Well, Parker An just turned three years old! Hard to believe it has already been over 2 1/2 years since he joined my family.

The week before, my aunt and uncle from Seattle were in, we had fun visiting with them, and got to have a little Chanukah celebration. We went to our annual holiday gift exchange with friends.

In the run up to his 3rd birthday, we were very busy. I took a few extra days off work and we kind of celebrated for several days in a row! The end of Chanukah also overlapped this time, and we celebrated that with some new books and Parker An getting to help light the menorah.

I took Parker to his second movie, The Princess and The Frog, which was good…but I think a little slow paced for Mr. Parker – he was pretty good, but not glued to the screen like when I took him to see Ponyo. I highly recommend the movie to people, though, quite good! We also did some shopping that day and of course played at home a lot. We visited the Children’s Museum of Cleveland the day after the movie. It’s a museum of sorts, but to most adults it probably just seems like a big play area – but, it really can teach kids a lot about how the world around them works, if the right approach is taken. We stopped at a yummy Swiss bakery on the way home and got freshly baked soft pretzels which were fabulous! We did some shopping that day, too. We had dinner with grandma and grandpa that night, and Parker slept very well, let me tell you

Saturday, I did some prep for the birthday party, and that included some shopping and picking up the cake for his birthday. We did a lot of cleaning and lots of playing – we napped on the couch together, and watched some TV.

Sunday was the party, and it was loud, really loud. It was fun, too, though. Parker enjoyed it a lot, and he loves his gifts. After the party we went to dinner at his favorite place on earth, the Japanese hibachi place – we both got salmon. Here are a bunch of pictures from the children’s museum, the party, playing at home, etc…all taken over the last week.

Some developmental info on my very big boy

• Has been completely toilet trained for about 8 weeks or so – not a single accident – day or night – this kid was EASY to toilet train
• Speaks amazingly well – he can easily carry on a complete, thoughtful conversation with an adult. In fact, he has better pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and manners than your average Wal-Mart patron
• Is beginning to understand addition and subtraction
• Loves to make people laugh – his little sense of humor has really blossomed in the last month or so – is very interested in the mechanics of what makes things funny
• Has entire phone conversations that are somehow completely coherent – he’s been doing this for a while, but it’s really picked up in the last couple of weeks
• Pretend play is becoming more common, vivid, creative, and natural, loves to be chased or to chase others
• Continues to have a memory that is creepy accurate!
• Realizes that boys and girls exist in animals, too…and that grandma’s dog has a vagina, not a penis – and, is not quite sure how she manages to pee
• Is almost 30 pounds – still wears many 2T clothes, especially pants
• Is beginning to take more of an interest in books
• Recognizes letters and numbers, knows that some words start with certain letters
• Has started singing a lot, and repeating bits of dialog – like the intro to the British TV show Merlin, which we both love (I download it from a British site)
• Has a fierce independent streak, but can usually be reasoned with pretty quickly
• Has learned sword fighting and jousting from Merlin, and loves them
• So much more!

Museum Pictures

A dinosaur sculpture made of sand

Playing in the dinosaur expedition area

Some scenes from the farm

The giant water table – it was about 15 feet long and 6 feet wide

Playing grocery store

Driving the life-size commuter bus

Home Pictures

Painting at home

A “picnic” at home

Party Day Pictures

Helmets are recommended when playing guitar?

Funny face!

His hibachi chef cake – did I mention he is obsessed with being a hibachi chef?

Presents!

At the Japanese steak house with some cousins