Growth & Appearance: Your hair is getting long, it’s past the base of your neck and unless we put it up, it’s caked with food and whatever else. You don’t mind having your hair put up but you hate having it brushed (due to said food caked into it so often). Your hair is blond, but not as light as I remember your brother’s being. You get mistaken for a girl often, even after we refer to you as a ‘he’. It’s made me realize how silly gender is.

You have fuller lips, like your Papa. And his build, too (much like Van). Your cheeks are plump and your smile spreads full across your face.

You bang yourself up often and most always have a cut or scrape on either your elbows or knees, or both.

You’re in size 2 clothing, size 4 diaper. You rarely wear shoes. You weigh 25lbs and are 36in tall (I know only because you just scraped by at the local carnival).

Eating: You eat a mean breakfast. Like enough for the whole day. Which is ironic because it’s typically all you eat for the whole day; meaning you most always reject lunch and seem to pick a few things for dinner but throw most of it down to Jimmie, who never leaves your side and has subsequently packed on the lb’s.

Your current favorites: greek yogurt, string cheese, eggs, blueberries. I made you your first smoothie and you loved it.

You also love to eat the eraser tops to all of our pencils.

Sleeping: If your brothers’ sneak out of the room quietly, you’ll stay asleep while they’re getting ready for school and sleep until 7:30am or 8am. Other days you wake up with them. You’re still napping twice a day but the length of such seems to vary greatly; some days you’ll stay asleep from 10am until I wake you up at 2pm. Other days you’re screaming bloody murder at 12:30pm. Either way, we still put you down around 4pm and you sleep for another hour or two. You’re in bed by 8pm.

Some mornings Hooper will get you out of your crib and bring you downstairs. It’s pretty sweet to come down to you on the sofa, surrounded by a pillow fort your brothers have built for you.

You climbed out of your crib and onto the bottom bunk the other day so that cat is out of that bag.

You sleep with your blanket.

Development: You have an endless array of words and are able to communicate what you want pretty clearly, though you still resort to screaming. It drives us insane. It seems to be happening less than before but it’s pretty dreadful taking you anywhere where there’s no quick escape (i.e., restaurants, planes, grocery stores, etc). And I take it back, it still happens on a daily basis. Our outing today was dreadful.

If we ask you what color something is, the answer is blue. No matter what. If we ask you how many something is, the answer is three. No matter what. We set you up for success by pointing to the sky and asking what color and by asking how many you have left if you take 97 away from 100.

You’re on the go for all the hours you’re awake. You like to climb, run, chase, be chased, climb the stairs… oh, the stairs. We used to put a couple of boxes to block the entrance, but you soon learned to get around that. So then we used the bench from the entryway to block it. Then you learned how to move that. Then we put the boxes on top of the bench. Then you leaned to move that. Then we used to bungee cord to hook the bench onto the banister so you couldn’t move it. Then you started climbing over it. So then we had the bench, the bungee cord, AND the boxes on top of the bench to keep you off the stairs. Now we’ve more or less given up; I tend to let you go and hope for the best whereas your Papa tends to hover in the event you fall, or get knocked over.

You still try to jump but have yet to get both feet off the floor at the same time.

You throw with your right arm and you have damn good aim.

You’re in the habit of creating your own problem and then whinging about it; like you’ll throw your cup on the floor and then become hysterical because your cup is on the floor.

You’ve discovered the world above and refer to all flying objects as helicopters. You have a toy helicopter that you covet and you try desperately to get your hands on your brothers’ helicopter lego. Speaking of your brothers, it’s a love / hate kinda thing; all in all they’re fairly patient and loving but they hate you getting into their stuff and they build barriers to keep you out often. But you also nap a lot, so they get a reprieve.

Favorites: I was wondering when the affinity for the garbage trucks would begin and it happened overnight and is in full force. You’ll hear the trucks when they’re miles away and insist on sitting in the front yard to wait for them to arrive. You say ‘garbage truck’ like an 80 year old man with cotton in his mouth and it’s just about the cutest thing that I ever did hear.

You still love your g’pa. He’s your favorite and you’ll go running to him and do your happy squeals as soon as he’s in sight. You also prefer your Papa over me but I’m totally okay with that, it’s a pretty sweet thing, actually.