Here's Mason, rocking his rad outfit, at story time at the library today. Even when he's ridiculous, he's cute!
I have to be sneaky when I take pictures of Mason these days. It's hit or miss if he'll smile or stop what he's doing and tell me 'no pictures'. Today he asked for his baby and then took her out for a bike ride. : ) It's funny to me - Andrew is such a sensitive little guy, but he has never (not even as a 2 year old) been willing to even look at a doll. Mason doesn't do it very often, but every once in a while he grabs our one doll and takes care of her.
I love living close to an Old Spaghetti Factory. Not only do we never have to wait for a table, but we get the best seat in the house (on the train) fairly often.
Mason didn't skip a beat - he jumped right into the first puddle he saw. : ) And jumped, and jumped. Andrew has never really been a puddle jumper, so it was fun to see Mason jump right in.
The last time I put a quarter in one of these rides, Mason got freaked out (we usually just play on them without paying to make them move). But today, he loved it!
Andrew thinks these rides are boring but really wishes they were fun, so we tried again. Still boring. : ) But it's a good picture of his new fireman rain boots. It's impossible to find rain boots that fit his feet. We hit up about 5 different places before finding these ones - and these aren't perfect but I'm done searching.
Mason has reached the stage of tower building!! I have a picture of Andrew doing this exact thing. So fun.
I decided to pull out the big guns to get Mason to stop using his tiny toilet and told him he could earn a Build-a-Bear if he'd use the regular toilet. He looked at me and said "okay" and hasn't asked for the tiny toilet since! So we marked off his chart and on Sunday we were planning to get it. But when I called Matt on my way home, he told me Mason pooped in his underwear!! He has only done that a couple times, both were in the first week of potty training. We decided we couldn't get him a bear the day he pooped (even though that wasn't how he earned it, technically)it just didn't seem right. But Andrew was really excited to go give his dog, Rock, a bath, so we decided to go, but not get Mason's bear. He didn't really know that we were supposed to be going that day, so it was kind of a non-issue. And I think our plan worked. Today, he not only stayed dry (which he does as long as I am paying attention) but he told me he needed to go AND went at our friend's house and used a public bathroom. He's on fire!!Back to the title of this post though... Andrew loves his Build-a-Bear dog. He earned his for learning to stay in his room all night. I think he was just a little older than Mason is now so I'm hoping that Mason finds his to be just as cool as Andrew finds his to be. Andrew was very excited to bring Rock in to give him a bath. The top picture is his reaction after Matt showed him that the air dryer really blew out air. He thought it was pretty awesome. And I loved that he was so excited about something that didn't make him seem grown up. : ) It's the first time I've been able to say he's 'only' five. Five feels so old to me most of the time.
Andrew is still loving his home learning time. We're almost done working our way through the alphabet! I decided to try out some sight words to see if he'd be at all interested and he was totally into it! I did the first 5 words on the list and he learned them after one time going through them. And he still remembers them today - it's mind blowing to me! I also had him write letters from memory and he knew them all except 2. We've been working on the sounds of the letters along the way too. He can do many letter sounds if he really thinks about it, but it seems like that is a good thing to focus on next. He also really likes math and I'm looking into adding geography and the calendar just because he wants to learn more. This is way more than I planned to do with him but he eats it up! The bonus for me is it's helping me deal with kindergarten being right around the corner because it seems like he's going to love it!
Mason is going through the growth spurt that happens around 2 1/2 and is quickly turning into a big kid. He has enough words to say anything he needs to. He has a favorite show (Dinosaur Train ... one show Andrew has never really cared for) and a favorite book (Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? ... a book that Andrew never really cared for) and a favorite color (Blue). The other day Mason gave me a hug and said "I love you too much, mama". I sort of love him. : ) He also told on Andrew for the first time - which made Matt laugh out loud and then he told me to mark it down as a first! Ha. He has also shown an interest in learning letters and loves to point out the letter M. And he's also back on track with potty training. If he could work through his fear of normal sized toilets, we'd be done with pull-ups! His little toilet seat has been bothering him lately because it's so small. I assume he'll get tired of that eventually...
Another new thing... Andrew is reading his first chapter book! He likes it (I love it)! I hope we can keep it up. And Mason has all of a sudden fallen in love with books. As I mentioned above, he loves Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? He asks for it before nap and bedtime and sometimes randomly in the middle of the day, too. He tries to read along with me and loves to talk about the pictures and the colors. 
How do I know? Because I'm a huge numbers/dates nerd and actually marked this day on my calendar. : ) Today, Mason is as old as Andrew was on the day he was born.
The picture on the left is Andrew, taken on 6/28/09, the other is Mason, taken today.
Below is a little collage of then and now mixed. It's hard for me to process seeing them side by side at the same age mixed in with some baby Mason pictures, but it was fun to do.
Wish you could see them in the same shirt? You're in luck! : )
Like usual, we headed to U Village to waste some time before our appointment. Our car is still not fixed. They felt bad about how long it was taking so they gave us another rental. This time I'm rocking another piece of crap that I can't wait to get rid of. Mason, however, is loving it.
We did a little shopping today in preparation for Mason's big-kid room. I'm very excited but had to hold myself back - Land of Nod is not a place to impulse shop!!
Mason has a new issue with broken food - he can't handle it. If a granola bar or a banana breaks in half he has a few minute meltdown before he can continue. Me, being the smartest mom in the world, decided it would be a good idea to split a burger with him instead of buying him a meal that he wouldn't eat. The problem is, in order to share a burger you have to cut it in half!! Mason had a meltdown in the restaurant before calming down to finally enjoy some dinner. And a giant milkshake. This is opposite of the problem that I had with Andrew at this age - Andrew wanted two of everything and the way I fixed it for him was to break everything in half.
He does share Andrew's love of escalators.
Mason's appointment went great. We have to wait for the results of his blood draw to know if his medicine is at the right level, but regardless, he's healthy as can be!
Because Mason is at an age where he changes so much, I never know what to expect when it comes time to his blood draw. He does amazingly well every time and I keep expecting him to lose it. Today he sat on my lap, put his arm on the chair and pointed to where the needle was going to go. He cried for a few seconds while it was happening but got over it before she was even done. The lab tech was impressed - it makes me thankful I don't have to hold down flailing arms or deal with endless crying. I hope he keeps up the good work because that is definitely the hardest part for me.
How cute is he? I'm pretty sure he's Dr Tridgell's favorite patient. :) I'm so thankful that we had a great doctor to walk us through the first two years. Not only because the first two years are the most important to keep under control but also because emotionally, these two years have taken a lot out of me. It would've been a bummer to not love the doctor taking care of our little guy! More than a bummer actually, I'm pretty sure I would've been a (bigger) mess.
