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For a second year in a row, I’m late with posting this, aren’t I. Thankfully, this year the three of us did not spend Ian’s birthday sick and he was able to have a grand ole birthday party (with a Spiderman and Batman theme) with the entire family.  One of the things we got Ian for his birthday this year was his very own camera and boy does he love it. Within the first day, he had well over 200 pictures taken.  Yes, we got him a real digital camera, but it’s made from Fisher Price and it does everything a cheap camera will do – take photos, preview photos taken, on camera deletion and a USB cord to upload them to the computer.  He loves taking pictures and hasn’t asked to use mine since he got his.  Score one for both of us.

But before I get to more of that, let’s get the well checkup out of the way first.  At his 3 year check up, Iwan weighted in at 30.5 lbs, which puts him just over 3 lbs heavier than at his 2year check up (he was 27.25 lbs) and this puts him in the 50th percentile for his age group. In other words, my little man is perfectly fit, at least I think so.  As for his height, Ian only gained 2 inches in the last year.  He came in at 36.5 inches long and last year he was 34.5 (but at the time of this post, he’s eating like a weed so I wouldn’t be surprised if he shoots up soon).  Either way, he’s only in the 25th percentile for his age group.  The doctor asked how tall Jesse was and at 5ft 7in, Jesse is also in the 25th percentile for his age group, so its possible Ian is going to get his daddy’s height.  However, the teenage years are still ahead of us (though thankfully not that close), so he still has plenty of time to get some more height on him.  At this point, they stopped measuring his head, so I can’t tell you what it is, but his noggin is definitely getting bigger. Ian is one smart cookie and we’re constantly being told that, which means our retirement plan is in full affect.  *grin*  Ian was all caught up on his immunizations, so he didn’t get any dreaded shots this time around.

I know I’ve been terrible about reporting things over the last year, but let’s see if I can’t make up for some of that now.  The two biggest things that have happened this past year are: Ian has became potty trained and he started preschool.  Can I say that I’m thrilled that he took to potty training so easily?  Considering he was one of those babies who didn’t care if his diaper was wet, I really thought we were going to have a rougher time with it.  As for the preschool, it was great during the winter months for both of us.  He got his socializing in and neither of us got cabin fever.  That was my biggest fear and the reason he did end up going.  This fall, however, is going to be a lot more interesting.  I’ll actually have to worry about snow days and school delays.

So last year, once it started getting warm out, Jesse and I got Ian his first bike.  Well, he got his first and second bike the same day.  We found this really nifty Thomas the Train two-wheeler with training wheels that Ian loved in the store.  According to the box, it said it was for 2 years and up, but the placement of the peddles were not in a good place.  Ian started doing his favorite phrase at that time “fix it”, but alas, we were not able to do so.  So we ended up trading it in for a good old fashion tricycle.  Ian really hasn’t mastered it yet, but he’s getting there.  During the winter, we brought it in the house and he was riding it around in the living room along with his scooter, so once we get it outside, I think he’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly.

I am so proud of my monkey – he was able to sing his ABCs before his 2.5 birthday. So in the past year, he has not only learned all of his ABCs, but he can point them out and is already trying to figure out words.  He is actually recognizing words which is awesome and knows how to spell his own name.  He can’t write it, but he’s already trying that too.  Honestly, if we can continue on this path, something tells me he’ll be reading by his next birthday – he already wants to, he takes books with him to bed every night and LOVES reading.

Another thing Ian has taken to this past year is art.  He loves making projects. We started out small with painting $1 wooden items from JoAnns and Michaels to mastering the art of tye-dying and finally getting to the point where he wants to cut and glue things together.  He loves painting and that’s been his gift-giving trend for the past year as I’m sure the grandparents and Aunt Lori has already noticed.  The tye-dying was completely accidentally as I was doing it to get some more life out of old wash clothes, but he just latched onto the idea of painting his clothes.  To date, he has painted his underwear, socks, shirts, bags and even one of my bras.  One of the best things, I think, we did for him was to enroll him in preschool this past year.  They make all sorts of projects at school and he loves it.  Since he’s birthday, he’s really been into using scissors so I think I need to come up with some pretty basic cutting projects for him this summer – nothing too fancy since he really can’t cut a straight line.

