Alex is 3! Part Tres (el último)

Not sure why I got started with the Spanish. Odd. Nevertheless, this is the last in the "Alex is 3!" series. Let's break him down!

Height: 40 inches (85th percentile)
Weight: 37.4 pounds (92nd percentile)
Overall a hair smaller than Ashton was.

Shoe size: tricky! His Bogs are an 8, his sneakers are a 9, his cool high tops are a 10. But since this is the official record I'm going to say a 9.
Clothes: 4T
Diapers: Size 6
Naps: 1, occasionally, but he can usually make it from wake up to bedtime with no real issues
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Hazel! A common misconception about Alex. His eyes are not blue.

Crib: Gone. He has been in a big boy bed since Thanksgiving.
Monitor: Gone. Can't remember the last time we used it. It's dead anyway.
High chair: Gone. He never really liked being confined. We've had this handy thing on the bottom of his seat for almost a year now and it works great.

Idol and hero: Jason. Obviously.
Best friend: Ashton

School: Miss Tammy's, 2 mornings a week

Current favorite toy: If you had asked me last week, I would have said his doctor kit. He got it for his birthday and freaking loves it. His is a huge Doc McStuffins fan so he goes around singing "Time for your check up! Time for your check up!" a la the theme song and asks you if you are sick.

Alex: Ahtee [Ashton] are you hick [sick]?

Ashton: No.

Alex: I hee [see] you burping.

Ashton: I'm not!

Alex: You're waying [laying] down. I fink [think] you hick [sick].

Ashton: Owex [Alex]! I am not sick!

And on it goes until you admit you are not feeling well so he can take out all his doctor tools and cure you.

But that was last week. This week it's specifically Lego ninjas because that's what Ashton is in to. Oh and reusable stickers.

Poops on the potty: If I had to guess, a few dozen, and only when he decides he feels like it. I have not pushed the potty training so far. Ashton was 3.5 and I knew he wasn't ready until then. I'm not about to beat my head against the wall and clean up pee all day just for the sake of getting Alex out of diapers. It's not time yet and something I feel absolutely no urgency for.

Behavior: In turning 3, Alex is a toddler no more. Which is funny, because there are still an awful lot of toddler behaviors that do not magically melt away at 36 months. He can still scream like a little banshee if something isn't going his way. He loves a food one day and hates it the next. Juice in the red cup is preferable. Sometimes only Mommy can change his clothes, sometimes only Daddy can. There is really very little predictability and most 3 year olds aren't exactly easy going - Alex is no different there.

Speech:  This, by far, is the biggest ongoing element of Alex's little life. All done with EI, we went through the extensive evaluation process at NPS. Observe the error chart that was included in the resulting 9 page report:

In addition to the substitutions, you'll note that most of the last column is just a zero/omittance. He just flat out doesn't say a lot of sounds and substitutes like crazy. For example, his favorite substitute letter is H. So:

"firefighter" is "hirehighter"
"family" is "hamily"
"so silly" is "ho hilly"
"song" is "hong"
"dinosaur" is "dinohoar"

He also hates the d's, s's and the z's. So he wont say "his", "snake" is "nake", "house" is "howe", "nice" is "nie" and "hold my hand" is "ho my heh". "Hatty birday" is "happy birthday", "You're welcome" is "you're weltum", and "I spilled milk" is "I pill mill."

That's probably enough examples but there are many, many more. The technical terms for his errors are Final Consonant Deletion, Stopping, Fronting and Gliding. He has a great vocabulary and speaks in long sentences but since his articulation is terrible, he qualified for one 30 minute speech therapy each week at Lilja, our local elementary school. I might push for two, we'll see how it goes. Hopefully his services will start in April.

Summing him up: Alex is a love. He just is. He smiles all the time, is goofy, silly and so endearing. He is liberal with his affection. The most common phrase I hear (and I swear, multiple people with no connections to each other have said this on separate occasions): "He's just so damn cute." If Alex has your attention, he shines in it. His quirky little voice and pronunciation combined with his spiky blonde hair and hugs really melt you. I almost feel awkward writing this glowing paragraph! People just respond to him. At the second evaluation at NPS, the speech pathologist (not immune to Alex's charms) said to me, "god he is just so cute" and I said "oh thanks, you don't have to say that!" She said "I really mean it" and I said "well thank you, yes Alex has quite the fan club actually" and she didn't miss a beat and replied "I'll be president."

