Hudson these days.....life as a 3 1/2 year old (or thereabouts)

Hudson will be four years old in less than ten weeks. Ten weeks. Wow. 

I feel like his toddler and preschool years are just breezing by us. This is just the way it goes, right? It seems this fast for everyone? I feel like I've missed so much, yet I've been right here. I try to savor the moments, but life happens and the day-to-day things just take so much time and energy. And being ONE woman with THREE little lives to care for requires a lot of time and effort. It's a very good thing that my health and energy levels are on the rise these days.

Hudson is such a fun-loving, sweet boy. It doesn't take much at all to please him. He's mostly happy just playing and making noise. The boy loves to talk! We find ourselves telling him to be quiet a lot. Poor boy decides to speak up at bad times sometimes. But then, sometimes he gets really upset and starts crying out of frustration and when I ask him what he's upset about it's usually him feeling like he is not heard or being listened to. It's hard to decipher between his normal random noise and him saying something he thinks is important sometimes. I have to remind him that if he has something he really wants me to know, to get my attention and use his words to tell me. 

He has really turned some corners lately with "school." He hasn't had nearly the interest in structured learning as Hannah has but, clearly, he is super-smart. He thinks of things that I would never think of. He thinks a lot like his Daddy. He seems to have that "engineering" mind. 

Getting pictures of him with his eyes open is still pretty hard to do, so when I get some it's very exciting. 

He has gotten pretty good at writing. He knows the alphabet and recognizes his letters (as least I think he does most of them) and has been working on his handwriting. He writes his name independently, and has been for a while now. I have been very surprised at how well he does writing his "s" and "n" the correct way instead of backwards. I hear that's hard to do. Hannah even writes some letters backwards sometimes when she gets in a hurry. He can write anything I show him. 

We've been trying to get out of the house and do some fun activities. A new favorite thing to do is to go to Lowe's for their "Build-n-Grow" activities every other Saturday. So far they have made a monster truck and a grabber thing based on that Croods movie. 

They were given work aprons and get an iron-on patch for every activity they do. 

Emma, Hannah, and Hudson at Lowe's working on their monster truck

Hudson still dresses up several times most days and enjoys pretending to be different characters. And he plays with Andrew more than anything or anyone else.

Recently, I took him in to see the chest wall specialist we go to. He had been complaining of  his body hurting a lot and randomly say that this or that hurts. This was happening every couple of days. I assumed it was just growing pains, but with his pectus excavatum (chest wall deformity that causes his sternum to be concave) and with the frequency of his complaints, I wanted to take him in and get checked out. His chest x-ray and blood work all came back normal and the doctor felt sure there was nothing abnormal going on. It made me feel better. We had never had an x-ray before and it was nice to know that his pectus excavatum wasn't interfering with anything vital.

So, moving on to current accomplishments, he is very good at counting and can mostly count to twenty, sometimes jumbling 16 to 18. 

He can color and stay within the lines pretty well when he wants to, and he has been working on some preschool worksheets. He can trace well and cut very well. I try to get him to do some structured worksheets, but am not consistent with it. He surprises me all the time, though with the things that he makes. He likes to make cards and draw pictures inside of them and make puppets. 

We've been working on some phonics and sounding out letters. 

But, the biggest thing we've been working on is listening. Several times a day we talk about this. It's not willful disobedience, just a general disregard for what someone's saying to him.Sometimes he just doesn't even hear what's going on around him. Hopefully, this will improve with age (and diligence by Mommy and Daddy).  

One thing I've noticed a lot lately with Hudson is that he has an amazing memory. He remembers specific things from over a year ago. He surprises me every day with the things that he brings up from memory.

And he is doing such an amazing job being involved with our Bible reading and teaching in the evening. We've been doing Resurrection eggs right now and he can tell you each item and what it stands for. His recollection for content is very good as long as he is listening. He is really great at recalling the details and telling them back to us. I'm very impressed, especially since this was so hard for Hannah until after she was four. 

Oh, and, big news......Hudson is wearing big boy underwear for naps and, though he wears a pull-up at night, he doesn't have to!

If you ask him favorite color, you'll likely hear "brown....and blue, and green, and orange..." and whichever color he thinks of at the time.
His favorite shows to watch are Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Curious George, Clifford, and Jake and the Neverland Pirates. He also loves his superhero DVDs, like Super Friends.
When he grows up he wants to "be big, like Daddy and to be able to help Daddy with things."
He loves to play hide and seek with Hannah and is finally (to Hannah's pleasure) getting the hang out counting and hiding the right way. He does like to hide in the same spot over and over though.
His number one request for lunch is yogurt. He loves almond milk. And he really loves sweets. And fruit. He still eats any fruit I give him and loves it all.

When Hudson gets up in the morning, if it's before me or Daddy, he will go to the restroom, change clothes, and get dressed for the day and play in the living room until someone gets up. Sweet boy.

He loves to make funny faces and funny noises to make people smile and does so every chance he gets.
What a blessing this skinny little three year old is to us!