Jace -Mommy, can I get a puppy?

Me – But Jace, you are afraid of dogs

Jace – But it would be a nice puppy

Me – You will have to ask Daddy [okay I cheated, I knew daddy's answer and for once he was going to be the bad parent]

Jace – Daddy, can I have a puppy

Daddy – No

Jace – But why not

Daddy – Because you have to clean up after them and I don’t like picking up poop

Jace – But I LIKE picking up poop. Uncle Malcolm is smart, he uses a plastic bag to pick up poop. I would be smart like Uncle Malcolm.

PAUSE

Jace – Well them maybe I can have a crab [Note: we went crabbing the day before and caught three blue crabs. Very fun and very yummy. Jace was a little afraid at first, then enjoyed watching them try to eat the fish bait]

Mommy – Maybe when you are older you can have a pet crab

I wonder how many more times we will have to address this request? I have to say I was a little surprised since he is so terrified of all animals but perhaps the fear is waning a little.

Our reasoning for exploring this was threefold.

1. We were bored. Well, bored of eating the same veggies over and over.

2. We have a child who actually eats veggies right now. Therefore we figured we should feed him as many as possible now so that when he decides in a few months that he hates them again, he will have stored up enough vitamins to last for a while

3. It is good for the environment or something like that.

Having spoken to various people who had done it before, we searched for a farm that had both a convenient pickup spot and a small sized share.  I have to say it has been a big success. We have gotten all kinds of vegetables, may of which  we had never tried before. We have had a range of greens (Kale, Swiss Chard, Mustard Greens), squashes, tomatoes galore (good thing we love fresh salsa), Beets (okay, I admit it, am getting sick of the beets),  Eggplant (eggplant parmesan is yummy, not sure about plain eggplant yet), Lettuces, Cukes, Broccoli, and many more.

Jace seems to be enjoying it. He has showed up the proper way to eat a pepper…

Step 1, lick it to make sure it is fresh

Step 2, take a bite or three

And that carrots can make a good hiding place…

Sunday, 6:10am: “Daddy, come here Daddy, it’s wake-up time Daddy, I need you! I want to know if zebras have penises!”

6:20am: “Let’s race. I will be the velociraptor and you can be the leaf-eater.
Not on the couch, Daddy, you have to race over here.
Go velociraptor, go!
I won! Now I will chomp you with my chompers.”

6:30am: “No, Daddy no! Don’t take a nap!!!”

6:35am: “Let’s make something with Legos.
Look, I made a great raccoon shooter. Bang, crash bang!
I shotted all the raccoons dead and smacked and splatted them.
What Daddy?
Because the raccoons were trying to eat the frogs!
No we can’t have a conversation with them. They were Trying. To eat. The. Frogs!”

6:45am: “Let’s play the animal game where we put pieces in a row.
Can you help me open the box? Please, please, please can you help me open the box?
No, not like that, you weren’t sposed to open it that way!!!!” [massive crying episode ensues]

6:50am: “I got the dragon card! Remove the other player’s piece.
I got the dragon card again. Remove your piece.
I got the dragon card again. Remove your piece.
I got the dragon card again. Remove your piece.
Daddy, why don’t you have any pieces? You’re sposed to be playing with me!”

7:05am: “Look what I found on my expedition! A mango!”

7:10am: [singing snippet of song by They Might Be Giants] “Oh no, no, I never go to work. Oh no, no, I never go to work. Oh no, no, I never go to work. Oh no, no, I never go to work. Oh no, no, I never go to work. Oh no, no, I never go to work. Oh no, no, I never go to work.”

7:11am: “Oh look! It’s Mommy! You woke up, Mommy!”

7:15am: “My sticky hands are looking for you. Where are you? My sticky hands need you!”

Later that evening:

In the bath: “You didn’t know there was a dolphin in the water. You just saw an eyeball and it came up! And the waves shook with fear! And it splooshed!”

Seriously? Where does a 3-year-old come up with a phrase like “the waves shook with fear” ?