A few of my favorite recent photos...

In the last one, he is managing all his texts and emails. It's hard work to be so popular ;)

Alex is 3! Part Dos

So we threw our little Alex a party last weekend! We sort of had to. It has turned out to be an insane month for birthdays (oh and we did the math - guess which June holiday we have to thank? FATHER'S DAY! Helloooo second children born in March! LOL we were dying laughing when we realized).  Anyway, we literally got 8 other invitations this month and Alex started to really grasp this whole birthday concept. Let's just do something small at the house, we said. It will be easy, we said.

BAHAHAHA.

Actually it really wasn't that bad besides a guest list that turned out to be double what we planned on. We have a lot of neighbors and friends I guess! So we had 19 kids and 20 adults for a quick and dirty 90 minutes. I hired a musician to come play for 30 of those, thinking he would have all the children hypnotized in the front room while the parents drank in peace in the kitchen. Well he was a total bust but it wasn't really his fault. All the kids wanted to do was run around like headless chickens and hit the toy box. Which was honestly fine. I think us grownups were still able to enjoy ourselves despite the complete chaos that was happening at 3 feet.

The party was otherwise simple. I sent an Evite, which goes against every fiber of my being as I love paper products and stationary, but as I said, "simple". Decorations were balloons and streamers of all colors that did not match. There was no theme, no goodie bags, and no gifts. Probably the most high maintenance thing I did was rent kids tables and chairs. One trip to Party City, one trip to BJ's, done and done. Oh and I did order a vegan cake from Quebrada. Not that this was about Ashton, but the look on his face at parties when he can't have the cake (due to the egg) is heartmeltingly sad. All he ever wants is to have a piece just like everyone else. He cries about it sometimes. So he and one other boy with a dairy allergy benefited from this decision and no one could even tell the difference ;)

I did attempt one Pinterest-y decoration that was strips of plastic tablecloths with balloons in the middle.

The magical music room that never was.

Alex helped me with the rest of the set up. He walked around all morning wearing his crown and saying "I'm the VERY happy birthday boy, yep, I am!"

We did a big cheese board and chips and guacamole (<-- best recipe you'll find) for snacks, and served the kids pizza and fruit for dinner. This is an actual representation of said dinner:

The blur is real.

General party pics:

(Watch us sing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G7awy44onA) 

 (The little girl next to Alex is Addie our neighbor, we went to her 2nd birthday party the next day!)

AND THEN it was time for cake. You don't know what trial by fire means until you've had to cut, plate and pass out cake at a kid's birthday party. Dozens of sets of little eyes are fixated on you and your every move. In particular, I'm trying not to relive the moment where they all realized there were gummy bears on the cake and I WANT A GUMMY BEAR WITH MY PIECE! A RED ONE! CAN I HAVE TWO GUMMY BEARS ACTUALLY?? And suddenly my ears were filled with shouts and demands and my own husband telling me to "go faster".

It's a special kind of pressure and it's intense. They could probably make a TV show out of it. In a strange twist, Ashton was the only one who waited patiently.

6 pm and that's a wrap everybody. We did have some neighbors stay until more like 6:30/6:45 pm just chatting which was great. After they left, clean up was really a breeze and Alex opened a few cards and that was it! It was a [crazy wild and hectic] success that took a long time to come down from haha.

Alex, you were the perfect little master of ceremonies! You knew it was your party, you blew out your candles and shared all your toys and only cried once. Happy birthday, we love you!!

