When he's good, he's very very good, but. . .

Jonathan's a total three year old, all highs and lows. He thrives with constancy and his first report card had "Mastered" checked off in the category "days of the week." Today he happily walked us through it - Monday is New Library Day. Tuesday is Share Day at school and Wednesday is special - Museum and Date Night! Friday is generally Old Library Day and Saturday is breakfast at Dino's.

Share Day, known to older generations as Show and Tell, usually involves bringing a book to school. Toys are verboten, or Jonathan would bring a truck most weeks. But he's usually happy to select a book to share with the class. And he's got plenty to choose from. I don't think I ever had Scholastic catalogues growing up, but they're a lot of fun. Brookview doesn't require us to peddle wrapping paper around the neighborhood, so I make sure to buy a lot of books each month to keep the fundraisers happy.

He's got a bookshelf full upstairs, and it's starting to interfere with his naps. Some days, it's clear he needs a nap, as he falls asleep into his lunch. Other days, however, Jonathan heads up for naptime as a matter of policy, not because he looks particularly tired. Those are the days when he might not nap at all. The door to his room stays closed, and at first, all is quiet. But go closer and listen and you'll hear something. It's Jonathan walking over to his shelf, selecting a book, bringing it back and reading it to himself. At the end of a two hour "nap", he'll often have twenty books piled precariously on the nightstand beside his bed.

So that's my sweet little boy, growing every day. Then there's the three year old lows. The temper tantrums get longer, louder, and stormier. This weekend we had a doozy. We went over to Beth and Tyler's for lunch on Sunday. Jonathan was just recovered from a bout of stomach flu, and Sylvia had an ear infection, so both were pretty subdued. Rather than running all over the house, they stayed and played with the dollhouse and picked at their lunch. He must have had fun, though, because he flat-out refused to put his shoes on when it was time to go. Preschool has been asking that we be consistent with this - Montessori schools are big on dressing independently. So after a few minutes asking Jonathan to get his shoes on, and him flopping on the floor and saying "No!", I picked him up and carried him out the car in his socks.

You would have thought I made him walk barefoot through the snow. He completely freaked out. He screamed the whole way home, and - make room on the therapist's couch right now - it was pretty hard not to laugh at times. "You MUST put my shoes on RIGHT NOW! I don't have my shoes on! I want my shoes! Give them to me! Arrrrgh! I! WANT! MY! SHOES!" He was still screaming when we got home and Chris carried him up to bed in his jacket. He continued storming for another few minutes until Chris brought the jacket back upstairs. He zipped it on Jonathan and let Jonathan take it off and hang it up. Then, satisfied (and worn out) he went to sleep - with no books at all this time.

Let's Play Together

One thing I'm really looking forward to this year is for Alex and Jonathan to really start playing together. Alex loves to watch Jonathan and tries to get involved in anything his big brother is doing. Understandably, this can be intensely annoying for a three year old set on constructing a train track or completing a puzzle. Jonathan still needs a lot of redirection - his default is to push Alex away or, failing that, to tackle him into submission.

This past week, Jonathan was playing with the puzzle blocks, small plastic cubes that can be arranged to form six different pastoral scenes. Alex of course came charging over and grabbed a few. I was playing on the floor with them and thought I'd try something new before Jonathan earned himself a timeout. I told Jonathan "Let's play together with Alex."

First we encouraged Alex to explore the blocks. He took one in each hand and banged them together, and we gave him a round of applause for "making music." Jonathan and I each banged a set too, and Jonathan danced and squinted like Jon Bon Jovi during a guitar solo. We even cooperated by banging against each other's blocks. Alex had an enormous grin to be playing with his big brother and Jonathan didn't seem to mind that the puzzle wasn't being solved.

Jonathan's very good at building tall block towers - really good, actually. Twelve or fifteen blocks high is not big deal for him. So I had him build a tower on the coffee table while I held Alex. The puzzle blocks are so light, with nice straight sides and sharp edges - perfect for tower work. Once Jonathan had a tower, we let Alex go. He walked right over to it and fluttered his hands near the base, looking back and forth and me and Jonathan. Finally he pushed it over with a crash! Jonathan cheered and clapped, I clapped, and Alex looked delighted. Jonathan must have built forty towers that night, and let Alex knock them all over.

What's YOUR game?

Jonathan comes up with some random stuff these days. The other night, apropos of nothing, he pointed at me and asked "Mommy, what's your game?" I told him I didn't know. He was happy to supply the answer: "Bawhump (the elephant ride game), making pizza, and going to work. What's Daddy's game? Toll please! What's Alex's game? Bah-bah-bah!" Alex is saying that a lot these days. I asked him "Jonathan, what's YOUR game?" He thought for a moment, then said loudly "Eat FOOD!"

It certainly is. After recovering from his Christmas cold, Jonathan has been eating like a horse. He's taking time to savor it, so meals are pretty slow. The week off from preschool, he would have a leisurely and enormous breakfast, then ask for a second one a few hours later. I sent him to school this week with a granola bar in his backpack and a suggestion that they feed it to him if he starts getting too cranky. And with all this extra intake, I swear he's grown an inch. He came down today in his comfy maroon sweatpants, which generally have safety pins in to keep the cuffs rolled up. Today they were cuffless, and with his sneakers on, they didn't even brush the tops of his shoes.

Everyone's Smarter than Mommy

Driving to breakfast at Dino's last Saturday morning, Jonathan sees a familiar landmark and cries "I don't want to go to Dino's! I want to have breakfast at Chili's!" Mommy tells him "Jonathan, Chili's is closed right now. We go there at dinnertime." Jonathan replies "But look! There's a car in the parking lot!"

Alexander is standing, one hand on the coffee table, when he spots the remote buried in the chair cushions a few feet away. He reaches out an arm but can't bridge the gap. Mommy tells him "You'd better crawl over there, Alex." Alex promptly lets go of the coffee table and takes three independent steps before grabbing the remote.

Jonathan and Mommy are putting on their shoes for an evening walk, since it is an unseasonable 64 degrees outside. Jonathan is balking a little and insists he wants the tan shoes, even though the brown ones are already on. Mommy says "Look, Jonathan, your shirt is brown, so the shoes match your shirt." Jonathan grabs up his blue sneakers and says "Mommy, I'm wearing blue jeans!"

Mommy tries to introduce a bedtime story to Alex's nighttime routine. The "Touch and Feel" farm series seems popular. Mommy takes Alex's little fingers and shows him how to stroke the horsie and the chick. Alex takes the book out of Mommy's hands, flips through until he finds the doggie, and starts to enthusiastically rip out the fur.

Jonathan has gotten out of bed to use the potty, and demands an audience and a kiss for not wetting the bed. He's so proud to show he knows what to do: "First pants back on, then we flush, then we wash our hands!" "That's right, Jonathan." "Our hands are all dirty! Don't touch anything!" "Good listening, Jonathan!" (Reflecting, Mommy notes that this only took two solid months of repetition.) Jonathan smiles slyly and holds his hands behind his back. "Mommy, you need to turn on the water for me. My hands are all dirty!"