Dear Christian James,
How are you three already!?!? They say it goes fast, but WOW did it really go fast! This has been an emotional birthday for your mama. It seems that with turning 3 you have become a big boy over night. It amazes me how much you have changed in the past year since you turned 2! A lot has stayed the same, though, too.
You still love diggers, trains, and tractors and could play cars ALL day. You've also developed a love for garbage trucks!
You weigh in at a whopping 38 pounds and are 38 inches tall.
You wear mostly 4T and some 3T.
In the last few months, you finally conquered your fear of hair cuts that started shortly after you turned 2. A full year later and you finally got a hair cut with the clippers again!
You became a big brother this year and you have been loving every minute of it! You are even quite protective of Braxton and try to play with him a lot.
In the last few weeks you have started to drop your nap. You would sleep if I let you...usually 2-3 hours! But if you nap, you have been needing an increasingly longer awake time before you will go to bed at night. That has meant you haven't fallen asleep for bedtime until 10/10:30pm some nights! And mama often falls asleep with you!
You usually have quiet time for about an hour every day,
usually from 1pm-2pm.
And then bedtime is at 6:30pm. You are sleeping in a toddler bed because you and Braxton will hopefully be sharing a room soon and a twin bed is too big for your room with a crib in there too.
You have been struggling to sleep well since last fall, and often wake up in the night. We started a bad habit of you coming to bed with mommy and daddy. That has gotten somewhat better since dropping your nap, though!
With your sleep struggles, mommy has often been laying in bed with you to fall asleep. Sometimes you even just need to hold mommy's hand to fall asleep. In the last few weeks mommy offered you a choice -- Either you could have your binky for bed or mommy would lay with you. You chose mommy and haven't had a binky since! You maybe asked for it once after that but that's been it! You even told me, "The other babies can have my binkies now because I'm a big boy." Smoothest transition we could have ever hoped for!
You no longer speak in just 3-4 word phrases but will ramble on and on tell the longest stories! You also have quite the imagination! Sometimes I think you have even started lying when you are just still figuring out pretend and real.
Your favorite color also changed in the past year from orange and blue to green. Everything has to be green!
You are also quite opinionated about what you will wear -- you prefer your batman shirt, dump truck shirt, monster truck shirt, or any shirt with a football or baseball on it. You also love to wear hats, helmets, and goggles and I can't forget your love for your fireman rain boots...which you wore ALL winter long despite having snow boots!
You also have given a lot of your clothes names -- your "fireman" jacket was your green winter coat, your blue fleece coat was your "policeman jacket", your nikes are either your running shoes or more recently your "mowing shoes".
You love to sing and play guitar! Some of your favorite songs are:
Go Tell It On The Mountain
Steal My Show By Toby Mac
Set A Fire
You are still quite the mama's boy. Mama often has to do everything for you and you can hurt daddy's feelings a lot when you tell him that you only love mama and not him. You are still figuring out that you can love more than one person!
You've mostly stopped now, but over the past year you would often say "I did that last year" for anything that you had done before.
Mommy taught you how to hold up three fingers and say you are three...however that saying has changed from "I'm three!" to "I'm these two five". Not sure where that came from!?!
Dressing up has also become one of your favorite things. Its not unusual for you to want to wear a cape or pilot hat out in public...or just all day in general! Grandma Karen got you a fireman costume for your birthday and you haven't taken it off since you opened it!
Over the past year you have gone through spurts and will ask to wear big boy undies, but then will later refuse and just want your diaper. So you still aren't potty trained. Although, I think you are ready because you will often tell us that you are pooping and have even started saying that you are going potty.
You have been really into Paw Patrol this year, but in the past month or so you have started to really like super heroes and star wars!
You have become a little more resistant to praying with us, but when you do pray, you always ask God to keep us safe from the fires. You do love to read your Bible and will often go get it while you are in time out.
You can count to 12, use a scissors, and recognize your name and know your know name is Christian James Foote. You know the Letters C, T, and S. You also know the shapes triangle, square, and circle.
You have become little mister independent and like to do everything for yourself. You are strong willed and a master negotiator! You have challenged your mama in more ways than I count! You are ALL boy and full of energy, always on the go!
You have really turned from my little baby into such a big boy with a huge personality all your own! We can't wait to see what the next year will bring and are so blessed that God chose us to be your mommy and daddy!
