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| Blake is 3! |
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| Eating cake a year ago on his 2nd birthday! |
Physically
Blake's appearance is the
thing that has changed the most. He has grown taller and slimmed down
especially in his once round face. At his 2 year checkup, Blake was 31 lbs 11
oz (the 85th percentile in weight) and 37.1 inches tall (over the 95th
percentile in height). At his 3 year checkup, Blake has slown down a bit which is normal for his age. He weighed 35 pounds (80th percentile) and was 39.4 inches tall (90th percentile), totally a 4 pound and over 2 inch increase in size in the past year. Blake went from wearing 3T-4T shirts, 2T pants, 4T pajamas, and size 7 shoes to now wearing 4T
shirts, 3T pants, 4T-5T pajamas, and size 8-9 shoes.
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| December 2013 at Lake Lanier Magical Lights |
Face
My favorite feature of
Blake's has always been his smile especially the dimple on his left cheek and
that hasn't changed for me. That smile is simply infectious and has developed into his get-out-of-free
card recently. It manages to get him out of trouble for sure or at
least he attempts to use it to do so. It especially works on me. Blake's eyes still "smile" too, making it that harder to be mad at the kid
when he gets into mischief (and that is a frequent occurrence for him). Blake has a full set of teeth including his 2 year molars and has a small gap between his front teeth just like I had as a child (pre-braces). I think it gives his smile an extra bit of character. Blake's signature head tilt upward while watching TV, just like his Papa (my dad),
continues to provide Brian and me with a good laugh. His face has slimmed down quite a bit making him look older and giving him that "little boy" look. Typically his face has some kind of bruise or scrape on it from a fall because this boy is all boy.
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| Fun in the bathtub! January 2014 |
Hair
Blake's full curly head of
hair provides me with a continuous battle of deciding whether or not to let it
be long, curly, and (a little) crazy or chop off the curls and keep him looking
clean-cut, grown-up, and handsome. I never imagined having these issues with my
son. :) Every 3 months or so this little Italian has to get a much-needed
haircut. The only real difference from a year ago in Blake's hair is that it
has just become thicker and thicker. We recently started using conditioner in his hair. Meanwhile, the curls certainly still capture
Blake's wild personality.
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| Playing outside! February 2014 |
Sleep
At 2 years old, Blake slept
11-12 hours a night with a 2-3 hour nap during the day. A year later, those
numbers are still the same, but shortly after his 2nd birthday, he moved from
his nursery into his "big boy" room formerly known as our guest room
to make room for his baby sister. Then a month to the day before Alyssa was
born Blake started jumping out of his crib. We quickly converted it into a
toddler bed (took the side rail off of his crib) to avoid him getting hurt.
That sparked a good 5 month long naptime battle. He loved the freedom of
getting in and out of his crib and then wanted to play the entire naptime. That
led to one tired child in the afternoon. He would have horrible tantrums and/or
end up passing out on the couch...even on my chest a couple of times which I
didn't mind too much. Many times he would literally end up dropping on the
floor, and I would find him passed out next to the toddler bed, door, or window
usually with his blanket. We tried everything to help him nap since he clearly
still needed a nap. We put a twin bed in his room, so he felt like he had the
choice to sleep in his toddler bed or "big boy bed." That didn't
work.
We took all of his toys out
of his room or out of reach. So what did he do? He tore apart his room because
what else does a crazy toddler do when he doesn't want to nap? Blake pulled a
framed painting off of his wall, breaking the glass and frame everywhere. He
pulled all of the clothes out of drawers and down from the hangers in the
closet. He broke the blinds. He repeatedly pulled down the curtains, breaking
the curtain rods. He used the drawers in his chest of drawers as stairs and
climbed up on his chest of drawers, doing such things as tearing down his white
noise machine and best of all the video monitor in what I have to assume was a scheme
to conceal his mischief. The worst incident occurred when he did this and
pulled down his Winnie the Pooh lamp, breaking it either in the fall or while
"playing" with it. I walked into his room to find the lamp and lamp
cord strung across the floor with blood all over the carpet and lamp shade.
Thankfully, it was just from his finger getting cut on a screw and the light
bulb was still intact. On our beach vacation in a rental condo and he performed
similar activities which resulted in a broken lamp shade and lamp (2 separate
incidents) and dresser drawer. Thankfully, with a trip to the hardware store,
Brian was able to replace/repair these pieces.
