celebrate three-ness!

He is now four!

he was just amazing today. We rode bikes in the park after school. There is a lazy river on one side of the path…there’s a bit of a grassy bank before you’d fall into it, but not a huge amount. So, I walked next to him just to put both our minds at ease. We had a nice conversation about something unmemorable, but pleasant. Big brother was far ahead, at his own pace. Anyway, here’s what I heard from him:

“I’m not STARED.” “I AM NOT stared.” “I’m NOT stared!” Whenever he got to a challenging part, that’s what he repeated to himself, over and over. And battled through it.

I didn’t teach him that. Those are his own words spoken with more determination that I can muster up most days.

The kid’s been through a lot…tons of hospital visits, attacks, treatments, etc..over the course of his young life. Is that how he’s been dealing with things? I AM NOT SCARED, repeated over and over. I just wonder. Because, generally, when I’m holding and consoling the five year old for every little hump, bump and hurdle, this guy has been left to fend for himself repeatedly in many ways. Because he never asks for help and generally, refuses it when given.

It was impressive watching him battle up those hills on his own power. Biking Dad would be proud.

(from what I saw…we do have about 14 in our room, so I obviously did not see it all)

1. He started by making a food chain out of different pond animals and plants.

2. A little girl came in with 21 pictures she’d drawn at home….all this morning before school and announced, “I’m going to hang these up.” Oops, not in a Montessori school, baby, at least from what I understand to be true. Hmmmm….my three year old helped her hang them out in the hall….they made a nice row. She was so excited and I wish I could write more about all of the neat things we did with them during the course of the morning.

3. Then they counted them together. (#1-21)

4. He wanted to do a subtraction work, but the prerequiste for this one was number writing. He settled on tracing the numbers 1 -13 that were written on a turtle shell worksheet.

4. He decided to cut out the turtle shell. First, we practiced walking with scissors safely. Around the ellipse two times.

5. Then he wanted to add legs and a head. He then cut those out.

6. After I helped him glue them on, he decided to put the turtle on his head and wear it as a hat.

7. He wore his turtle hat over in the Sensorial Area where he worked with the color boxes and graded them.

8. He got upset because the hat kept falling off, so we punched holes in it and tied it with string under his chin.

9. I saw him bebopping around from work to work, commenting on this, noticing that. In his turtle hat.

That was his day.

Just came across an entry from last year when he thought that every word that began with a “C” personally belonged to him.

He can write the C now, and is usually content with just that…but when we went on vacation and it came time for postcard writing, I was surprised to see him meticulously print out a few letters….random ones that he knows are in his name, none of them in order, all of them correctly present….a spidery E with too many lines (like four or five legs coming off of it, a gigantic H….he got about five of them independently, I supplied the rest.

I think it’s so interesting that he knows his name, can identify it, knows what letters are in it, but doesn’t say or write them in order, mixes them about, places them all over the paper.

He also can identify all of the other kids’ names in the classroom. Comes to gripe at the kid who had snack and left crumbs and his name card at the table, helps the two year old find her name in the stack. Says, That’s ___’s work!! Don’t touch it!! (after seeing name card)

He is so amazing to me because he really does have focus…he concentrates so well. At our school, however, he sort of flits from thing to thing. He is more engaged with the other kids. Watches this person work and that person work…I often wonder what the heck HE works on each day, aside from supervising all of the others. But then he and I sit down and I show him something….it’s hard for him not to grab the material from me….he says, it’s an E-WHIPSE, Mommy…NOT an oval!! He points to the vertex of a triangle and says, ANGLE, Momma. After he tells me what he knows, he ambles off to somewhere else. Usually I say nothing to him, just listen to what he needs to tell me.

I have him for two more years after this one, before he heads off to Kindergarten. It’s going to be interesting to see where we end up from here.

EDIT: where we go from here is trying to figure out to get the point across that an ellipse IS an oval, but ovals are not always ellipses. Blargh.

had a FIT when the three of us tried to play Chinese Checkers….jumped ten spaces at a time, moved three guys at once, took numerous turns…screamed AHHHHH…BE TWY-ET! when we tried to correct him….tried to throw the board across the room when we told him he had to move some pieces.

Onto another game. I played the first game of regular checkers with the five year old by the rules….then it was “___’s Rules” (no rules) and we just cracked up laughing at how the game turned out. Here’s what he did: Moved backwards, forwards, sideways, on both red and white spaces, refused to relinquish his men when jumped, kinged himself several times for the heck of it. It was just a free for all and I did the best I could.

Whew. Still it was all good for some laughs. Just had to give in to it, and encourage the five year old to do the same.

Oddly enough, he got himself completely dressed this morning, made his own breakfast and his own bed. Yes, he made his own bed so well (sheets and all) that I don’t even need to straighten anything. The five year old did none of those things (without prodding).

I love the contradictions of a three year old. Priceless.

three year old are paradoxical….on the one hand, they’ve got a pretty good grip on the world, so they feel quite certain that they know it all. They’re wise already, you know?

But then…the things they say!! Which make perfect sense in a certain context but are just a little off….which makes this age unintentionally funny and endearingly sweet.

No…I CAN”T give you an example right now. But I’ll concentrate harder tomorrow!

I don’t write so much about the three year old, although I do find him to be fascinating.

I want to observe him more…he is less overt than his brother.