Wes is now FOUR!

(Wes turned 4 in mid-July. Clearly I'm behind in my posts) 

Height: 3' 8" (96% percentile). The doctor laughed and said that Wes is the same height as an average 5.5 year old!! He grew A LOT during the shelter in place.

Weight: 43 lbs (97% percentile)

Physical milestones: Like Izzy, Wes is a super fast runner. He is riding a two wheeler bike and got a new scooter for his birthday so he is getting the hang of the easier-to-maneuver scooter. Back in February he needed floaties for when we were in Hawaii but after time in the pool this summer, no longer needs them and is pretty comfortable in the water.

Language/Reading: Wes can recognize a few of the "easier" letters and can recognize his own name. He also can write a W by himself.

Loves: Star Wars, Harry Potter, light sabers, legos, riding his bike, cherry tomatoes, searching for bugs

Personality: Wes is competitive like Izzy but once he starts losing to her, he gives up (for instance when he runs against her). He isn't as much of a daredevil as Izzy (thank goodness) and wants to wait until he thinks he can do something until he wants to try it. He is definitely a class clown and wants to make people laugh.

Favorite Toy: Right now it would have to be blow up light sabers that we got as favors for Wes' birthday party. He constantly wants to fight anyone that will play with him.

Favorite Book: It's a tie between a Star Wars encyclopedia he got for his birthday and the "Notebook of Doom" books we got him for his birthday.

Sleeping Habits: These days he goes to bed around 8-8:30 and wakes up around 8am....but can sleep as late as 9:30 if he is up late. He doesn't nap much anymore.

Eating: Wes is a more adventurous eater than Izzy and will try a lot of stuff (he doesn't do spicy). He will almost always eat fish with us and recently decided that he likes shrimp and crab cakes as well!

Potty: Wes waits until the last minute most of the time to go to the bathroom but generally no issues during the day. He still needs a pullup at night.

Clothes: Size 5t for clothes, size 13 for shoes. He is obsessed with his Batman tshirt or his Darth Vader surfing shirt he got in Hawaii and athletic shorts.

Media: During the shelter in place the kids were getting 1-2 hours of tv a day plus Ipad time. Now that they are back in camp/daycare they are only watching tv on the weekends and when we have Friday night movie night. Ipad use is back to nothing.

Birthday: We had a family birthday in MI during Fourth of July because my parents and my sister/her husband could all attend. His actual birthday was on a Wednesday so I took the kids out for donuts the morning of his birthday and he had ice cream that night (he wanted mac n cheese and shrimp for his birthday dinner). The following weekend we had some friends over for a small Star Wars-themed party. It was approximately a billion degrees out that day and we had the bouncy house, slip and slide, a pinata, pizza and cake, and then an outdoor movie (Star Wars of course).

Ski trip

On Monday CP and I decided to take the kids skiing for the first time at Wilmot. We put Izzy in a full day ski school class, Wes into a 1.5 day class. We figured that we could go down some runs together and then would have to take turns watching Wes all afternoon long as he would refuse to ski. At first Wes didn't want to put on ski boots but I found some red ones and told him that he would look like Iron Man. (eye roll)

Ready for ski school!

CP and I had a great time for about an hour with not many lines and short runs. The blue (intermediate) and black (difficult) runs were fairly laughable compared to what we are used to in CO, but it was really nice to get out after 9 years (!!) of not skiing. 

Around 11 we went to see how Wes was doing and found out that he was in the ski school building, refusing to participate in the last 30 minutes of the lesson. CP got him out and we asked him to show us what he had learned. He went down the short hill and then as he was trying to shuffle towards us on his skis, he fell and refused to get up without help.

Refusing to get up

Surprisingly, after asking him if he wanted to ride the magic carpet and ski with us, he was excited to do so. So we did a few runs of going up the magic carpet and then each holding a hand down a small hill. After lunch I got to do a few runs and then caught up with the boys. CP had Wes going down the small hill by himself and then catching him at the end because Wes had no idea how to stop. 

Magic carpet ride

We ended up taking Wes on the "lifting chair" (his words) and down two runs. On his second ride on the lift chair, he realized halfway up that he had to go to the bathroom and started yelling. All of the chairs around us started laughing and we kept telling him that there was nothing we could do (he ended up holding it until we got down the hill and into the bathroom). That afternoon he didn't want to leave and ended up falling asleep within a minute of getting into the car.

Sleepy Wes

Meanwhile, Izzy had a fantastic day on the slopes. She started out in a basic level but moved up quickly as she caught on. During one of my runs I saw her in the chair lift in front of me so I guessed at which run she was on and surprised her. She was SO excited to see me and I was able to watch her ski long S curves down the hill. On the way home Izzy let us know that she wants to come back every weekend!!

