I am absolutely in denial about the fact that my little squishy baby is now closer to being 4 than 3! Size wise though he is definitely more like a 3 year old. When I weighed him recently he was 14.5 kg which is a bigger increase in six months than in the year or two previous! When we last measured him he was around 93 cm but I have a feeling he's grown again since then as his 2-3 year clothes (which go up to 98 cm) seem to fit him nowadays rather than drowning him! He had new shoes a couple of weeks about and is now a 6.5. However, they rubbed his toes so now he wont' wear them and is still seemingly comfortable in his size 6 wellies.
Development
His development is insane lately - it's increasingly obvious that he's no longer a baby or a toddler and is a fully fledged "kid".SpeechWell he has PLENTY to say. He talks continuously and says "mummy" at least a million times a day. He remembers facts like a sponge, asks questions about everything he sees, wants to understand everything or comment on everything and still has his lovely moments where he sounds far beyond his years. The other day he started a sentence with "according to my plan..."! He can get stuck in repetition loops of certain words and he often makes nonsensical noises but generally his communication is excellent. When he gets tired or overwhelmed he can just grunt, whine and point which is always a challenge but it is happening a little less often lately. Other people can have a hard time working out what he is saying, mostly because he is very softly spoken (or yelling, there's no in between). We often have a hard time because he talks very fast when he's excited and often talks in silly voices, shouts or mumbles. However, generally we get to where we need to be.
Gross Motor
He can run confidently now although he has been really clumsy for the last few days so I'm wondering if he's going through a growth spurt. He's climbing much more now and quite competent although balance isn't his strong point and he had a nasty fall from a climbing frame last week on a playdate but miraculously was fine other than a bruise or two! We recently bought him a cheap secondhand trike and he got the hang of it really quickly - he can pedal and steer although his concentration usually lapses and he ends up veering towards the road or some other hazard. He's confident on the stairs now and we only really have the stairgate up because his bedroom is directly next to the stairs and we don't want him to wander out in a sleepy state and fall.
Fine Motor
His fine motor skills have really come on rapidly - largely since we adopted a terrible parenting attitude and allowed him to play Lego Marvel on the Xbox. it has done wonders for many skills including his memory, problem solving and bimanual fine motor skills. He can competently control the characters, jump, fight and aim and shoot weapons. Essentially he plays it by himself with the occasional input from us if it gets hard. He's getting better with mark making and will now try and trace shapes or letters, although he doesn't yet have a proper pencil grip. We did a bit of touching up on the walls recently with small paintbrushes and he did a lovely job with that, tidying the edges above the skirting board. He can handle small jigsaw pieces too. I learned today that he can also peel a banana.
Self-Care
He's really improved in this area too. A couple of weeks ago he randomly decided he no longer wanted to wear pull-ups at night so we gave it a go and he's had no accidents so far, touch wood. It wasn't something we had even really considered but we weren't going to deny him the opportunity to give it a go. He can essentially dress and undress himself now - he struggles to get a t-shirt off as he can't pull the sleeves and he can't quite get a t-shirt or jumper on over his head, usually because the head holes are really tight for his slightly large head. He can feed himself although randomly started asking us to spoon feed him lately. He's brilliant at cleaning and tidying - today we did some baking and when we had finished he put the wrappers in the bin and asked for a cloth to wipe his table. Thanks to the pandemic he's got very good at washing his hands - he doesn't like wiping his face and that is a daily battle. He's suddenly become quite resistant to tooth-brushing - he used to be fine but is refusing in the evenings lately, although is happy enough in a morning so that's something at least.
Social/Emotional
In a lot of ways things have really improved in this area. He has friends at nursery - Julian, Alfie and Eashon are the most commonly mentioned. I'm not 100% sure how he interacts with them but he likes to say bye to them before he leaves and he talks about them a lot at home. However, in other circumstances, he is utterly disinterested. We've been on a few playdates recently with my friend and her little boy, Arthur. Arthur is very excited to see Oscar and talks to him constantly whereas Oscar largely doesn't acknowledge him and prefers to talks to me or occasionally Jen. He's very social with adults most of the time but not so much little kids. I'm looking forward to seeing how he is with James and Bella at the wedding. He is also quite good with Ezra nowadays in terms of sharing, albeit rather hit and miss.
Emotionally he is learning to recognise his emotions and be able to put words to them sometimes which is a great start. He generally is quite miserable at the moment but we finally got his Paediatrician appointment through for next week so I'm hopefuly we will be able to generally improve his well-being.
Health
He takes cetirizine regularly now before bed which seemse to help with his snuffliness. He's regularly itchy which it also helps with. His skin is very dry but he won't tolerate moisturiser most of the time so there's not much I can do about that. He has a bit of a wet cough at the moment after eating/drinking and when he first lies down at night but nothing severe so I'm just keeping an eye on it.
