Almost 4

Anderson is almost 4! 

Three has been quite a year, too. A lot good, but a lot tough.

As I know I've mentioned, Anderson has tested a lot of boundaries this year. In some cases, he would really push back on something for like a week (running away from us in public places, for example), and then suddenly he'd move on and it's no longer an issue.  We've had a lot of timeouts, and I've handled some of them well and some of them really badly. I've tried to be consistent but not emotional about punishments, but sometimes I've failed miserably. TeamKid at church (Sunday evenings, with me as one of the teachers) seemed to bring out the worst behavior in Anderson, but thank goodness preschool seemed to bring out the best.  I don't mean to dwell on the negatives, but I want to remember them. We've learned a lot from some of the tough days (or in a lot of cases just tough 30-minutes)- both of us.

But back to the lot of good! Anderson is such a sweet, smart, silly, affectionate guy. He is so special and unique! His very favorite things are instruments and baseball, and he is quite the expert on both topics. He can name more instruments than I can, and he can accurately identify their instrument family. He can name and sing multiple classical songs (for example, "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg. I was definitely 31 before I could tell you that was a song!)  His love for music was sparked by the show Little Einsteins, but he has just run with it. How cool is that? I could have never predicted he would love symphonies and classical music, but he does. In fact, thanks to his grandma and grandpa he has already attended 2 symphonies. (To note a quirk, Anderson still does not like loud noises when he's among a lot of people. Case in point, he covered his ears throughout most of the symphony. As I sat there with him on my lap, I asked if he liked it. He said, "I LOVE it!" No other major sensory issues, but definitely loud noises/ a cheering crowd make him nervous.)

Special date night for the three of us

He's also a baseball expert and can tell you more of the National's players and their numbers than 80% of the fans at any given game can, I would guess. I've had to look up a few of the pitchers to see if he was right, and 9 times out of 10 he is. In fact one time he and Ryan didn't agree on a certain player's number. It turns out Ryan was right, but the baseball card we have had the player's old number, which was the one Anderson insisted was right. He LOVES to play baseball, too. He would play for hours every day and never tire. This is where I see his imagination really come out. He narrates the game, with "runners on first and third" or a "full count". His preference is to have a whole bunch of us playing with him (which we've gotten to do at Nannie and Papa's house for a lot of Wednesday nights this spring- a blast!). But when nobody is available, he will play pretend baseball with an invisible ball. Works for me. :)

I took these last night....

I was having trouble getting good pictures while he was in motion, so I kept saying,
Pitch and freeze. Ha :)

Anderson's other favorite things are totem poles (once again, thank you Little Einsteins), trains, books, the alphabet, and numbers.  So funny, but I love that he loves these things. I hope he always hears his own little beat drumming.

Other happy happenings this year:
-He is potty trained! Halleluia! We worked on it from almost-3 to almost 3-and-a-half, but we are finally finished!

-Swim lessons (just started last week and this week- 8 days in two weeks). He has private lessons with Coach Alex, and he has made huge improvements from day 1. At certain points, he was visibly trembling the first couple of days, but he has become more and more comfortable. He will put his little face under water for 3-5 seconds, pull himself on the wall and "monkey walk" to the steps, and he's learning to float. He even got his first ribbon last week for being a "Pro Monkey Walker", haha.

-He is a big brother again. Bless his not-even-4-years-old-heart. He's my big boy and I expect a lot out of him, and then sometimes I think, "Oh, wait- he's only 3..." He loves his baby, and he is so, so good with him. But being away from me for those 3 hospital days was really hard on him. Finding out that he struggled with it broke my heart. Just last week we were reading a book and a duck missed his mommy. All casually, he says, "I missed you, Mommy. You were at the doctor and Colby was born, and I missed you." Sweet boy.

-Pre-school! He learned how to stand in line and use scissors (kind of) and his writing has come a long way. Most of all he really enjoyed it and made 12 cute little friends. It was a good experience, and I loved to see him so smiley at the end of each school day.

I think that's enough for now, but lots of birthday festivities are to come at the end of this month! :)