It's Gavin's half birthday and there's been so many times where he's said or done something lately where I've said "I gotta write that down" so this is my attempt at remembering all those things.
1. Gavin is a chatterbox. The child cannot stand silence. If he is not talking/asking questions, he sings. If he doesn't sing, he hums. It's just constant noise coming from out of his mouth. We're trying to teach him to only ask questions when he really doesn't know the answer because sometimes (more than we care for) he asks us things that he clearly knows the answer to. This happens mostly during car rides and the other day Nick said, "ok, Gavin no more questions" because he was driving us a bit crazy and he replied "Yes, questions. I love asking questions" then we felt pretty bad about asking him to stop. It's one of those things we have a love/hate relationship with, we love his curiosity but it can be demanding--that's the nice way of putting it. :)
2. Along those lines, he uses phrases like adults do. They come out of nowhere and surprise us every time b/c he uses them properly. For example, he has now started using "the deal is off" which I know is from Jake and the Neverland Pirates cartoon but he seems to know when to use it, it's pretty funny.
3. He is REALLY into the "pretend" play. Around the house he picks up cars and figures and tells me "I'm gonna pretend this is ....and that is....and we're gonna do ...." He loves McQueen still and he knows he's a "nice" car but sometimes when he's "pretending" to do a race, I'll hear him say that he's going to pretend McQueen is the mean car.
4. He likes to make up games.....or re-invent them and call them something new. So, he'll say "let's play a game called jump in this spot and throw a ball up in the air" or something ridiculous like that. The "reinventing" is when he says "let's play a game called let's throw a ball in this goal" and we say "it's called basketball" and he'll say "no, it's called let's throw a ball in this basket."
5. He is also into spelling at the moment. Every so often he'll say a word and then he'll say it slowly and try to figure out how to spell it. For example, he'll say "pants. pants. p....p...p...pants starts with the letter P" and then continues trying figuring out the other letters.
6. He can read......or make you think he can read that is! His memory is so good that he has his favorite books memorized and can recite them perfectly. Sometimes he'll say "I'll read this one" and it's a story he's memorized and when he "reads" it, he moves his finger across the words as he "reads" them and it really does look like he is reading.
7. Still OBSESSED with snacks. As SOON as Gavin is strapped to the car seat he starts asking for a snack even if he just stuffed his face with lunch. I think that's the one thing that keeps him motivated to go to school too. Every time I take him to preschool, on the ride over he says "I wonder what my snack will be today"....the worries of a 3 year old.
8. We now understand why some people told us the "3's" were worse than the so called "terrible two's." Gavin tests us every day at some point during the day. Strangely, he behaves worse when Nick and I are both with him. When he is with just ONE of us (alone or with Liam) he is great but when Nick and I are BOTH with him, he can get out of control sometimes. We think it's because he sees me or Nick as competition- taking attention away from him. For example, if I'm alone with both boys then I can only talk to Gavin and if I have to take care of Liam he understands that I HAVE to because there's no one else and so there are rarely any real meltdowns. But if Nick and I are together, obviously we engage in conversations that do not include Gavin and he just can't stand it. More than once, he has banged on the table or made his "horn" noise as I'm talking to get attention. We don't ignore him, but we ask that he interrupts politely and wait his turn to talk and he just can't stand that he can't talk whenever he wants to. So, this is a constant work in progress. Nick and I have been better about taking turns handling him when the craziness "turns on" because typically one of us is "over it" but the other can calmly take over and de-escalate him. Today at Costco we had a pretty big incident. For the first time, Gavin tried to hit Nick in public and then tried to bite me when I took over. I don't know what came over me to calm me down because typically this is when I just want to slap him in the face but I didn't. I calmly talked to him, asked him why he was crying, he answered, explained to him what he did wrong, why he had to be strapped to the cart and gave him a "job" to do---which was simply to help me look for the toilet paper aisle...and that did the trick. People definitely stared and one couple laughed as they heard Nick's threats "stop crying or your Disney cars are going to the trash" but we were able to contain it in a relatively timely manner. Thank goodness for all the samples Costco was offering b/c that also helped him stay occupied and happy. Oh, the joys of parenting!
9. In contrast, he is becoming a good big brother. He is a lot more gentle and patient with Liam. He looks for things that Liam might like to play with. They have their fights like brothers should but typically Liam is the instigator.
10. Gavin has a lot more patience now to play games like board games, Memory, Go Fish, Cootie, etc. The other day we were able to play Cootie all through dinner and he did not lose interest. Nick and I think he will be a great Scattegories player. During dinner this week Nick and I came up with a game, we gave him a letter and he had to come up with an animal that started with that letter. He amazed both of us. He was so quick. For several letters, I could not come up with one animal and Gavin could. We didn't do the entire alphabet but most of it and the letter that stumped him was N....and it stumped us too. So, I want him on my Scattegories team. :)
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