Overall, the day was a big success!

Wes is THREE!!!

Wes is THREE!

Birthday balloons!

He had an amazing birthday by starting with a tour of our local firehouse with friends/parents and then we had a BBQ at our house with everyone. The reason we decided on a firehouse tour is because a few months ago we were at our local ice cream place. Wes saw firefighters in the line and asked to talk to them (he talks to anyone- and I mean anyone)...in the conversation they asked if he wanted to come see the fire truck in a nearby parking lot. I have never seen a kid shove an ice cream cone down his mouth faster. After our private tour with the firefighters, every time we saw a fire truck Wes would yell out "my firefighter friends!" Hence the firehouse tour.

We also had a family dinner a week before where CP made steak and corn (one of Wes' favorite things to eat) and he got to open up his presents two days early because I was a bad mother and had to be in CA for work on his real birthday. He's three so he won't remember that I wasn't there on his real birthday but I still felt bad.

Birthday firehouse tour

Height- 40" (unofficial)

Weight- 39 pounds (unofficial- with clothes on)

Diapers- NO MORE DIAPERS OR PULLUPS! I guess the last time I wrote an update like this on Wes he was two (I'm a horrible blogger these days). A few months ago we took the plunge and even though Wes wasn't interested in potty training, we powered through. He got pee very quickly and mastered poop only two or three weeks later. Since he has been waking up dry for both nap and nighttime, we pulled the pullups as well. We didn't even have to do any nighttime training! YAY!

Milestones- Oh man I feel like he has so many in the past year. He has been able to pedal tricycles and his motorcycle for a while and his hand/eye coordination seems to be pretty good. He is also a fast runner. While camping this year he went on his first rollercoaster at a local carnival in WI and also went on his first water slide (in an inner tube with CP).

First rollercoaster

He is definitely not as adventurous as Izzy and needs us to do something with him at least a few times before he is willing to do it on his own. A few months ago we moved him to a big boy bed with the guard rail however I'm not sure he needs it because he has slept in a bed with no rails before at my parent's place in MI and hasn't fallen out.

Proud of his big boy bed

Wes went to his first movie in a theater- Toy Story 4!

Language- I didn't think that it was possible but Wes talks more than Izzy. He is still learning the art of not interrupting and will often yell "No! I'm talking" if Izzy tries to talk over him. He loves to sing different songs like Frozen (his favorite line? "Frozen fractals all around"), random Raffi songs (like Bananaphone), Sing a Song of Sixpence, etc.

Wes' face when he heard he was getting early birthday presents

Favorite Toy- In the past year his favorite toy has not changed- it is still trains. He will still come home and play with his Thomas trains almost every night. We were not planning on getting him any toys for his birthday this year but he has literally been talking about the Thomas super station for 6 months now- ever since a friend of ours started to give us her son's old Thomas the Trains magazines (which of course has super station ads in them)- so because we couldn't think of anything else, super station it is.

Strawberry picking

Favorite Book- Wes really likes to read the Thomas the Train magazines at night. He is also obsessed with only one story called "Cookies" in the Frog & Toad book.

Sleep- Wes gets to sleep by 8-8:30 every night and has slept in to 8:30am on the weekends (we get him up around 6:40am during the week). When putting him to bed we brush teeth, put pajamas on, read books, sing him two songs, put blankets on him, and turn on his turtle light before hopefully leaving the room. In the past month or so he has started to stall- "I have to go potty. I need some water. I need to give Daddy a hug." etc. He has also become afraid of monsters and bad dreams so we remind him that the cats keep the monsters away and his dream catcher above his bed takes away his bad dreams. I hope this phase ends soon.

Playing on the new climbing dome

Clothes- In 4t clothes and size 11 shoes.

Eating- Wes is a good eater and he has even started to like fish if he can squeeze some lemon on it. We recently went out to a sushi place and he housed some soft shell crab (that I didn't really like) and instead of getting a kids meal he opted for the ramen. It was awesome! Of course he is a regular kid and LOVES mac n cheese as well. If he could eat fruit all the time, he would.

Soft shell crab

Teeth- He now has all of them and it will be about two more years before they start falling out.

Illness- Over the past year? Ha. Nothing major. This year we didn't have an ER visit (woo hoo!) and his lungs seem to be able to handle winter colds better. However, camping this year he got bitten by mosquitos- A LOT- some of them blistered and one of his legs was hard and swollen for a few days so I think he has skeeter syndrome. :-( (We used plenty of bug spray) Not much we can do but to try to keep the bugs away as much as possible.