Yippee! Mac is 3!
Posted By Jill on February 19, 2011
Mac has made great strides in the last month in both his behavior and his speech. We can hardly believe how he continues to change and develop, adding new words almost daily. I expected it to be a much more gradual change at this stage, but it truly is almost every single day that we notice he is using more words and more complete sentences.
We took Mac to Blessed Trinity’s preschool round-up event last month to check out his new classroom and teachers for next year. What?! He’s starting school?! Yes, Blessed Trinity has a 3-year-old preschool program, where he will go two days a week in just the morning or afternoon. He had a very fun day and was sad to leave! He got to make a bird feeder, a picture frame and a tiger mask, and he also got a cool T-shirt that says, “I’m a Blessed Trinity Tiger.” It was a great event for all of us – I got to take off my “BTCS Tech Coordinator” hat and wear my “Mommy of a Preschooler” hat for a few hours, and Grandma even came along! I think Mac will do well in preschool if we can get over that last hurdle – he needs to be potty trained before he can start…
Poor Mac just went through a bout with the stomach flu, about a week after I got it. We tried to keep me quarantined, but this time it didn’t work. In the middle of the night, he came in our room, crying, and said, “Mac messy.” And boy, was he. Poor kid. It was a long night, but once the morning came, he was done with the vomiting, slept most of the day and was content to be in his room watching movies. Vivian was moved into the pack ‘n play in our room until he was feeling better and thankfully never did get it. The flu lasted about 24 hours, but then the poor kid got a croupy cough for another day, and ended up with a cold that lasted a few days longer still. By his birthday, a week and a half later, he was finally getting back to normal.
Mac is a really good boy (when he’s well-rested and healthy). His manners continue to improve, and we’re adding now that he needs to try to ask in as complete a sentence as he is capable. I know, we’re so demanding… Instead of just adding “please,” he needs to say, “Mommy, may I please have more milk?” Many times he does this on his own. Lately, in the last week or so, we have noticed Mac’s behavior has improved tremendously. There have been many more “ok” answers that actually are accompanied by the action of what is being asked of him! Sometimes we need to explain things or make sure we have his attention first – I’ve found I get a much better result when I go right up to him, remove distractions, and quietly tell him what I want him to do.
Mac loves his choo-choos, hence the cake I made for his birthday in the picture above. He plays trains almost every day with his Aunt Jane and also loves to read his “Thomas books” before nap and bedtime. Stay tuned for video of this – it’s really adorable! He’ll make even the simplest thing – yesterday it was toothpicks – into a railroad sign (and now says “railroad”), and he’ll spot anything that even resembles “tracks,” including the shadow of the hall light through his bunk bed that looks like tracks on the wall! We are fortunate to live close to railroad tracks, so not only do we get to drive over them almost any time we leave the house, but he can also hear the whistle and see the trains from our living room window!
Mac is really good with Vivian, most of the time. He likes to help feed her sometimes, and even tries to help her to lie down or give her her nuk in her crib (though this is less than helpful for me at naptime since it really wakes her up instead). With her moving around better and now being able to pull herself up, she can get to him more easily. He doesn’t care much for that, and I can’t say as I blame him. Who likes to have a baby pulling at them? So we’ve found ways to “block” her, and he seems to be starting to understand what he needs to do – he’ll ask us to put the foot rest up on the living room couch, then I put a blanket around it so she doesn’t crawl under. We try to discourage any pushing and shoving, but we’re also realistic and know it’s going to happen here and there. He is good about knowing what he needs to say when he hurts her, even accidentally – “sorry, Vivian.” He does think of her and want to include her sometimes too, like last night when we were playing his new Candyland game, he picked up a card and took it to Jeremy, then came to get another one and took it to Vivian. And then there are the times when they are supposed to be going to sleep but she would rather squeal. One night this past week, he peeked out of his room and said to us, “take her?” – meaning to please take her in the living room so he could get to sleep! We obliged… this time. ;)
But the child is not without faults. Who is? To say naptime has been a struggle lately is an understatement. The last couple of weeks have felt like a constant test of my patience at naptime. I hate to admit I’ve gotten to the point several times where I find myself yelling at him. And it doesn’t seem to matter how tired he is or isn’t; he will find anything he can in his room to keep him from sleeping. Bedtime is no different. He’s pulled down his lamp twice (broken it once), pulled the humidifier off the dresser (made a nice mess), and pulled the shade off his window. He’s gotten to the vaseline and the diaper cream and made messes on the floor with those. And then there’s the times when his behavior either keeps Vivian awake, or worse, wakes her. Earlier this week, he was supposed to be napping, and I heard quick footsteps instead. When I went in and said, “WHAT are you doing in here?!” He simply replied, “running.” Oy. While all of this is going on at naptime, I’m trying to get work done. And even though I have fewer hours I’m required to work, right now I have a huge project that is requiring as many hours as I can stand to give it until it’s complete. So naptime is stressful, to say the least, for me. I have to find a way to make it better. Last night at bedtime I stood in the hallway to prevent him from getting out of his bed, and that worked (though he never did nap yesterday so he was much more tired). When we were having these same struggles a few months ago, I didn’t want to have to do that, but I may have to try it, if for nothing else, for MY sanity. It can’t be very good for my health to be as stressed out as I’m getting while still trying to accomplish work, and I don’t like getting to the point where I’m yelling at him. I know that doesn’t set a good example. I can’t make him sleep; I know that. But I have to find a way to make him stay in his bed – beyond what we’ve already done by taking just about everything out of his reach that he could possibly find to play with. Another thing that will help is if the weather would get warmer so he can spend some time playing outside in the morning. It can’t help that he rarely leaves our house anymore.
All that being said, we are so blessed. There are many other families with worse struggles than a kid who won’t take a nap. So this isn’t meant as a complaint at all really, but rather it’s an account of what’s going on with us these days, just as my other blog posts are. It’s not all roses, but we are a happy, healthy family with many, many blessings – thanks be to God!
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