Amanda & Katsu: Andrew is 3 and a half!

Boy, has Andrew been a handful this month! I really feel like this week we have just been butting heads. Hopefully, this is just a stage (or maybe I’ll become a better mom and this is just a stage for me?). I don’t know what the issue is – maybe he needs to get out more or have more friends??? I guess we’ve all been sick a lot which puts a lot of damper on the fun. Well, on to Andrew.

Andrew loves preschool and he is in love (his words not mine) with a little girl, Peyton, in his class. He says that he is only friends with one person, a little girl without boobs (goodness, that must be how he distinguishes girls from women, I guess … heaven knows what he will be like as a teenager). She has a little hair bow he likes to talk about. He tells me that “I love her and she loves me and she should love me”. Ha ha ha. According to his preschool teachers, he waits for her when he gets to preschool, to the point where he has “forgotten” how to find his name tag or cubby. I can’t believe his academic performance is already effected by girls! They also hold hands and he wants Peyton to do everything with him.

At least, according to his teachers, he is pretty easily redirected. And otherwise, he is doing great in preschool. He even draws there! People, even! When I tried to get him to draw at home, it’s still mostly a failure – he did practice his scissors, though. He is a master negotiator, even at preschool. His teachers said he says things like “Why would we want to go inside when it’s so beautiful outside?”. Oh, the things you can learn at a parent teacher conference.

As I said, Andrew and I are really butting heads. Mostly because of his favorite play things.

Taking electric cords and tying them around things to make gates.
Using the futons, blankets, chairs, etc. to make:

“playgrounds” to slide down
gates, that I am not allowed to cross and that block one side of the room of from the other
houses, where he sits underneath and pretends to be a dog or other animal
stages, where he loves to perform and do dances and circuses – he loves to say “Ladies and gentleman – watch me.”
pile everything he can find – DVD cases, books, toys – in a huge pile on the floor that is supposed to be some sort of a house or a gate or something.

Using tools to fix me – mostly which means injure me in some way, though I think it is mostly accidental.
Put on his music or the piano music very loud and at the highest tempo.
Throwing things – seriously, are we regressing???

Andrew is quite the conversationalist lately. He loves to talk about all sorts of things. “Mom, why did you get married?” – we hear that very often. He also likes to talk about how we need a new baby. After all, he told me, I still have eggs in my tummy … ha ha ha. Good thing Andrew isn’t planning our family, he wants 10 kids! His talks a lot lately about how he wants to be a mommy or a daddy. When I told him, he had to be a daddy, he said he wanted to be a Daddy-Queen, which dances with a sister-Princess or something. Ha ha ha. He also wants to be a ballerina and a princess.

Andrew is a sweetie and very sensitive. He loves us all so much and tells us all the time. He loves all the extended family and talks about them often and how hard it is to wait for Christmas to see them. He wants to call on the phone or Skype to everyone every day! We have been reading books and talking about being thankful this month – he contributes lots of things he’s grateful for. He also is starting to be concerned about the homeless, which we have been reading about and talking about this month. I really am trying to find somewhere where we can volunteer together, but it’s hard to find places that allow little kids. We’ll see.

Andrew dreams about cookies most nights. Isn’t that cute?