Matthew: Three Years!

 

Well hello there handsome boy!

Height/Weight: Well, thanks to his big brothers, we know that as the boys get older they separate themselves a little bit in height, but for now, they are still tracking nearly identical. Based on our ruler at home we thought Matthew was going to maintain being the tallest, but per their "official" health records, William was three-tenths of an inch taller. But let's be honest--whether it's 3 feet 0.8 inches, 3 feet 0.5 inches, or an even 3 feet, it's basically all the same. William continues to weigh the most (31lbs 6oz at three), Garrett is our peanut through and through (29lbs 2oz at three), and Matthew lands nicely in the middle at 30lbs 3oz (which is just over half a pound more than Connor was). Ironically, I think this is the first time that it has occurred to me that Garrett--who was my biggest baby at 9lbs 10oz--consistently tracks as my lightest child, whereas William--who was my smallest baby at 8lbs 7oz--consistently tracks as my heaviest child. How funny is that?!?

My "small" boy looking oh-so-big at the bowling alley

Wearing: I want to curse former me for making this a "thing" to track. He wears clothes, and if I'm being totally honest, I can't even qualify it further by saying "he wears clothes that fit" because half the time we're sitting in a church service and I'm like "Oh man, those pants are like two inches too short. Whoops". And then I promptly forget to pull them out of his drawers so he ends up wearing them again a few weeks later. Also, this category has become increasingly insignificant because ALLLL the boys have been basically exactly the same size, so there's been no "William was still wearing 2T pants at three but Matthew has already needed 4T pants because he's so tall" situations. Nothing like that in the least. He'll probably trend slightly more like Connor though where I pull the 3T pants out sooner than later because (unfortunately) there's still plenty of winter left and with William (and even Garrett) I had more of the "ehh, they'll be fine if the pants are a little short for the last few weeks of cold weather". The big news in this category, though, is that he is wearing big boy undies! We were looking at the calendar a week or so before his birthday and (shockingly) there was really NO good time to potty train him between mid-January and the end of February, so we just bit the bullet and said we were doing it January 21st because that was the best of the worst options. And honestly, he had a few accidents those first few days, but he'd use the potty without issue if we reminded him, and within three days he was taking himself to the bathroom (to the point where he went poop without us realizing it until he hollered from the bathroom that he needed to be wiped). So, despite being in size five diapers for the majority of the year before his birthday (and few size six that were handed down to us from his cousin Lucy), he started his 3rd birthday in underwear.

And of course, when you live in South Dakota, you spend like half the year wearing lots and lots of layers of clothes just so you can play outside

Eating: This category is also one that could very easily be nixed because of how incredibly similar the boys have been, and fortunately, that is a very good thing. He eats just about anything (the boys even all tried sushi a few weeks ago and tolerated it pretty well!), goes through occasional phases of certain foods not being his "favorite", and has times where he wants to get down from the table prematurely because his brothers have all finished and started playing before he was done, but for the most part it's pretty smooth sailing with food in this house. There have been a few times where he has come to the table and proclaimed that he doesn't like what we're having (especially if it is something new), which is something I don't think his brothers started until they were a little bit older, but even in those instances he will still end up eating a least some of whatever he didn't think he was going to like. 

Double thumbs up for pomegranate arils! 

Who can resist a s'more?

Sleep: Well, this is definitely the category that has had the most variance between the boys. Looking back through the other boys at three, I would say his sleeping habits are probably better than his brothers were at this age. He transitioned pretty smoothly to the bottom bunk in Connor's room in mid-December (funny story--we found out in August that my cousin was pregnant with her first and due in February and we were like "Oh, you should take our crib! We'll be done with it by then!" and then all of the sudden December rolled around and I was definitely not feeling ready to make the transition, because, well #mybaby--watching Darrell and the boys take the crib apart was also a little rough), he sleeps very consistently through the night (and if he does wake up it's usually a pretty quick settle back down), and he basically doesn't get out of bed in the morning until we go in there (which means on the weekends sometimes he--and Connor--let us sleep until seven!). And the best part of his mornings is that he wakes up in an incredibly silly mood and loves to "hide" under his blanket while we pretend that we can't find him and he just giggles like crazy. Like his brothers, he still naps pretty well, although he definitely puts up a bit of a fight leading up to his naps. I'll take it though!

This kid had a knack for not sleeping in his crib the "right" way

And apparently that was something that wasn't bed-specific because he continued to do it in his big boy bed!

