Daddy's Boy

Sometimes I like to look waaaaaay back in my phone at the pictures and videos of my E when he was a baby. I flip through them and smile and laugh and cannot believe he got so big so fast. E will be 3 1/2 in December. He is tall for his age, which means we have trouble finding pants that are long enough without falling right off his little booty. He is still an incredibly picky eater and continues to live mostly off of bread and milk with the occasional chicken nugget or order of fries thrown in. We add Pediasure to his milk, he drinks a watered down mix of V8 splash juice (the one with the sneaky veggies), and he takes vitamins. The pediatrician says he is healthy and growing fine, but his diet woes are really driving me crazy. There have been a few nights where all he will eat for dinner is goldfish and milk. I am trying to be okay with that....still trying. He is doing well at preschool and his teacher says he interacts with the other children and talks to them. I have to say that it is still very frustrating to me that I can often not tell if he does not understand me or if he is ignoring me. We still use both speaking and sign language at home. Sometimes I worry that we have not done enough to achieve fluency in either language. Other times, he expresses complex ideas in either sign or voice that leave us stunned and wondering where he has been hiding all of that. He continues to excel at word recognition. We are far beyond learning and writing the alphabet now. E has shown us that he is interested in spelling, reading, and sight word recognition. As I have mentioned in the past, rather than try to press him into any mold, we take cues from his interests and expand on them. One thing I can tell you for sure is that E is NOT going to do anything he is not interested in doing. You can bribe, reward, encourage, threaten, cry...it will not work. Anyway, when we noticed his interest in spelling and his ability to pick out familiar words, I downloaded a few spelling and sight word apps for his iPad. These apps say they are for 1st and 2nd graders. E loves them and is blasting right through the curriculum. I'm not saying my kid is a genius (at least not out loud *wink), but I definitely see that kids can accomplish fantastic things when you feed their interests!

For Halloween, we didn't know what E would be. All of the costumes in the stores were pretty lame for little boys. The options seemed to be superhero or ninja. E isn't into superheroes right now and I'm not sure he even knows what a ninja is. He has been very interested in fire trucks and firemen lately, so we thought a fireman's uniform might be a great costume. Well, it sure would have been if I was into paying $30-40 for something he would wear once or twice! E has recently discovered the joys of playing the Wii with his daddy. He loves to watch his daddy play Legend of Zelda and cheer him on. He tried playing it himself, but quickly became frustrated when he couldn't find his way out of the level. So, it occurred to me that I could easily make a Link costume (that's the main good guy character for those of you who were not raised in the Nintendo era). For a grand total of about $10, my little guy went as Link and my husband was beaming with nerdy pride.

E got to go trick-or-treating for the first time this year. Usually, we just do the festival at the church, but we took him around to a few friends' houses this year. He really loved it! He went trick-or-treating with his preschool class as well. One of the items he received in his bag was a little orange Gideon Bible. He has his own Bible, but this one was just his size. He has carried his little orange Bible all over the house and insists on sleeping with it!  He enjoys pretending to read it and have us read it to him. Just so you know, it is no easy task translate King James wording into sign language!

Many of you know that E loves Mickey Mouse. A couple of weeks ago, he informed me while watching "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse," that he actually loves Daisy. I'm not sure if it is because she wears purple (E's current favorite color) or if he just has a crush on a cartoon duck, but I posted his quip about Daisy to facebook. It wasn't long after that we got a call from my Mother-in-law telling us that she had found a stuffed Daisy Duck and bought it for E. When we went down for a family wedding, she presented E with his new Daisy. His reaction:

He gave Daisy a hug and a kiss and told us all that Daisy was his girlfriend :-) Daisy now has shares a space beside Mickey on his pillow at night. His bedtime collection includes a blankie, a panda bear, Mickey, Daisy, doggy, Cayman the turtle, his mini pillow pet, and his orange Gideon Bible. It's a good thing we went with the full size bed!

Lastly, a new and heartbreaking thing has occurred. I have been put aside in favor of Daddy. For the first time in over three years, E will tell me that he wants Daddy instead of Mommy. It doesn't happen every night, but I have been replaced at bath time. Occasionally, he even chooses Daddy for his nightly cuddles and prayer time. I know it shouldn't bother me and that my husband deserves baby cuddles too, but I find it really depressing. It is especially tough after I haven't seen him all day and I come home from work to find that Daddy the parent of choice for the night. Any other moms experienced this? How did you react? It's not that he wants Daddy, it's that he will actually push me away if I try to do something that he wants Daddy to do instead. Is it just a phase or the beginning of the boy's only club??