My little boy has just turned 3. 3 year old boys, from my experience are extremely cute. Which they need because it makes them easier to forgive their challenging behaviour, which in our family seems to come with the age.

Trent is one of those kids who universally would be acknowledged as a gorgeous boy. He talks in beautifully crafted sentences, which coming out of his young mouth are heart-warming and often so funny! Do you know how many times my little boy makes me laugh during the day? So much. So very much.

It’s funny isn’t it, how words that we say every day, when repeated in those baby voices are suddenly completely adorable and make us chuckle. When he makes a mistake, he has said, “Silly old Trentster.” He refers to himself as Trentster now. That is cute also. He has been so looking forward to his birthday ever so much and in the lead up has been singing “Happy Birthday dear Trentster”.

So here is an update on what my little star is doing now that he is three.

Eating
Oh my, this child likes to eat. He eats all day long. By that I mean all.day.long. I am constantly hearing the refrain, “I’m hungry.” Luckily he is easy to please. He is an absolute fruit bat. He will happily eat nothing more than fruit if I let him. He will always choose fruit over cake. He loves cooking and will often beg to make muffins, but once they are complete he will have the smallest little bite before pushing it away and begging for an apple. Apples are his (and J Boy’s) favourite fruit. Other favourites are sausages, pizza, noonels (noodles) and if you ask him what we should have for dinner, he will almost always say “Pasta”. Although once the pasta is in front of him, he isn’t always pleased. I haven’t exactly worked out what he is picturing when he says pasta!

Apples are party food for Trent!

Potty Training
Thankfully he never really used the potty. I was so grateful. Horrid things they are. And cleaning them. Ugh. Anyway, I digress. Our little champ does all his wees on the toilet, but we are still perfecting the correct place to dispose of number 2’s. Cleaning jocks is something I do regularly (Thanks to him being a fruit bat). He does have some success, hopefully it will continue to increase!

Playing
A completely social child, Trent loves his friends. He adores going to Storytelling on a Monday morning and Playzone on Wednesday mornings. He always comes home talking about ‘my friends’. Trent is getting better at playing on his own. He loves playing with playdough and making pizza, sausages, snakes and people from gingerbread cutters as well as the various playdough gadgets. Proving that he is definitely masculine, this play will often involve brutal squashing, cutting off of heads and snakes biting his beloved Mummy to death. He is morbidly fascinated by dying at the moment. Of course he has no idea of the implications of death.

He loves playing with his wooden train set and enjoys Mummy and Miss Rachael making him tracks. He’s starting to be able to connect the pieces to make his own track also. (Normally in a straight line!) Big trucks and cars that he can wheel around the house are also a popular choice to zoom around. He has a little blue indoor trike that he calls his “motorbike”. He jumps up and down when he starts to ride it like he is kickstarting it, then he will zoom “off to work”, “to the shops” or “to the beach” on it. He also hooks up a pull along dog toy to the back and will drive around the house with the plastic dog faithfully following wherever he leads.

Outdoors
A big fan of the outdoors, you will often find my little man outside playing on the swings, trampoline, sandpit, and generally having a great time with his brother once J Boy is home from school. He loves going on Grandad’s quad bike and has Grandad twisted around his little finger.

 

There’s not too many reasons why Grandad would miss postpone a Sunday afternoon sleep. But Trent’s requests are mostly granted and his enormous smile is during these trips are worthwhile. (Perhaps another motivating factor is the hope that perhaps developing a love of the motorbike and the land on which it drives will help breed a future farrmer.)  On Saturdays Trent and Jonty like nothing better than to traipse around in the yard with their father. It is so heartwarming watching them and knowing that this is an important part of their early lessons on how to become men of character.

Challenges
Just to keep it real, it’s worthwhile putting on the record that Trent is certainly not a completely angelic child. He can really be a very moody. Often when people arrive at our house, they walk in the door and say hello and Trent will give a very discourteous growl at them, and no matter how nicely the person speaks to him, he will continue his ill mannered growling until they leave him alone. He has also decided that he would like things done his way and will quite often do everything possible to ensure that his will is not crossed. This will often result in exceptional tantrums with much crying, wailing and protesting. They are not reserved for the privacy of our own home either. (Although, who am I kidding, our home is not very private at the moment, there’s almost always someone here.) On Sunday he gave a spectacular performance after the service was over (thankfully not during) because he objected to Daddy’s refusal to take him to the women’s toilets. Thankfully with most of these battles we know it is a simple case of weathering the storm and staying consistent and not giving in. We’d much prefer to fight these battles now while he’s small in the hope that it will decrease the number of battles to fight during his teenage years.

Family

The beauty of growing up around the extended family is watching the blossoming relationships as the cousins play together and the children relate to their grandparents, aunts and uncles. These are Trent’s favourite people. He has a firm friendship with his cousin Nay Nay. In fact, she was certainly the most important person on his party guest list and according to Trent it was imperative that she attend. (As if she wouldn’t!) He enjoys Saturday afternoons with Nanny at the house and Thursday mornings have become his special Grandma mornings where he will often visit and delight his great grandparents.

He is such a loving member of our immediate family also.  He knows the way to make a woman feel soft and mushy. He will often come up and say, “You look pretty Mummy, you look like a ballerina.” or “You look like a flower Mummy.” Trust my words son, the girls will love you if you continue to appreciate their fashion and express it accordingly.  He dotes on the babies, too much often, but he is gradually learning  (I think, I hope) to not kill be gentle with them. He will follow his big brother to the ends of the earth and is often content to just do whatever Jonty chooses, just to enjoy his company. (To  which Jonty exploits.)

I’m so thankful for my little boy and all he brings to our lives so I’m linking up with Thankful Thursday.