Eating
His eating is improving slowly although his behaviours around food are becoming more challenging. At nursery now he eats pretty much anything except for vegetables. Recently he has eaten curry, sweet and sour chicken, shepherd's pie and all sorts although he does generally tell me he didn't like it! At home we don't have that kind of success but he is slowly starting to accept more foods that he previously liked, such as fish fingers and bananas. However, he has dropped off some of the foods like chicken and mashed potato, now only rarely eating these. Usually he picks his favourite thing on his plate and just fills up on that. The behaviour we are struggling with is around "treats" although we don't treat them as such. We have tried various different approaches but he can get very upset if he isn't allowed something he wants e.g. a biscuit whether that be because he's already had a couple, because it's almost a mealtime or because we don't have any. It almost makes me want to stop giving him nice things because he becomes obsessed and asks for them constantly. We are hoping for some answers when we see the Paediatrician!
Sleep
Sleep is generally pretty good nowadays (by our standards). Our good nights are still what most people would consider bad but we are getting by just fine. He hasn't napped for a while now and generally goes to sleep around 7, although if he's really tired it can be closer to 6:30, especially if he asks to go to bed. Sometimes he sleeps through, other nights he wakes up but I just get in bed with him and then he settles back down. He recently stopped using pull-ups at night, his choice which came out of the blue, but it hasn't caused any major issues and we have only had one wet bed in around three weeks so that's pretty pleasing. We had a couple of nights where he was upset and wanted to get into our bed but we held firm and eventually he snuggled up with me in his own bed and went to sleep - each night the resistance got less and less. He wakes most days between 6 and 6:30 although sometimes it can be as early as 5 or as late as 7. Generally though we can keep him in bed until 7 when we want to by letting him watch Netflix on our phones although, as a rule, I don't allow that before around 5:45 in the hope he will go back to sleep. We went for a long walk around Foremark Reservoir (where he carried a backpack full of rocks most of the way) a couple of weeks ago and the following day he slept until 7:45 and didn't get out of bed until 8:30 - that was lovely! Occasionally on a Saturday morning he will have an hour or so nap to catch up from the exhaustion of the week and he sometimes catnaps in the car if we've been out but it's a rarity these days.
Nursery
He is getting on really well there. He goes in happily and they have moved him into the pre-school group with the older children (4-5) as he gets on better with them than his peers. He has a best friend called Julian and my understanding is that they basically just playfight but it is so nice to hear him chatting about another child! His Key Worker, Ella, is brilliant - although she is leaving next week - and has really kept us up to date with things during the pandemic where we haven't been able to go and see him in the nursery setting. They really don't have any concerns with him and are thrilled how well his eating has come along there. We do keep having random periods where he gets upset about going to nursery the following day but then in the morning he's not fussed. He does five mornings now which gives me a bit of extra time in the week to myself (although I've mostly been doing overtime at work). He finds it a challenge and is exhausted by Friday but it keeps him bus and stops him being bored at home which is helpful.
Likes and Dislikes
He is a very different child these days in a lot of ways - he really loves his snuggly toys now, especially Shadow shark and Rex (who goes pretty much everywhere). He also loves soft blankets and cushions and recently started going to sleep with the quilt completely over his head - weird for a child who used to hate a blanket at all and actually rarely actually keepts his quilt on at night. Book wise he has started enjoying some chapter books and we recently read Pinocchio (a big Disney version of mine from when I was a child). He has a fairtytale book which he loves choosing stories from too. His current favourite TV is Miniforce Super Dino Power (which is naff) although he has had recent loves for Rainbow Ruby, Super Why (which got him interested in letters finally), Starbeam and True and the Rainbow Kingdom (which I really enjoy). He loves Pokemon too - watching it, looking at his seek and find book or playing Pokemon Go on my phone. He enjoys all things superhero and likes Lego Marvel on the Xbox.
His current obsession is stones - he collects them and then piles or lines them up, cleans them and just generally carries them around (he's gone to bed with three tonight). He's also got really into jigsaws and can now do a 60 piece jigsaw with minimal (or no) help. He loves nature and is always asking what plants and flowers he can see so we've planed some wildflower seeds in the garden. He likes helping around the house and baking so I'm going to try and get him into cooking a little more soon in the hope of improving his diet.
His favourite people are Sam, Amy and Ezra - whenever we ask if he wants to see someone they are the ones he suggests. He also really loves his Nana and Papa (Lee and Jenny). He loves rough play, bouncing around, wrestling and crashing - presumably for the sensory input.
He very strongly dislikes me having any fun! I jest, but he gets very annoyed if I sing or dance or if Ant and I try to have any sort of meaningful conversation within earshot. He doesn't like the wind or rain so getting him outside for the last few months has been a challenge and even now it is May it is really rubbish weather! He has lots of sensory things that he doesn't like but generally he enjoys most things if presented to him in the right way.
