Seth is 2 years 11 months old!

Tomorrow will be Seth’s day … he’s almost 3!  What’s new with our little man?

He still whines and whines up a storm, but if you remind him, he usually will stop whining (and even sometimes stop all-out-crying) to tell you calmly what he wants.  It. drives. me. nuts.  He also just seems whiny in general – he gets really frustrated if he doesn’t get to do certain things – like pass out the cookies from our neighbor (whether to ensure the most sprinkles or to control everything I am not quite sure), or decide on certain toys, or pass out game pieces.  Passing things out, actually, just seems really important.

Seth just seems so grown up compared to a year ago I can scarcely believe it.  He wants to do everything himself, but he is actually pretty good at it.  He completely dresses himself, socks and shoes included, though things are usually backwards (heaven forbid you try to change it though).  He also wipes himself (yay!  I swear, Andrew and Seth reached this milestone together).

Seth is also great with chores.  He helps me load and unload the dishwasher and put away all the dishes (I moved them so he can reach).  He also helps set the table and can get himself plates and cups and even get himself water.  He likes to dust, too.  He also is in charge of feeding Joe.

Oh, boy.  The boys were really bad one day and I was at my wits end.  As part of the badness, they had thrown an entire large container of beads on the floor.  I decided to vacuum them up because they were EVERYWHERE – all over the entire kitchen and living room.  Well, I guess this was a horribly traumatic experience for Seth, because he now is deafly afraid of the vacuum and most especially that I will vacuum his toys up.  I feel really bad … but it’s not like I even vacuumed up any of his toys, just some beads.  Anyways, almost every day almost a month later he still says “Don’t vacuum today” and he will burst into tears and run frantically around the house picking up everything if he thinks I am going to vacuum.  He has become a very good picker-upper, though.  Poor guy.

I am always impressed at Seth’s academic skills.  He knows all his letters by sight and also can write many of them.  He also knows his numbers by sight as well.  He can count pretty high, probably to at least 30 or 50, though he occasionally skips a number here or there.  I realized that he knows how to rhyme (still not quite sure how well Andrew gets that). 

Seth is super excited about preschool.  He had his preview day last week and he was so ready.  He enjoyed playing with the other kids and going to the music class.  (Today was the preschool’s day at the Magic House, our children’s museum in St. Louis, and when Seth saw the music teacher he said to her “You were in my class”).  He also got his preschool bag and he has been SO excited.  The bag has come everywhere with us and he keeps loading it with things he says he needs for preschool.  Poor boy to have to wait the whole summer!

Seth really is helping to take care of Logan.  I can tell how much he loves Logan now.  He will go to Logan when he is crying and try to take care of him.

Seth really wants to be a part of everything and gets so jealous when Andrew does anything without him.  He really wants to be as big as Andrew and friends with all of Andrew’s friends (and invite them all to his birthday party).  He really likes doing things with all the boys and is always trying to tell me what boys do and girls do.

Fun Things we did this month:

(not much since Michigan)

• Another transportation day at Richmond Heights.  It was fun, but the boys were sweating buckets.
• A soccer party at a friend’s house.