Skills accomplished

• Going potty on his own, often (but not always) including pulling pants up & down.
• Can undo snaps (not buttons) and zipper.
• Consistent grammatical structure in his speech. Even when it doesn’t conform to standard English, it follows clear, well-defined rules (“I didn’t told you that…”, “You didn’t saw that…”).
• Zoo phonics: Can reliably associate any uppercase or lowercase depiction of a letter with the sound, animal name, and motion. Can recognize some printed words when guided through the process of sounding them out.
• Occasionally asks insightful questions, showing logical thought puzzling out how things work.
• Hops on one foot.
• Kicks a soccer ball.
• Hits a baseball off the tee without hitting the tee majority of the time
• Using his imagination

Skills attempting:

• Buttering toast
• Jigsaw puzzles
• Telling knock-knock jokes (they are hilarious because they make absolutely no sense what so ever)
• Building sand castles (mostly he likes to knock them down)
• Riding his scooter

Skills to develop:

• Learn to take T-shirt on and off
• Patience, strategies for whine-avoidance
• Using a knife to cut food
• Number-related skills: counting, comparison (he can count to 15 or so but has little idea what numbers mean except 1 and 2)
• Build on the next level of reading skills
• Fine motor control skills for drawing and writing letters

Interests:

• Books and stories (his favorite day is library day when I come home with new books)
• Cars
• Maps (he likes looking at the globe and drawing maps of how to get to places – random scribbles but he has fun)
• Dinosaurs (the kid can name far more that you, unless you have a toddler who watches Dinosaur Train)
• Watching TV (he gets one 1/2 hour show a day after daycare if he asks. And that is the first thing he asks every day)
• Shooting things (definitely picked up from the older boys at daycare. I am not a big fan of this but haven’t figured out how to redirect this behavior)
• “Bad guys” (again, courtesy of the 5 year olds. He has learned a lot of good things from them but can also name all the superheros and bad guys. Wolverine is his favorite)

[no need to encourage the last three, but they are undeniably members of the set of things in which he has an interest]

Jace – “Mommy can we get a Whale?”

Jace – “We could get a tiny tiny one and he could swim in our bathtub”

Me – “If there was a whale in our bathtub how could I take a shower?”

Jace – ” I would take him out and hold him while you took a shower”

Me – “But whales need to stay in water, they like to be wet”

Jace – “I’ll keep him wet while I hold him on the little stool”

Pause

Jace – “The problem with whales is they get big. I guess it won’t fit in our bathtub”

*this story has been abbreviated for the sakes of our readers. The conversation went on for a good few minutes at dinner time tonight.

He put forth an impressive effort to excel at every test:

When checking his height, he was smart enough to try to go up on his toes and tilt his forehead up at every measurement attempt. Once convinced to stand with heels on the ground, the result was 39.5 inches.

Weight: He couldn’t figure out how to add anything extra to his weight, but stepped on the scale with solemn gravity, and came in at 38.5 pounds.

According to the charts, both height and weight are in the mid-90’s in terms of percentile comparisons.

He was asked to hop and then stand on one foot. He didn’t do either, and instead stalled by providing a rather long monologue about his recent trip with Mommy on the red line train to the Boston Common Frog Pond, and how you’re allowed to splash, but you’re not allowed to splash Mommy. It finally came out that he thought the hopping thing was a trick question, because “you’re allowed to hop outside, but not inside.” When finally convinced to show off his skills, he combined the hopping and the one-foot-standing by hopping on one foot (the enthusiasm of which sent him spinning across the doctor’s exam room).

The doctor drew a circle on the sheet of paper that covered the exam table, and asked him what it was. Jace, of course, responded that it was an Ollie Octopus, and that it makes an “ahhhh” sound, and he wiggled his octopus tentacle arms to demonstrate. Which sounded great to me (this is the set of things that goes with the letter “O” in the phonics program that his daycare provider does). The doctor seemed a little surprised to hear an answer other than “circle”. She then asked him to draw one, and he created a fairly admirable closed, roundish shape.

Perhaps a bit unsettled by the reaction to his octopus response, Jace then decided to put an end to the intelligence testing by explaining to her how the paper worked…

Previously, while we had been waiting for the doctor to come into the room, he asked me why there was paper on the bed, and I explained that people could sit on the paper, and then doctors can just tear off the paper and throw it away, saving them the effort of cleaning the bed for the next patient. He lifted up the paper, looked under it, and said, “but I don’t see the paper!” Which was somewhat confusing until I understood that he had assumed a stack of paper, so that when the top sheet was removed, there would still be paper for the next person (me: “huh? the paper is in your hand!”; Jace: ”no, the next people’s paper!”). So I showed him the roll of paper hidden around the back, and he was happy with this revelation.

So Jace ended his 3-year check-up by demonstrating this to the doctor (“it’s just like my easel”). And then requested some stickers. Because that’s the real purpose behind any doctor’s visit.

Zoe, little sister to Xander (who now has a new website, updated on our page)

Elizabeth, little sister to Thomas and Benjamin

Rory, little sister to Carter

Charlie, little brother to William.

Best wishes to all their families. And thank goodness there are some girls to add to the mix!

Not quite what I had in mind but technically he followed my directions.