Alex is 3! Part Uno

Today our little Mr. Alexander Michael Nill turns 3 years old. We have been waiting all week for this day. Alex has been acutely aware of his upcoming birthday and perhaps his older brother Ashton even more so [present alert!]. Things have been coming in the mail, his party (Saturday) has been planned, and he got the special circle time attention yesterday at school with a sticker and a crown. We know about it. Our neighbors know about it. Everyone knows about it. After lights out last night Alex could be heard singing happy birthday to himself before falling asleep. It's this whole thing :)

Today he had soccer with Ashton and I'm thinking about taking them out to dinner, but we really aren't doing presents or any other celebrations until his party. Which was supposed to be small but in fact, uh, won't be. Not sure how that happened. Wish me luck on Saturday around 4:30 pm as I will have 19 children in my house :D

So I'll post all that after the weekend and all the updated stats etc. after his pedi appointment. But for now just had to tell Alex: Happy 3rd birthday honey bun! You make everyone around you smile all the time, you are just that cute. WE LOVE YOU!! xoxoxox

March marches

I say it every year, but I don't have much to blog about towards the end of these winter seasons. Florida seems like forever ago and we are sort of "going through the motions" as they say, chugging along towards spring. We move the clocks forward on Sunday; getting out of the darkness is going to be huuuuuuge for our psyches. The weather has been all over the place, as high as mid-60's but also setting record lows.

Anyway, I've sat down to do a post several times since Florida but the truth is I bored myself and gave up. But I don't want to get behind do I and the million dollar question is: what have you missed? If you don't completely and utterly fall asleep at your computer, here is the answer, in no particular order:

1. We worked hard on our valentines. We conveniently missed this holiday while we were down south but Alex's school still had their party the next week so we ended up having to do them. I remember when Ashton was 3 and we were doing our first set, it was so cute and I spent a ton of time on what we made. Now I can easily picture getting the tear off ones at the pharmacy and calling it a day. Screw you Pinterest, there are way too many Valentines Days in the future. 

2. The back hallway doors have all been replaced, but you'll see Jason has a ton of finish work to do.

The door guy basically pried off all the casings and replaced the frame and the door (nearly all the old doors were slanted or warped, didn't close, etc.) and then put it all back. But the doors aren't painted (they come this pre-primed tan color) and all the nail holes etc needed to be caulked and sanded and all that. So we're at a midway point with that little (not so little for Jason maybe) project.  

3. My seltzer bubbles looked like a snowflake whilst in my snowflake glass.

It was so meta. 

4. Ashton coined the term "disastrophe". Not hard to guess, but it pertained to having to share something with Alex. 

5. The boys got their monthly haircuts in the Salon de Upstairs Bathroom:

Usually I am sitting on that stool holding a wailing Alex, covered in millions of bits of spiky buzzed hair pieces and it's totally awful. I hate haircut night. But this month we turned a corner! Alex watched a show all by himself and I actually got to take a picture while Ashton patiently waited his turn. Who are these boys??

6. Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Chris came to visit over Presidents Day weekend. We had such a good time :) We hung out, went shopping, played hockey and saw Disney on Ice downtown at the Garden. Talk about a field trip! We even went out to lunch afterwards.

6. We have been outside as much as the weather permits. Ashton is a whiz on his bike (read: deliberately rides over snowbanks, through puddles, over roots and cracks and holes, routinely gets thrown off and yet, acts surprised). Alex goes with me in the toddler seat on the back of my bike but will be getting up on his own this summer. He has to, he is most definitely over the weight limit for what he rides in haha. 

Caption: Alex shouting a hundred times while chasing Ashton: "AH-tee bike power! I RUNNING power! Yeah!"

7. Speaking of Alex, uh, speaking, we have our second and final speech evaluation today at NPS. Hoping they agree that his articulation is sufficiently terrible to qualify for extracurricular services in the fall (he won't go there for school, but just twice a week for a half hour is the goal). His third birthday is next week! Which means no more EI, no more Amanda and Kristen, no more Monday group...it will be sad :( 

8. In between all of this, the boys did not stop eating. They.eat.ALL.DAY. Also we went to the Museum of Science, the new Ballard Designs store opened in the Natick Mall (all hail), Ashton ripped several more pairs of pants and I decided not to drink any wine during Lent. Yes you heard that right. And guess what, I don't miss it! Perhaps my experience would be going differently if I had given up all alcohol but the thought of that was a little terrifying. Let's not go too crazy I said to myself, you're not even religious. 

So overall, Jason's good, I'm good, the boys are good...

zzz.

ZZZZZ.

ZZZZZZZZZZZ.