Thank God for a fun summer
spent outside swimming and running around all season long because Blake
suddenly started falling asleep in his bed at naptime. These days he naps most of the time and usually for 2.5 to 3 hours. At night, he sleeps from about 8:00 at night till about 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning hardly ever waking up in the middle of the night even when he's sick. When he doesn't get enough sleep, Blake is a pretty miserable kid, so sleep is obviously very important to him. Blake is still the soundest sleeper in the house and I'll be happy if he stays that way!
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| Playing with sticks outside March 2014 |
Eating
Blake's eating habits has become our biggest challenge this year. One thing that hasn't changed over the past 12 months has been the fact that Blake acts like a complete maniac when he's hungry. We call this Blake being "hangry" (hungry-angry). So I have to keep granola bars accessible at all times. He had been what I described as a "big eater" but now his appetite is pretty small and the various foods he eats are pretty limited. He's almost exclusively a vegetarian other than with turkey dogs. Luckily, he still loves peanut butter so he eats a ton of peanut butter sandwiches (no jelly because that's on the "no" list). He also loves yellow American cheese as long as it's not melted (no grilled cheeses or even pizza). Blake continues to eat bananas, grapes, apples, goldfish, pretzels, Cheerios, Rice Chex, fettuccine, crackers - peanut butter crackers especially, graham crackers, and especially cookies, ice cream, candy, and cake. We refer to Blake as the Cookie Monster because he's pretty obsessed. He loves to drink water but also drinks 2% milk - a change from whole milk from a year ago. Blake still likes juice but he only gets that on special occasions. I've also started giving him chocolate Pediasure Sidekicks to help with his nutrition too and we refer to those as "chocolate milk." Blake also get a daily multivitamin and probiotics. Just like a year ago, Blake continues to grow, so I'm hoping he's eating enough.
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| Dying Easter Eggs - April 2014 |
"Tricks"
Blake likes to display his many tricks these days. A year ago, Blake was running all over the place and that continues to be the case. He was a runner, always running away from me. Over the course of the year, there was an incident where he escaped our newly fenced i backyard (it was fenced in BECAUSE he's a runner). I found him down the street playing in a neighbor's yard. Thankfully, he has calmed down and is much better about following my directions and not running away. We took him to the Aquarium on his birthday stroller-free, and he stayed with us the entire time - a huge difference from a year ago. Additionally now, Blake likes to (happily) gallop and skip around the house. It's adorable.
Blake continues to love to climb, singing almost any song he hears especially Christmas ones like Rudolph the "Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman." He identifies most of the letters of the alphabet and many of their sounds now, huge progress from only knowing a couple a year ago. Blake counts to 22 (versus counting to 12 last year) and recognizes numbers 0-10. Blake knows all of his colors (green, red, blue, purple, pink, yellow, orange, black, and white) and shapes (circle, triangle, rectangle, square, crescent, star, and heart). He still loves animals and making animal sounds.
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| Tee Ball - May 2014 |
Potty Training
A year ago, Blake wore size 5 diapers and had 2-3 dirty ones a day. He had zero interest in going to the bathroom on the potty, much less sit still for more than a second on the potty. About a month before his birthday, I decided to finally tackle potty training with Blake. He was doing great, running around the house naked and then running to the bathroom. Blake was extremely enthusiastic and excited with his success and wasn't even too into the "treats" he received as rewards. He sat on the little potties for the first half of the first day and after that he decided he wanted to stand (like Dominic of course). This started on the little potty but quickly moved on to the big potty. The funny thing is that because he's just barely too short to stand, Blake randomly decided to climb up on the toilet, kneeling on the seat and peeing that way, so sort of standing. He loves it this way, so I figured why mess with a mostly good thing?
However, after so much success, poor Blake started throwing up from a virus halfway through the weekend, which served as a potty training speed bump. So I'm hoping to work more on potty training over Christmas Break. At this point, when Blake is wearing just underwear or is naked, he is fully potty trained. However, when he has pants on (like when we leave the house) if he's in underwear, he has a harder time. So for now, he wears Pullups outside of the house. With potty training, Blake has decreased to just having 1-2 dirty Pullups each day, which he saves for when he's wearing Pullups. At night and at naptime, he's still wearing Size 5 diapers/Pullups. When he wears underwear, he wears mostly size 4T.
