DYLAN BY AGE 3:

FAVORITE ACTIVITIES: Playing with cars, trains, 60-piece puzzles, now drawing (fortunately not on the table much anymore). Dylan is a very fast runner and can run for an hour at a time, easily. Loves to play at McDonalds’ play area, then fell in love with “Happy Land” where he can run with a pack of boys (whom he picks out instantly). He no longer uses a stroller and can keep up with us in the dog park walk by about age 2 ½. By three, we have a hard time keeping up with him. Swimming—Dylan is really taking off and making huge improvement each and every swim lesson he takes. At age 3, he began his official swimming class and could swim by himself about 6 feet after his 4^th lesson. He loves it!

FAVORITE SONG: By Dylan’s later 2-year mark, “Old McDonald had a farm” is a repetitious song he enjoys singing many times throughout the day. He is also starting to sing his “ABC’s” with 90 percent accuracy.

FAVORITE VIDEO: Dylan watched the movie “Cars” day after day, for about 8 months until it finally stopped working. He then evolved to Thomas Trains, Little Einstein, Teletubbies, PBS Kids, and various other videos we check out at the library.

SLEEPS: An average of 13 hours a day. A later afternoon 3 hour nap, and goes to bed from approximately 8:30 PM to 6:30 AM. He is pretty good about going down for naps in his later 2-year old era, and very good about going down for bed. He loves his “aquarium” music box that helps him prepare for sleep.

FAVORITE FOODS: Dylan is also known as the “clam monger.” On more than one occasions, he has gobbled down all but a few clams in a large bowl that feeds 4-6 people,—And never got sick! Once he ate all of 4 lbs of clams with the exception of five for others…I believe he could have eaten more. Still eats just about everything, but starting to get picker. Won’t eat left-overs, cranberry sauce, onions, garlic, potatoes, olives or cereal, but will eat brussels sprouts, broccoli, and other good things. Over all, Dylan is a very good, healthy eater.

FAVORITE TOYS: Cars, cars, cars & trains. Dylan LOVES to take all of his toys and create impressive “cities.” Some are quite creative and amazing!

VOCABULARY: After a class and some 1-1 speech therapy, Dylan’s speech seemed to erupt from saying about 10 words by his 2^nd birthday to 3and even 4 word sentences about three quarters of the year after his 2^nd birthday. It is fun to listen to his thoughts, as he is very inquisitive. Dylan also notices a lot of detail…If things are “missing” off balance, or not working properly, he will say something like, “This piece missing - Where go?” One of Dylan’s first long sentences ever was, “More nuts please” and “Go back home.”

HEIGHT  WEIGHT: 38.5” tall and 35lbs. Above average in weight (but Dylan has a LOT of muscle and is definitely not fat) and about average in height.

HAIR EYE & SKIN COLOR: Medium brown hair, green mixed with some blue in the eyes, beautiful olive skin tone.

POTTY TRAINING: Dylan was “school ready” about two months before he turned three years old, although we still put a diaper on him during naps and night time. His biggest motivation (well, only motivation, really) was to be potty trained so that he could go to the “Big Kids’” school. With the help of Teacher Gillian, Dylan was invited to watch the children go potty and be their official “toilet flusher” so that he got the idea that if he wanted to go to this fun school, he also had to use their potty…This technique was very, very successful with Dylan, and I am proud to say that he will be starting the “Big Kids’ School” July 6^th, 2009 half days, three days a week.

TEMPERMENT: Amazingly happy little guy! Dylan has a “sunny” personality, is gentle, sensitive and very sociable.

CUTE TIDBITS:

--Just after his 3^rd birthday, Dylan was playing at “Happy Land” when a bully kid started to hit him for no reason. The bully’s’ Mom did nothing but tell her child to stop. Mama got up to take care of the problem, but by then Dylan has shied away and it was over. Mama then said to Dylan, “Never start a fight, but if someone hits you, then hit them back.” Within minutes, Dylan marched up to the little bully and started hitting him while saying, “Look Mama, I hitting him” with a big smile on his face. Needless to say, Mama was very embarrassed J

--Another day at McDonalds’ Land, a pack of older kids were running around in which Dylan followed. One little boy said, “Does anyone want to be the monster?” Dylan quickly volunteered say, “I monster, I monster” over and over again. Unfortunately, the older boy did not notice Dylan’s desire to be elected “monster.” However, the group quickly broke up anyway and every body went their separate ways so Dylan did not seem upset.

--Because Dylan was so very, very good at puzzles and putting 25, 30, 40 & 50 piece puzzles together with ease, I decided to challenge him one day by buying a 100 piece puzzle of a cat cartoon that quite frankly was not easy for adults to put together. After about 5 minutes of pondering, Dylan suddenly said, “This puzzle hard!”

--Dylan loves his dog and likes to run after him and play.