Jameson turned 3 a little over a month ago, and I’ve neglected to talk about how our 3 year old preschooler is doing daily. He loves to tell us that he goes to preschool, and even demonstrated how teachers read books by doing it with Coraline and Sasha.

What Jameson is Wearing:

• Size 24 month pants (mostly for the waistband). He has a few in the 2T size, which fit better lengthwise for sure, but the cinching straps are pulled pretty tight!
• 2T shits, but 3T looks okay if a little big on him. Loves to wear sweatshirts because they’re soft.
• Size 2T-3T Pull ups at night, but big boy underwear all day, everyday!
• Two piece penguin pajamas any nights they’re clean.
• Chapstick from Aunt Melissa

What Jameson is Eating:

• Meatballs, chicken nugget, hot dog, and most any meat he can eat with ketchup and only with ketchup
• Meemaw’s spaghetti, but for the most part he only eats a bite of it anywhere else
• Cucumbers and carrots with ranch
• Baby oranges (the biggest of the baby oranges)
• “Special” yogurts. These come in the tubes and are special because we used to only let him have them on the weekend. He has them everyday now for convenience and because he stopped eating the kind with fruit on the bottom. We try to stick with the greek tube yogurts without characters all over them (my request)
• Tootsie roll treats for wiping himself on the potty and having no accidents overnight (that last one doesn’t happen frequently right now)
• Most candy, except skittles and hard candies which we don’t let him have.
• Not a big fan of trying all of his food. There is usually a lot of negotiating. Threats to go to bed or no TV don’t seem to work. I don’t require a clean plate, but we try to have him try everything on his plate every night.
• Granola bars, which are becoming a problem right now since he wants them all the time.
• Cheeseburgers from McDonalds (only those, cheeseburgers anywhere else he barely touches even when he says he wants them)
• Orange juice and cranberry juice.

What Jameson is Saying:

• Jameson is starting to tell stories and “lies” though he doesn’t know them as such. He insisted he peed in his clothes at the end of school, I guessed so that he could change into PJs at home. He also told us he flew in a helicopter for vacation after seeing one in a book.
• He loves to pretend to be a monster and scare or surprise us in the morning or before bed.
• He can count up to the teens, then they get all mixed up. They work on numbers up to 20 at school.
• When recounting his day at school, the first thing out of his mouth is always “Logan came back!” and “Nathan came back!” even though they are both full time kids and also “come back” everyday.
• A recent favorite conversation, about nutrition week at school on the day they learned about fats and sweets.

“Jameson, did you learn about fats today?”
“They’re bad”
“Are candy fats?”
“No, candy is good to eat!”
“What kinds of food are bad?”
“Hmmm… Broccoli is bad!”

What Jameson Likes These Days:

• Reading stories at bedtime, as many as we will read to him. And when those are done, he sometimes looks for “song books” for us to sing to him in bed. Books he likes include most of the library books we bring home, his vacation book with pictures from vacation last September, his new Thomas the Tank Engine books, his big long Dinosaur book from Christmas… really I could go on. He likes so many of his books.
• TV Shows: Handy Manny, Jake & The Neverland Pirates, less of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood unless it’s a new one, Sophia the First (it’s not one he requests but he likes it when its on)
• Movies: Monsters Inc & University, Lion King, Toy Story (he cried while watching Toy Story 3–because the bad babydoll was crying. I don’t think he understood the baby doll was bad), Tinkerbell, The Lorax on the ipad.
• The ipad, games and mostly the PBS show app where he can pick what he wants to watch, which isn’t usually the same thing we watch on TV. On the ipad, he frequently selects Super Why and Clifford The Big Red Dog.
• Playing soccer, which we just started this month. He likes to wear his shin guards.
• “Playing” with Coraline (on his terms) or making her laugh.
• Big boy underwear to bed. He never gets it, so he wants it. We tell him we need him to practice calling for mommy and daddy at night, which he has only done once a couple months ago.
• Listening to skidamarinkadinkadink and two Christmas songs which we can’t get away from: Rudolf and the 12 Days of Christmas
• Puzzles! Every since Meemaw and I did a puzzle over Christmas break.
• He little bear Duffy, his brown blanket, and then he alternates between loving on his midsize bear Bobby or the other two little bears.
• Doing the recycling. He loves to throw the recycling boxes out into the garage. Dad also let him give Sasha water the other day. Starting those chores early!