However, after so much success, poor Blake started throwing up from a virus halfway through the weekend, which served as a potty training speed bump. So I'm hoping to work more on potty training over Christmas Break. At this point, when Blake is wearing just underwear or is naked, he is fully potty trained. However, when he has pants on (like when we leave the house) if he's in underwear, he has a harder time. So for now, he wears Pullups outside of the house. With potty training, Blake has decreased to just having 1-2 dirty Pullups each day, which he saves for when he's wearing Pullups. At night and at naptime, he's still wearing Size 5 diapers/Pullups. When he wears underwear, he wears mostly size 4T.
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| Jumping into the pool - June 2014 |
Language
Blake has started communicating quite a bit this year where I can actually understand what he wants and things that have happened. However, he is still having trouble speaking intelligbly so he recently entered speech therapy. On the bright side, we have seen quite a bit of progress over the last 12 months and he is speaking in more and more 3 word sentences ("I want Cheerios.") as opposed to just a word or two (Cheerios). We're also really trying to get him to say please and thank you more. Between his boundary-testing personality and not being able to communicate as well as he would like to, Blake ends up having a lot of tantrums these days. Luckily, his yelling has decreased a lot compared to last year but he still likes to make himself be heard.
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| Feeding ducks - July 2014 |
Schedule
Blake's schedule a year ago looked like this:
8:00 - Wake up
8:30 - Breakfast
12:00 - Lunch
1:30 - Nap
4:00 - Wake up
6:30 - Dinner
8:00 - Bedtime
8:30 - Breakfast
12:00 - Lunch
1:30 - Nap
4:00 - Wake up
6:30 - Dinner
8:00 - Bedtime
At 3 years old, his schedule looks pretty similar:
7:30/8:00 - Wake up
8:15 - Breakfast
11:00 - Snack
1:00 - Lunch
2:30 - Nap
5:30 - Wake up
6:30 - Dinner
8:00 - Bedtime
A year ago, Blake had the same playgroup and weekly school schedule as he has now: on Monday mornings, we typically go to Blake's playgroup, then he goes to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and now he has speech on Fridays. I'm hoping to get him in a sport or extracurricular in the coming months but between Alyssa being born, still napping, and conflicts, I haven't had a good chance to put him in a class.
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| Park fun - August 2014 |
Personality
Blake's personality continues to be one of the highlights to my life. He's still hilarious, silly, cuddly, social, curious, extremely strong-willed, and very sweet. A year ago, I described him as easy-going...that has changed! I'm hoping it's just a phase but if he doesn't like something (like wearing a jacket) a tantrum ensues. He's much less compliant than Dominic was at this age and doesn't respond to rewards the same way that Dominic did/does. Blake likes to dig in his heels and do what he wants to do. He still loves other people - adults, kids, and especially older kids.
Blakey copies everything his brother says and does and absolutely loves his brother. He also adores his sister and is typically very gentle with her. Blake has taken on his big brother role and has quickly become the typical 2nd child/middle child being an explorer and adventurous and loving attention and being around other people. Blake is a mama's boy for sure, not that I mind. He loves cuddling and snuggling especially with me.
Blake is all about music - kids songs and real music. He adores animals and will look outside the window in his room for hours instead of napping. Blake is very active, loving to skip around and just being outside climbing, running around, and playing in the dirt. He has named the area under our deck "the cave" and would spend hours down there if he could. We often predict that he'll end up being outdoorsy and a hippy especially with his love of Bob Marley.
Blakey copies everything his brother says and does and absolutely loves his brother. He also adores his sister and is typically very gentle with her. Blake has taken on his big brother role and has quickly become the typical 2nd child/middle child being an explorer and adventurous and loving attention and being around other people. Blake is a mama's boy for sure, not that I mind. He loves cuddling and snuggling especially with me.
Blake is all about music - kids songs and real music. He adores animals and will look outside the window in his room for hours instead of napping. Blake is very active, loving to skip around and just being outside climbing, running around, and playing in the dirt. He has named the area under our deck "the cave" and would spend hours down there if he could. We often predict that he'll end up being outdoorsy and a hippy especially with his love of Bob Marley.
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| Jumping! - September 2014 |
It's been a busy year for our family and Blake has grown and changed quite a bit over these past 12 months. It always mystifies me how at each birthday my baby has grown up and this year is no different. My baby boy is 3 years old. I'm so thankful to have such a funny, sweet mischief-maker in my life to keep me on my toes and make life interesting and entertaining. Hoping for a great 4th year to come for our not-so-little guy!
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| Petting Zoo - October 2014 |
