Parker - 3 years old!!!

Love the green smoothie uni-brow and stache

Lov'n the snow

Lov'n the warmth even better

This year Parker really understood what a birthday was. It was so fun to see his eyes light up when he realized everyone was singing to HIM!! When I asked him what kind of a cake he wanted he said, "White and green." He didn't mind I got a little carried away with color.

He must have really liked the cake because he hardly ever uses his hands to eat

At his 3 year check up he was 37 in and 32lbs.

Parker has been talking more. In public, I'm reminded that I know two languages, English and Parkerese. I do a lot of translating, but I think he is getting clearer, and his vocab is increasing. Sometimes his words are a little off like when he calls band aids - rubber bands, or apple sauce - sauce sauce sauce, or a magnifying glass - sun glass. It has been really fun knowing what he says.

Parker has started to like books more and more. Some of his favorites are his Frog and Toad and Curious George books, Are You My Mother?, and Danny and the Dinosaur. He could sit and listen to story after story if I let him. We recently got a Dr Seuss collection book from the library. I read him, If I Ran The Zoo, It was a rather long story, and I thought it was weird, but when I got done he said, "That was a fun story."

He know about half of the alphabet by sight. I sing the ABC song every time he washes his hands, but for the most part he just stares at me.

He can now consistently to count to 2 and occasionally 3 (I know brilliant). I recently started singing 5 Little Monkeys with him, and he fell in love with it so maybe we'll make some progress with numbers soon.

He knows a few colors - Black, White, and Orange. For the longest time I wondered if he wasn't colorblind, because he always got black and white right, but he called everything else pink. We got a game for Christmas that required him to match colors, and he could do that fine so I decided that wasn't the reason for his color confusion.

Parker loves Play do, cars, trains, blocks, Lego's and puzzles.

We also started playing some games together. He has a firm grasp of turning taking and is starting to understand following the rules of the games. The games we play are simple, and I often alter the rules so he can play with little help.

Now that it is getting warmer I'm reminded once again of his LOVE for rocks and sticks. I think our house is slowly filling up with them.

He is AFRAID of heights - a few weeks ago we were in the church parking lot and he started walking over a storm drain and literally froze with fear as he was over it. It was so funny, hopefully he didn't see me laughing as he was struggling with this fear.

He has spider radar and can find the smallest spider. He will then come running to tell me to kill it. Luckily usually the ones he notices are so small even I can tackle them.

Parker loves to play at the playground. He loves to climb, slide, swing, and jump. However it is always more fun when another kid is there. Often we are the only ones there and it gets pretty boring after awhile. We go a few times a week. I works out well that I'm training for a 1/2 marathon and only find it fair that we stop and play at the park during my runs.

On a typical day Parker will eat: a bowl of oatmeal, a banana, a bowl of apple sauce, a whole peanut butter and honey sandwich, an apple, one bite of dinner (unless it is pizza in which case he will eat 2 pieces) and 3-4 glasses of milk.

He is also potty training - it is going good. He is to a point where he will tell me when he needs to go, but still needs/wants help in the bathroom. The problems are going poop in the potty, and going when he is playing outside. I finally found a way to explain the difference between pee and poop to him. He would always say, "I poop again." whenever he would go, but he would only pee in the toilet. Well yesterday I started calling pee - yellow poop, and poop - brown or big poop. I think that will help. He has been really good about going pee, he even has days of no accidents. I haven't tackled night training yet, but he's often fine for nap time, so I'm hopeful for night training.

Parker is 3 and with that comes a lot of frustrations as well. For discipline He responds well to timeouts and counting to 3.