Ian has a huge curiosity level, which I love, but it makes him want to help all the time.  It’s actually great because he’s learning so much, but he does take mama and daddy a little longer to do things.  One of the things Ian loves helping with is the garden.  He’s all about getting out there and helping daddy weed (which daddy loves and hates since Ian hasn’t figured out what are weeds yet) and spreading out the grass seed.  We started reseeding the lawn last summer and that meant a lot of throwing of seeds – Ian loves helping with that.  We have to watch him whenever we have an open bag of grass seed as he’ll start throwing it out when we’re not trying to do it.  The boys have already started mapping out this years garden and have started an indoor greenhouse to get the seedlings ready.  Ian has been all over watching them grow and checking on them daily.

Last year, Ian and I spent a lot of time at the zoo, but this past year, he wasn’t about to take naps near the lions exhibit like he did the previous year.  He was more curious and wanted to see everything.  The good thing was we purchased a zoo membership so going and then leaving after only a few short hours wasn’t so bad.  The only thing I wished the Detroit Zoo had was a petting area, but Ian did get to pet his first goat when we went to the Binder Park Zoo.  Ian was also able to get to feed the goats, but he wasn’t as crazy about that.  Being mobbed by a bunch of little billy goats probably had a lot to do with that, but he still had a blast being in the pen with them and it was hard to get him out.  The zoo was a favorite trip for Ian last year and we have plans to go as often as we can this year as well.

Over the last year, Ian has definitely begun to form his own opinions.  He knows what he likes and he wants what he wants.  To kind of commemorate his first “favorites”, I tried my hand at making a quilt using his fave characters and I have to say it came out pretty good.  Okay, so maybe this isn’t such a milestone for him, but he got his first homemade quilt from mama last summer and that’s something to be remembered.  It is still one of his favorite blankets to date.

Something I probably did forget to mention, Ian went down his first waterslide last summer. The Troy Aquatic Center has a great kiddie section which includes this small slide that is perfect for the younger ones.  He loved LOVED the slide and I couldn’t keep him off of it (or waiting for his turn).  He loves being in the water and he was actually at an age to enjoy more than the first time we had went.  As for the slide, no, I didn’t have a problem with him going down it since there were lifeguards at the top and bottom of the slide.  In fact, I actually took advantage of that.  Ian had never been dunked in the water before and I figured with a lifeguard right there, what better time to do it.  So, about 30 minutes before I planned on leaving, I asked the lifeguard if she wouldn’t catch him right away.  She figured out what I was about and had no problem doing it.  However, he so didn’t like that. I couldn’t get him near the slide after that, but I did manage to make him go down it two more times before we left and he started warming up to it again.  In preparation for this summer, he’s currently taking some swim lessons, but I’ll get more into that later since it’s a 3 year thing.

Towards the end of summer, Jesse and I introduced Ian to the art of bumper bowling and boy did he take to it.  He loves the idea of throwing a ball down a lane and hitting a bunch of pins. Granted, he’s not that good at it, but he has no problem getting help from daddy or mama.  We’ve managed to take him a couple of times (including for his third birthday) and all you have to say is bumper bowling and he’s asking when are we going.

Another first for Ian this past year was his very own remote controlled vehicle.  This one happened to be a helicopter and boy did he have a blast with it.  Jesse and Ian each had one and they would disappear into the park out back for a good hour flying their helicopters until the batteries ran out (which did not make Ian happy as he wanted to continue flying them).  Considering this helicopter was meant for the 6+ crowd, I have to say that Ian working it was quite impressive.  He did a lot of dive bombing, but he kept it in the air for a bit each time.  Alas, it wasn’t meant to hold up to a 2year old and it was soon retired to the trash heap after a month or two.  However, Jesse still has his and the two continue to fly that one around the basement all the time.

For Halloween, Ian figured out the deal and was the cutest little dinosaur ever.  It only took him one house to figure out to head up to the porch and he was given free candy.  Oh, you should have seen his face when he realized this.  By the third house, he was running to get to the next one.  We did manage to get a little farther than we had the year before, but we didn’t get as far as daddy wanted.

Ian did something this past year that I thought was a few years off yet.  He went to his first stage show and boy did he surprise me.  We ended up getting free tickets to Disney Live! Rockin’ Road Trip, and after spending a little to get out of the nosebleed seats, Ian and I had a really great time.  He really shocked me by sitting quietly through the entire first half.  The intermission kind of killed that has he figured out that he could get up and dance and move around a bit, but he still behaved a lot better than I thought he would.  He definitely earned another trip to a stage show in the future.

So that’s it for this past year.  Ian is learning more and more things, but they don’t seem as monumental as when he was a lot smaller. They seem more like natural occurrences, which is the main reason why I haven’t kept his site updated as much.  I’ll try and do better this year.  Although, that’s going to be a little trickier with two blogs to keep updated.