This guy is our favorite three year old around. Seriously, he's just the best. He makes everyone better for being around him. He's funny, sweet, and the best brother around. He makes me smile every single day. We are so lucky to have his sweet spirit in our family.
Official Stats: (I lost these! Ugh. Hopefully I'll find them and update this.)
Unofficial stats: Mostly size 2T things, especially pants. Some 3T shirts fit (only slightly loose). Size 7 shoes. Size 4 diapers (except: potty trained now!) Doesn't have all of his molars, but all of his other teeth have grown in. (Clothing in his 3 year pictures were 18 month pants and a 2T shirt.)
Some things about Austin at three years old:
-I have to be honest, the #1 item on this list has got to be how much he loves his little brother. He's such a good big brother and is the perfect mix of "gentle and kind", "watch- if I put my fingers in his mouth he tries to eat them", and "but he likes it when I do a somersault on top of him!" Ha.
If item #1 on the list is how much he loves his brother, item #2 is how much he loves playing with his sister. They play really well together. Sometimes it is running from the kitchen fridge to the love seat, sometimes it is building blocks or playing with paw patrol pups. No matter what it is he thinks his big sister is pretty great and she loves doing things with him.
-He enjoys swimming very much. At the beginning of the summer he was a fairly nervous swimmer, but he got really comfortable swimming around in his puddle jumper and asked to go to the pool often. Sometimes he would follow Lydia around and they would play together, other times he was just as happy to play by himself in the water.
We worked on potty training this last month! Austin was really ready, and although I was dragging my feet - we bunkered down and made it happen. He was already pretty ready, but an M&M for going pee, a Peanut M&M for going poop, and a Caramel M&M for mom anytime either of those happened made the whole thing go a lot smoother (sweeter? ha.). When he started only going half his pee/poop so he could get a treat, then going back in to finish so he could get a second treat- we decided to have a potty treat party and eat all the rest of the treats. Also, his big prize that he was so excited about was a new helmet for him to use when riding his bike. I'd say potty training was a success for this guy.
-He's my little buddy and enjoys running errands, going to the library, and is so good in the car and while we are out and about. He can do his seatbelt straps if I give him long enough. He likes to climb in and out of the van by himself and wishes that he could push the button to close his door after he is already strapped into his seat (which, he can't).
-He has almost endless energy and loves to run aroundbut can also sit still and work on a task (toy/craft) for an incredible amount of time. He likes to play with play-doh, with his trains, his blocks or with his car track. He also loves to put things in a line. He will pull all the cans out of the pantry and make a line across the kitchen/family room, and the other day he helped me put the food on the conveyor belt at the store and I laughed when I saw that he'd made a big line. It's so him at this stage.
-I (Shantel) took him on a date at the beginning of this month and he has talked about it several times (at random times) since then. It's so nice to spend some one on one time with him, because for all that he is a wonderful brother - he's also a very special little boy and sometimes it's good for him to know that he's special all on his own.
-He sings this darling song "I... am... Austin-Scott-Peaden boop-boop buh-buh". Or when you ask him what his name is he says "Austin-Scott-Peaden". I really love it.
-He basically wants to say every prayer. If someone else starts praying, he just starts repeating their words loud enough that they automatically slow down and say a sentence at a time so he can repeat their words. My favorite thing to hear him repeat are "and be kind" and "be like jesus". When he prays on his own, he says very thoughtful prayers about being grateful for the people that we are with, or the things we were able to do, or that "daddy will be safe coming home". But at the end of every single prayer he ends with his amen long and drawn out "Aaaaaaaaaa-mmmmmmmmeeeeeennnnn" while he slowly opens his folded arms and raises them above his head like a sun. It's so funny, and although we've put a kibosh on either Lydia or Austin doing irreverent things during the prayer, especially at the beginning of the prayer - we just can't help letting him get away with the "amen" part. It's just so cute.
-Asks "May I be excused" (may-I-be scuuuuzed?) when he'd done eating dinner and it's the cutest thing. Such good dinner-manners.
-I kind of love him running around in just his underwear.
-One of my most successful time-filling activities with him is freezing little plastic animals in bags of water, then letting the kids take them in the back yard to get the ice to melt. I'd say it's a parenting win.
-He loves presents - and the week leading up to his birthday he asked me almost every day when he was going to be able to open his presents.
-Austin loves playing and Grandma and Grandpa Peaden's house. He knows that Grandpa will give him a fruit snack and read him a book. (He asks for his fruit snack almost immediately after arriving there.) We are certainly blessed with wonderful grandparents for our children.
-Also, he loves books. His favorite book is the "puff-puff chug-chug" book (The Little Train that Could). He also loves the "How to Train your Train" book. We got a "Lucky Ducky" (fiction) book and a "Street Sweepers" (non-fiction) book at the library and he loved them both. When it was time to take them back to the library, he was understanding but sad. Then he walked around the bookshelves looking for another copy of them both. After being unable to convince him to pick a different book, we went back up to the main desk and asked if they would dig them out of the drop box so we could borrow them again.
-He insists on doing things by himself. He is pretty good at pouring his milk (if the gallon is at least half-empty), but sometimes it gets away from him. Childhood is supposed to be messy, right?
-I took him pre-shopping for birthday presents to see what he wanted. Of all the things on the wall - he found this cleaning cart and loved it. I laughed. We ended up not getting this cart - because he decided that he'd rather have a little vacuum instead. And he's really happy with it.
-He qualifies most things with I'm little/I'm big depending on the size that is needed. "I'm big, I can do this! Cuz, I'm big!" or "I'm little I can fit in this box. See I'm little."
-Says "I like hot things" and "I like spicy things" which are both true. It's the best at dinner time when he goes to take a bite of food that's still a little too hot and he says "but it's okay, because I like hot things." Or when he asks for more salsa because "I like spicy things!"
-He fell and chipped his front tooth one day when he was washing his hands in the bathroom. He was pretty upset, not really crying - but definitely worried. As soon as I realized what happened I snuggled with him and called the dentist. He got us in first thing the next morning and within a half hour the dentist had examined the tooth and fixed the chip. I realized about the time that we were leaving the office that I didn't get a single picture of his chipped tooth, and now it looks exactly the same. Ha. I'm grateful for good insurance and medical procedures. It wouldn't have been terrible to leave it, but he's much happier with a whole tooth again.
-We took family pictures at the same time we did Austin's 3 year photos, and the low-light was Austin faceplanting into the mud. He was running away toward the park when I called for him. He looked over his shoulder and smack landed right into a huge bog of mud. Yikes. I asked the photographer to take a couple of pictures - because isn't that something you laugh about years later?
-Loves his daddy. The other day at like 10 in the morning he was like "I hear Daddy! Daddy is home!" I think he thought he heard the garage door going up. It took a lot for me to convince him that David was still at work, and he was pretty disappointed. David is so good at playing with him and making him laugh and treating him like he's so important. I love to watch the two of them together and I'm glad they have each other.
(From David): The thing that I will remember most about Austin at age 3 is his abounding positive energy. He has an infectious smile and it is impossible not to join him.
We love you our Austin-boy. Happy three years!
