Zane Updates

Zane is 3 years and 4 months old now. I know I've said this a million times, but he seriously just could not be sweeter. He randomly tells me throughout every day, "Mommy, I love you so much." He tells Zack and Emmy that too and says he loves his family, stuffed animals, friends, etc. He gives us kisses and hugs and snuggles a lot during each day too.

He loves playing with Emerson now, for the most part. He is getting better at sharing and including her in what he's doing and playing. Sometimes, he gives her too many hugs or chases her too much and she gets sick of it. But it's cute because he knows when she's grumpy and he'll say, "Emmy's grumpy and wants me to leave her alone." Then usually he does but sometimes he still bugs her ( I think to purposely push her buttons).

He constantly tries to understand Emerson and interpret for me. He asks a ton of clarifying questions after she says something he doesn't understand to figure it out and then is sure to tell me what she's trying to say. Sometimes, I even ask him what he thinks she said if I couldn't understand and usually he knows.

He's been doing more helping around the house and just doing more independently in general. He puts his own clothes in the dirty basket, picks out his own pajamas for the night, puts on clean underwear every morning right when he wakes up, brushes his teeth and scrubs himself in the bath, and gets dressed totally by himself (shoes and socks and everything). He puts his milk cup back in the fridge after meals, and is learning how to carry his plate over to the dishwasher. He helps clean up toys pretty well, helps bake and cook. He's getting so big.

One of his new catch phrases is following up sentences with "And that's really the truth!" He also likes to repeat the word "really" to emphasize something being big or a lot.

He understands numbers and counting really well now. He can truly count almost any object (people, pictures, whatever) up to about 15 and almost always gets it right now. He barters with me on how many minutes left to play or how many pieces of candy he should get. He knows when he should ask for more or less depending on the situation.

He used to ask why about everything and wait for an answer, but now he still asks why about everything but comes up with his own possibilities for what the answer could be. For example, he asked why our brakes were squealing the other day. He answered by himself by saying "Maybe we used them too much and they're wearing out. Maybe a part fell off and we need a new one..." and kept coming up with smart answers that made total sense.

He's a hard core reader. He recognizes books and remembers titles and authors. He can almost always guess who wrote a new book if it's by an author he knows. Same with illustrators. He doesn't remember all their names, but he says, "I think it's written by the same author that wrote The Very Hungry Caterpillar." He also can list a bunch of books by the same author. He's starting to recognize some words too. He can read the word "no" when he sees it in any book, and he likes when a character is sleeping and it says, "zzzzzzz." He also has so many books memorized that it seems like he's reading them. I LOVE that during the days, he'll so often say, "That reminds me of when the Berenstain Bears ____" or something like that. He learns so much from reading - I love it.

He got to do an announcement at church a couple of weeks ago and got to talk on the microphone. He remembered what I asked him to say and did really well. He told me right before he went on stage, "I'm super excited to talk on the microphone!"

He tries to use big words and sometimes it just doesn't make any sense at all. The other day he said, "I'll play the cymbals, you play the drums, and Emmy will play the giraffe compactor, I mean contractor." I have no idea what he meant. :)

He comes up with big elaborate games. This morning he and was dragging Emmy along to Disney World. He picked some friends to come along, they packed their bags, got on the airplane (couch), buckled up, and flew to Disney World. He even came and asked me for some money so he would have enough to go. When they got their, they rode all the imaginary rides and talked about each on they were on, describing what they were and what they were like. They even packed a lunch and stopped to eat a picnic. (All Zane's ideas).