Evan Turns 3!

Our little baby boy turned three years old today! Evan got to celebrate the day at school with cupcakes for his classmates.  After dinner, we went for a walk and for the first time ever, we treated Evan to a treat from the ice cream truck.  Up until this point, he believed it to be the "music truck".  When we told him today it was the ice cream truck, he corrected us and told us it was the music truck.  We told him it had ice cream because it was his birthday - let's just hope this didn't open the door to him crying every time the truck goes by because he is wanting ice cream.

Evan won't get his 3 year check up for another month but I'm curious to see how he is doing.  I think from the photos below that he may have thinned out a little from age 2 to age 3.  Here is a photo montage of Eric's first 3 years - from birth to 3.   

Getting these pictures below were not too easy since Evan is not a fan of getting his picture taken.  Only afterwards did we realize that it looks like Evan is giving us the finger.

Here's a summary of what Evan is up to these days.  He continues to be an active little boy who loves to play outside.  He loves making his brother laugh and giving him hugs and kisses.  Many times those hugs turn into a choke hold, resulting in them falling to the floor and then wrestling.  This will probably be the norm with a long line of wrestling years ahead of me.  Evan loves to "read".  He has many books at both home and school memorized, including a 70 page book.  Evan's teacher told us that when kids ask her to read them a book, she tells them to bring the book to Evan to read it to them which I thought this was really cute.  For as much as he loves to "read", Evan is not really showing much interest in learning the alphabet or his numbers. I hear of other kids his age who know all of their letters . . . he is nowhere close.  He continues to be shy for the most part anywhere we go, however, his teachers tell me he is anything but shy at school.  When we are around our friends and their children, he tends to keep to himself, which can be frustrating for me.  But then again, I was the same way as a child so I know where he gets it from.   Evan continues to loves his sports so I'm curious to see if he'll continue to be as athletic as he gets older.  He can throw a forehand frisbee with impressive accuracy - so much so that people at the park have stopped to talk to us about it.  Unlike his brother, Evan loves to eat.  His favorite foods include chicken nuggets, beef w/ broccoli, turkey tetrazzini, bratwurst, pizza and hummus . . . and of course cookies.  Lately he's shown a big interest in birds and loves looking at pictures online that Aunt Shelley posts of birdies.  He's been potty trained since Christmas, which has been a real treat.  And he is creature of habit and routine (I wonder where he gets that from?).  If we are ever going to break the schedule, I always have to prep him in advance to let him know what is changing.  And for as shy as he is, when we walk the neighborhood each night, he waves at every car and person that passes by.  So in some ways, he's just like me and in other ways he's just like his father.

For all of his good traits, I should point out that he has quite the temper and has taken to ROARING like a dinosaur at us if he doesn't get his way.  If his brother accidentally bumps into him, Evan will purposely throw Eric to the ground.  If Eric accidentally hits him, Evan will fall to the floor as though he's been shot.  And then come up swinging and he can really do some damage to Eric if he tries.  He will also swing at us if we don't give him what he wants, which is always fun.  He has to be first to do everything (like brush his teeth, get dressed, etc).  And bedtime each night is a full-on negotiation as to how many minutes of tv he gets to watch, how many books he gets to read, etc.  We have to tell Evan "5 more minutes" each night when we are watching his movie as a warning.  When those 5 minutes are up, he'll turn to us, hold up 2 fingers and say "2 more minutes".  And if we give him 2 more minutes, at the end of that time, he'll say "3 more minutes" or "1 more minute".  We are now putting him to bed around 9:00 because anything earlier than that is just pointless.

I've heard from many people that age 3 is worse than age 2.  I am so curious to see if that is going to be the case for Evan.  We had some really bad parts of age 2 and some really good parts of age 2.  So I have a feeling that 3 will be much of the same.  Time will tell, I guess!

Evan moves up to his next class at school in a month.  He has started visiting the new class and he is doing well on his visits.  Moving up a class has never really phased him, mostly because he knows the kids already. And I've heard that his new teachers are great so I'm not too worried.  Here is his most recent school picture - it was the first one that turned out ok since he was 6 months old.

And that's the 3-year-old summary on Evan.  Happy birthday to our little man!