Preschooler Gems

Every now and then I like to pepper these posts in. You know, the latest and greatest from the mouth of my 3 year old or certain behaviors that are on trend. A lot of these are cute and/or funny because of the sound of his voice or the way he pronunciates. Given this blog doesn't have audio, you might not fully appreciate, but I do and definitely want these kinds of things to look back on when he is no longer little.

I think perhaps our biggest hurdle lately is food. He will happily request "brequist", but never, and I mean never, wants to eat "wunch" or dinner. He only wants "tacks" (snacks). ALWAYS snacks. But the problem is, Ashton hates to be specific. He'll say he wants "something delicious", "something crunchy" or "something tasty" and I'll bend over backwards making suggestions, listing every stupid thing in our cabinets, and he will just say "No, I want a TACK". It's like, crackers and apples and cheese sticks ARE snacks!! "Snack" is a general term!! AHHHH!!!

Oh, and he won't eat a grilled cheese. But he WILL eat toast with melted cheese on it. You have to market it correctly. It makes me impossibly crazy so I'll tell you a story that pretty much sums up what it is like to have to feed a preschooler every day.

So, we've had a lot of snow days and for whatever reason, sick of the usual routine, we decided to have pancakes on Sunday morning. I think Ashton's had a pancake maybe twice, ever, and both times at Grandma and Grandpa's house. So this was a very big deal, he pulled the stool over to watch it cook on the stove, he was super excited and wouldn't stop talking about his special brequist and then...can you believe it? That pancake, well, it turned out to be round.  This shape was so offensive, so completely reprehensible, that Ashton got off the stool, walked over to the stairs, sat down and cried. Honestly, he wailed his head off for 10 minutes. We tried to get through to him but it's hard to talk when you are choking on snot and tears. All we knew was that he could not tell us what he DID want, just that he didn't want his pancake to be round. We left him on the stairs to howl.

After several minutes, while Ashton was still carrying on in the other room, Jason went ahead and whipped up a dinosaur.

I guess it could also be a lobster, depending on your point of view.

With grand ceremony, we presented this new pancake with oooo's and ahhhh's and wasn't it going to be fun to eat this one? Look it's a dinosaur! ROAAAAAAR!!

Gradually, Ashton's tears dried up as he admired his dinosaur-lobster. He said dinosaurs have sharp teeth (like this fact made the pancake more legit). He carried the plate around for awhile. He showed it to Alex. I kept waiting for him to take a bite but he would not touch it. So precious was this new pancake that you know what he did? He went ahead and ate the round one. The round one!! The one that had caused so much pain and suffering 30 minutes earlier. It was just so...typical.

So what's the lesson here. Basically, 3 year olds are landmines and when in doubt, make them a dinosaur-lobster pancake and all their other problems will pale in comparison to its magnificence.

How about some other favorites lately.

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I reached into the backseat of the car and handed Ashton his sunglasses on a particularly bright day. He put them on and said, "Oooo! I see houses! And trees!"

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Me: Wow, we did a lot today. You had a big day!
Ashton: No, Mommy, I didn't. I had a little day.

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My daddy's Jason. I like Jason. He knows ev-we-fing (everything).

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Two favorite questions, asked almost constantly:
"You like it?"
"You happy? Are you happy Mommy?"

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"I'm Batman!" (swings stick)
"You are?"
"Yeah, I'mma gonna bat you!"

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Another favorite question: "Why?"

"Put this in the trash please."
"Why?"
"Because it's trash."
"Oh."

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At the rest stop on the highway: "Is this the pee store?"

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"I need to eat brequist. So I have ENGERY for school."

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"What shape is a shadow?"

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I showed him how to put ice cream on a cookie and held it out so he could take a bite. All he could say was, "Whoaaaa". I agree, it's a lifechanging concept. 

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While we are on cookies, we had a snowflake sugar cookie and Ashton held it up and said "This is from Frozen! She sings, 'Let it goooo!' And then this comes!" (He didn't know the word for snowflake ;) )

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Whenever we are all are on the couch, hanging out in our bed, or generally close together, Ashton wedges himself between me, Jason and Alex and sings, "Fam-leeeeee!"

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Cinnamon is ciminin, gingerbread man is gentleman, and in general "l's" are "w's". He calls going to sleep at night his long nap.
"After my wong nap, I'm gonna wake up and have a PANCAKE!"

Pancakes are definitely his new thing now after the dinosaur-lobster. Poor Jason, trying to make new animals every morning haha. I should see about some molds or something. Anyway, there is always a round one with his regular breakfast on one plate, and the prized special pancake (today, a llama?) on a separate plate.

He eats the round one every morning and never touches the animal so we secretly feed it to Alex after cleaning up his plates. Alex isn't picky. Yet ;)