Three and a Half Years {Riley}

I don’t even know where to start with this post. Six months have passed since Riley turned 3 and SO much has happened. Bear with me while I ramble on and on about my firstborn for a bit.

Riley now weighs 35.6 pounds and stands about 41 inches tall. He mostly wears 3T clothes but can still fit into some 2T stuff. He wears a size 9 shoe.

He went through a phase when he didn’t want to drink his milk or eat very much, but he’s recently started pigging out. I think he’s growing. He still asks for sausage and cheese and pickle at most meals (although he does eat lots of other things), and he loves to snack on gummies, fruit strips, cheerios, and raisins.

He’s doing great in school, although he still complains about going. (More school updates next week.) In the beginning of the year, he was really whiny when he got home in the afternoons, but he adjusted to a shorter nap time fairly quickly and is now often super hyper when we get home.

He’s fully potty trained now, but he does still have the occasional accident at school, mostly because he doesn’t want to stop playing outside. He had lots of accidents the first month of school, often coming home in different pants and shoes. He would also race downstairs and into our room when his bladder would wake him up in the middle of the night, yelling “Mama! Daddy! I have to pee PEE!” That was a nightly thing for a couple of months but has luckily stopped. He holds it until the morning now.

He started saying “don’t let me” for things he doesn’t want to do, instead of “don’t make me.” Don’t let me take a bath, Mama. Don’t let me drink my milk. So cute.

Starting in mid-October, he sounds out what words start with: duh duh door, tuh tuh truck, etc. He knows his letters SO well. Ms. Amanda also teaches them alphabet chants for each new letter they study every week, and he loves those. (“Great Grandpa Gregory, grew whiskers to his knee. They grew around and round, they grew down to the ground.”)

When prompted with the first word, he can recite his nightly prayers all on his own. Lately, though, he has been wanting to say the school lunchtime prayer when he goes to bed, even ending with, “Now you may eat.” And then he says “Amen…..A-Riley, A-Rory, A-Mama, A-Daddy. Funny kid.

He makes up words constantly and has even somewhat developed his own language, which Kenny and I have taken to calling “alien.” We tell him all the time, “Sorry, we don’t speak alien.”

He still loves the color green (and also yellow). He still loves trucks. Any trucks. All. The. Trucks. He is hardheaded and stubborn just like me. He doesn’t always listen but he certainly has his own defined opinions about things. He is loud. He is rambunctious. He is really good at making messes in no time flat. He loves dirt but insists on wiping his hands and mouth 637 times during dinner. He is scary smart. He loves reading books at night before bed. He loves playing with his brother and is very sweet with him, most of the time.

Three and a half years old.

We love you so, so much, Riley-bean!