Seth looks more grown up to me all of a sudden. It seems like Andrew always kind of looked the same, just got older looking. But Seth seems like he is always transforming and just looks different. Maybe because his hair is growing out, or I don’t know, I think he has been looking a little more like Andrew the past few days. Which is odd to me because I usually don’t think they look very much alike.
So, changes … the biggest change this month is that Andrew is at preschool every morning. And I think that Seth really likes it. Unlike last year, where he burst into tears the first couple days of preschool at having to leave Andrew, now he is happy. He’ll say bye, of course. But after that, he will start talking, “We dropped off daddy at train station. We dropped off Andrew at preschool. Now just Seth and Mommy.”
He never wants to go home and always wants to go out somewhere. It is cool enough now (yeah!) that the parks are all wet in the morning (so sad), but we go anyways. We also spend an inordinate amount of time at the library – seriously, we went every day that first week. Seth is still a little shy at story time and not so eager to dance or do some of the songs, but he is opening up a little bit. Seth really likes going to museums together. We went to the butterfly house the first day of preschool. Then, he really wanted to go to the art museum. So last week, I drove him there and he starts crying when we get close – “This is not the museum. I don’t want to go here”. Turns out he wants to go to the train museum … sigh … I did convince him to go to the art museum, but even with much cajoling, we only made it through 30 minutes. And don’t worry – we did make it to the train museum too last week. I think he really treasures the time it’s just the two of us. Unfortunately for him, it won’t last for too long!
Seth continues to be a clothes diva. Funny, he was attached at the hip to his soccer jacket last spring – this fall, he won’t even touch it. Sometimes, I can get it on him, but he cries the whole time because he wants it off. He also does not want to wear long sleeves or pants or a jacket. And now that the temps are in the 50s-70s and it’s WAY too early to turn on the heat, so it get pretty chilly in the house at night, he is getting very cold. I did convince him to wear pants to church today (yeah!). Granted, I have removed all shorts, but still, he refused to wear anything besides a diaper to sleep because he did not like his options. He also LIVES in his cardinals hat. Funny boy.
Yeah, total hiatus on potty training again. Just too worn out (me, not him).
Seth has totally become a daddy’s boy lately. This was hard this week when Katsu was out of town for several days visiting BYU to give a seminar. He wants to be with Katsu all the time, and would especially prefer if they could play sports together all the time. When he wakes up at night (he had croup this month, poor guy), he calls for Dad. I do not mind at all, though I feel bad that Katsu had to deal with all the croup. Because Seth is not a cuddly, let-you-hold-him kind of guy. And when he is sick and miserable, he just cries. And screams. And refuses to be comforted. You can commiserate a little and if all go well, he will calm himself down eventually. But, oh, that first night of croup … he basically watched TV half the night, just to get him to stop crying so he could breathe.
Seth’s favorite food is eggs. He could eat eggs for every meal it seems. We try to keep him to 2 eggs a day, and I still can’t believe how fast we go through eggs.
Seth loves building train tracks. He does not want help. Unless he is struggling to get some of the elevated pieces to stay up. I think that kid can make better train tracks than me. He also loves to make ramps and race cars down them. He really loves to race cars anywhere, but the only small stretch of non-carpet we have is either the bathroom (way too small) or the kitchen, so he has to suffice with that.
Seth really keeps learning his letters. He just picks them up from Andrew, I guess. And that leapfrog magnet toy on the fridge. He recognizes quite a few numerals as well and can count mostly to 20, though he messes up some of the teens. He is really trying colors, but gets them mostly wrong. He is in love with the color green. He also always comments about what the colors mean – i.e. Green means go, red means stop. Of course, this morning he was trying to tell me what brown means. Hmmm … He also really enjoys coloring. Well, scribbling with pens, markers, and maybe crayons, in that order of preference. He also LOVES glue stick and glue. He is trying out scissors at story time, but I think that’s still a bit of a stretch.
Seth is alternatingly loving and affectionate and then wants nothing to do with anyone. He spontaneously tells me how much he loves me. On the other hand, he spend at least as much time telling me he hates me and wants me to go away.
Seth seems excited about the new baby. Sometimes, he likes to kiss my belly. Or pet it. It will probably be a shock for him, though, because he says the baby will come out and then learn to walk. Well, there’s a lot of crying and eating and popping and sleeping (hopefully!) in between there.
Seth is not really really social, but he does a decent job making friends at the play ground. He will go up to other kids and just say “Let’s play”. Granted, they are usually at least 4 years old, but sometimes the kids will.
Fun Things This Month:
- Two quick visits to the Transportation museum (we finally finished up our Groupon with like 5 days to spare). The boys were disappointed that the trains/trams weren’t running, but LOVED running around inside some of the trains. They take turns pushing all the train levers and sticking their heads out the windows and yelling “All Aboard”.
- Another Cardinals game! Andrew won 2 sets of free tickets through the summer reading program (one at each of the library systems), so we all went. Seth was super excited – he wanted to hold his ticket for like the whole month leading up to the game. We brought tons of snacks, but he eventually got bored. We made them stay until the 7th inning stretch. It was a boring game, though, but thankfully, short. He still had fun, though.
- Visit to the St Louis Art fair which is in walking distance from our house (yay!). The kids weren’t too excited, but did their favorite things – getting a free sand art, doing some crafts, watching a puppet show, and getting their pictures taken in costume at a special educational booth for kids. And we also watched a flamenco show, which the kids really liked. But then Andrew’s asthma was starting to kick in, so we needed to get home.
- Seth went to the Butterfly House. He was fascinated with the spiders and scorpions, but not very interested in the butterflies themselves – we went through in about 10 minutes! Maybe less. I think he was afraid that they were going to land on him. He really just wanted to play at the playground at Tower Grover Park park.
- Lots of storytimes and also a music and movement program at the library. We are going to the Headquarters branch now, because it is very close to the preschool. He does miss Ms. Kathy though. He really likes some of the music one of the librarian plays, especially this Jumping one, called Jump, Walk, Spin. It is so cute to watch him do action songs and watch him follow the directions. It takes it all very seriously. Seth also loves to find any books or movies about firefighting which is obsessed with.
- Swim class with Daddy! He has been to two classes and I think it makes him feel really special to have his own little class. He is a little hesitant about somethings, but wants to do EVERYTHING himself. If he has something to hold on to, he tells Katsu to go away and that he can swim by himself.
- Flu shots! Andrew refused to do it, but Seth bravely went forward to go first. He cried a lot when he got his shots (he also needed one that he couldn’t get at his 2 year well check b/c it hadn’t been long enough), but quickly calmed down.
- Forest Park Balloon Race. Seth fell asleep in the car and then was super grumpy when we woke him up. He was very upset we made him wear a jacket (but he still had some croup and we didn’t want to make it worse) and cried most of the time until we finally saw the balloons. Then, he seemed pretty exccited about it.
- Art museum. See above.
- Apple picking. We were going to go to a place close to the airport when we picked Katsu up, but they were all out of u-pick, so we came home. But Seth was INSISTENT. So, we looked up directions to Eckerts and after some interesting directions from Katsu (who is still convinced if we somehow even drive through East St. Louis we will promptly be shot and die), we finally arrived. Seth liked the hay ride and loved eating the apples (big fan of Golden Delicious). We’ll have to make a pie.
Next month should be fun. We got out the Halloween decorations yesterday and Seth wants to carry his pumpkin with him everywhere (yes, even to the airport) and when asked what he wants to do, the only thing is “Trick-or-treat”.
