick his feet (like dolphins). We have also been trying to get him to put his mouth and nose in water. Mostly, Andrew loves jumping to James and practicing kicking his feet in the water.
As for eating, Andrew is digging Clementine oranges as of late. He is starting to be more like James and eating cereal like Cheerios with milk in the morning for breakfast. And he's been into eating dry cereal at night for his bedtime snack. Something a little out of the ordinary that he has been doing is wanting to wrap his food in bread or tortillas. The other night, he put his spaghetti (noodles and meat sauce both) in his piece of garlic bread like a sandwich and ate it that way. Whatever he wants so long as he eats! Andrew has also been eating lots of Pizza Lunchables. He likes to sprinkle the cheese on it. And he's adamant about flipping one over on the top of another and cutting the third one in half so I can put them on top of each other.
In terms of going to sleep, he is doing better about the nightly routine. James and I still take turns putting him down for bed where we lay with him for five minutes before leaving the room. But the new twist is that he wants to lay in our room for the five minutes and then will walk back to his room. He also has been coming out of his room to give us hugs and tell us "I love you" in order to stall as well. Drew still likes to sleep on the floor, but there will be a random night here and there where he will sleep in his bed. And for whatever reason, we have seen some two hour naps a few times lately and ten full hours of sleep at night. I assume it's a growth spurt, but we'll take it!
Andrew is talking more and more these days and his articulation is really coming along. We still have to remind him to "put the caboose on the words", but he does it on his own sometimes or with as little prompting as saying "excuse me?"
One sweet thing that Andrew has been doing is saying "I love you" spontaneously on his own. It totally melts my heart. He also has been saying "I love it" a lot these days in reference to toys, especially his fire trucks.
AJ is definitely sensitive to people's feelings and aware of his surroundings. James and I don't like to fight in front of Andrew, but if we do have a "disagreement" or "difference of opinion", Andrew will interject "I love you" to try to improve the mood and smooth things over.
We have been working with him to teach him that he needs to earn privileges like going out doing fun activities and TV time. So far so good. We even carry this through when it comes time to do his nebulizer. If he's been good, he can pick between playing games on the computer, watching television, or reading books.
Some of the things that come out of Andrew's mouth are so funny, we crack up laughing. For example, we have been telling Andrew for a while now that he should save his money by putting it in his piggy banks. And usually, we say that we will use the money for school for him. And then, I started saying that he can go to college with that money. And lately, we have been talking about whether to go to Vegas or Chicago later this summer. So this one day, we are putting money in his bank and I say "Andrew, you can use this money to go to college." He then retorts, "No go to college, I want to go to Vegas!" Poor thing thinks college is some vacation place. But it was so funny because I can totally see him saying the same thing to us when he turns 21.
And there was another time when Andrew asked why Daddy brings a beer upstairs. So then I turn around and asked Drew why he likes to have drinks upstairs to which he says, "I'm crazy like that!"
Drew is also becoming my little lawyer. He loves to negotiate almost everything from how much he eats, how much more TV he can watch, or what we do. And then he will end his offer with saying "How about that?" Too bad, I totally say that. One morning, I was upstairs finishing getting ready before taking Andrew to school. All of a sudden, I hear/see Andrew running up the stairs with my phone in hand. He had answered it and was bringing it up to me upstairs yelling "Ngoai's calling me!!"
He asks us all the time to go to Ngoai's and Papa's house--and it almost never fails that he wants to spend the night there.
Andrew has been doing a great job using the potty. He has been really good about telling us when he has to go pee on his own, but he does tend to forget or ignore the urge when he is playing or watching TV. And lately, he likes to distinguish between big poop and small poop and he will then ask for big prize and small prize respectively according to the size. Hmm, I don't think it quite works like that, but good try!
Drew is still very excited and anxious about his baby brother. Lately, he has been talking about playing with him and teaching him how to play with toys. He even told me that the baby shouldn't eat his trains. And he asks all the time when the baby is coming out. Drew also says that the baby needs to get big and strong before coming out. I am loving how into the baby Andrew is. I am still worried about his adjustment after the baby is actually born though.
Well, that's it for now. Happy Big 4-0, Andrew! We love you so very much!!
And here's Andrew working on his soccer skills.
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