New Stuff: I feel like this year is one of the most fun and most all over the place updates to do. He is talking SOOO much and full of SOOO much personality that even things we've done tons of times feel new because he just responds to them so differently (and most of the time so enjoyably!). While he still has his moods of wanting to be carried and "babied" at times, most of the time he is incredibly (and demandingly) independent. Granted, he is also very aware of his abilities, and so when he stubbornly wants to do something "by myself" it's usually something he is fully capable of doing independently--but only when given enough time. And with three big brothers, time is not always a luxury we have. So that's been an ongoing struggle.

"By myself" proof. Don't you dare try to help him when he's like this. And--much like his brothers--he feels that soft pants are far superior to "real" pants, and as such will change multiple times a day just to be in soft pants as.much.as.possible. And as long as he doesn't dirty more than one pair of soft pants and one pair of real pants--and as long as he changes himself--I've decided this isn't a battle worth fighting

And speaking of big brothers, as I'm looking through their posts at three, I'm noticing a lot of comments about the cute phrases they were using and things they were saying. And honestly, with Matthew? I've got nothing. Not for lack of effort on his part, mind you--the kid is ALWAYS talking, ALWAYS trying to be silly, and when he runs out of things of his own to say, he ALWAYS copies his brother's most goofy and silly phrases. I just have none of them written down because there's honestly something new everyday that he's saying that is just a riot. And I don't know, maybe we just feel that way because he's the baby and the knowledge of that heightens the enjoyment of everything he says/does, but he's seriously such a goofball and says the silliest things (at least they are silly when they aren't whiny and tantrum-y) that it's hard to chalk it ALL up to his being the baby.

Okay, so maybe he DOES get away with a few things because he's the baby... I'm pretty sure I never would have left his older brothers unsupervised with a science kit and food coloring nearby. It's a darn good thing he's such a cute goofy cheeseball

One of the biggest developments we've noticed over the past year is his number awareness (and I'm sure having a math-obsessed biggest brother has contributed to that at least a little). He can count forward to and backwards from ten without issue, and even one-to-one counts up to twelve without issue (counting one number per item in a group and not just reciting the numbers from rote memory). What impresses us most, though, is his ability to visually look at a small group of objects and identify how many are in the group. Sometimes we aren't sure if he's just getting lucky, but he's correctly identified groups of four on more than one occasion (and sometimes without prompting--we were driving one time and he looked out the window and said "four cranes" and sure enough, there were four cranes visible out his window), so there definitely seems to be some inherent ability/desire to look and count similar objects in a group. 

He's also very adept at identifying different first response vehicles (and sometimes I think he can actually differentiate the sirens? Hard to say), and loves to point out the different colors of them and their lights (although this is true of basically all large trucks/vehicles; garbage day in our neighborhood with all the different colored garbage trucks is always guaranteed to be exciting!)

And since I could sit here for hours and still not cover everything that there is to be said about Matthew (or my Math-a-Goose, as he is often affectionately called), I'll let my photo dump cover some of the other big "new" things from this past year as well as some of general traits and characteristics that make Matthew my Matthew!

Really started cruising on his Strider bike this summer and let me tell you he's going to be chomping at the bit to keep up with big brothers this summer!

Probably not his first mohawk, but cute nonetheless!

If I'm not mistaken, though, this is his first fish that he caught at my parent's lake cabin

First time riding a "real" train and he adored every minute of it!

This little fishy loves water...

Whether it's playing in the waves at the beach

Or cruising through class at swim lessons

Or taking a pontoon ride at the lake! (And he loves being in the lake plenty too, but with four boys who are pretty active swimmers we don't really get a lot of "in the lake" pictures because both of us are usually pretty busy managing the boys in the water)

This kid loves playgrounds (and just being outside in general) and is...

pretty darn...

FEARLESS

He's also a champ on family hikes...

But because his brothers are older we're trying to work up to longer hikes and sometimes his poor little body just can't hang 

I almost didn't post this because it makes me sad, but I'm pretty sure this was the last time I'll ever wear him in this carrier (especially on my front--we occasionally used it backpack style for hikes last year, but even those days are probably short lived). This was in December, about six weeks before his third birthday, and even though he's had another cold since then he had minimal desire to be "up" and definitely no tolerance for going in the Ergo

But I suppose as long as he's being my little cuddly buddy--even if it isn't in the baby carrier--I can't complain too much

Happy Third Birthday Sweet Boy!!