What Jameson Doesn’t Like These Days:

• Napping at home, not even resting unless he’s really exhausted or ill. He still naps at daycare 4 out of 5 days a week, but gave up naps at home a year ago.
• Trying food, or really, sitting still to eat at all.
• Being told “no” or “not right now” in any way, particularly with watching his TV shows or having snacks before dinner.
• Drinking milk
• Occasionally insisting on NO songs before bed, for some reason he doesn’t want this as much anymore. When he does want a song, it’s always Old McDonald who has a turkey, rooster or pig.
• Kisses from Sasha (haha)

What Jameson is Doing:

• Going potty without having any accidents, unless he gets too wrapped up in playing and he has a little one. But otherwise we don’t need to tell him ever.
• Hugs, kisses, high fives and knuckles with his friends and family for greeting and saying goodbyes.
• Cleaning up messes from Coraline eating with his broom and dust pan or toy vacuum.
• Practicing using a knife. We got him new plasticwear utensils which included relatively dull knives which he loves to use to cut his food.
• Making Coraline laugh
• Stalling before bedtime.
• Having sleepovers with Aunt Melissa where they get to do all kinds of fun things like go to the bounce house center, playgrounds, and the movies.
• He has seen his first movie at the theater with Lily, her mom and myself, and then another one with Aunt Melissa! He sits on our lap and sits perfectly for the entire movie.

What We Are Working On:

• Cleaning up and putting things away when we are done with them. Sometimes he does this voluntarily and suprises me but I’d love to see it more consistent. He really is a good helper when he focuses on the task.
• Sharing his toys with his sister, and even her own toys which he likes to play with too.
• Sharing TV time.
• Trying food, or really, sitting still to eat at all.
• Calling for mommy and daddy at night when he needs to go potty. However, he is a very deep sleeper and we cannot wake him enough to try and help him learn this in the middle of the night.
• Apologizing after not listening to mommy and daddy. We are struggling with how to handle his tantrums, whether he needs quiet time or a time out (depending on whether hitting was involved in the tantrum) and trying to teach him to count to ten to help him calm down. This is not a frequent thing, and mostly happens when he doesn’t have a nap and is overtired.

And then I decided to do a little interview with him, so he could tell us his favorite things in his own words. However, I think most of what came out of his mouth was what popped in his head first. Haha! He also couldn’t really focus much on me, and ran around like a crazy monkey. I think this is typical toddler, but was pretty funny so I am glad I video recorded it.

Here are the questions, though I didn’t get to ask all of them before he got so distracted he stopped answering.

What is your name? Jameson Charles Thomas
How old are you? 3
What is your favorite color? Brown (Often this is actually orange but he calls it brown sometimes, especially when he turns on his stars at night with the Twilight Turtle)
What is your favorite animal? A horse
What is your favorite book? Pete the Cat
What is your favorite TV show? Handy Manny
What is your favorite movie? Lion King
What is your favorite song? Muffin Man (not sure where this one came from!)
What is your favorite food? Macaroni
What food do you not like? Grilled Cheese (he actually tends to like this, but claimed he was “too big” for it in this interview)
What is your favorite drink? Orange Juice
What is your favorite snack? Cranberries (which he never has had… he usually selects a granola bar, candy, fruit snacks or nuts lately)
What makes you laugh? Coraline
What is your favorite thing to wear? Sweatshirt
What is your favorite game? Raisins (what…)
What is your favorite toy? A football (he actually doesn’t really have a football or play with it inside, I wonder if he was thinking of soccer)
Who is your best friend? Nathan (in the past he has volunteered that Lily is his best friend as well)
What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Big Corduroy (this is his enormous bear he got from Santa, and he does not sleep in his bed so that was interesting. I was really surprised he did not say Duffy)
Where is your favorite place to go? Here (the top of the couch, which I only let him up on because I was trying to get this interview done, haha!)
Where do you want to go on vacation? To see Mickey Mouse
What do you like to do with your family? Hide (he was hiding behind the couch)
What do you want to be when you grow up? A baby
What did you do when you were little? Play with Coraline
What do you like to do now that you are big? Turn on the fireplace (which we really don’t let him do without close supervision…)
What is your favorite thing to learn in school? Nathan
What is your favorite thing to remember? I tried this but stopped getting answers.
What do you want to buy with your money? Didn’t get to ask this
What is the thing you do the most awesomely? Didn’t get to ask this