The State of Nathan, Part 3

When we were at Granddaddy and Grandmother's house at the beginning of March, we had some beautiful weather days and some very severe thunderstorms.  The second night of our stay, a big storm was rolling through around 9:30.  Lots of lightning, booming thunder... I was worried how this would affect my sleeping kiddos.  Sure enough, I heard sounds from Nathan, so I went in to comfort him.  I told him that during a thunderstorm, God makes the thunder go "BOOM!" really loud and lights flash in the sky.  I told him that he didn't have to be scared because the thunder and lightning couldn't hurt him.  I told him how it was raining pretty hard and that it was very "wet wet" outside.  The fact that it was getting wet outside was the biggest concern for him - he looked at me and said "bummer!", then laid down to go back to sleep.  Glad the experience wasn't too traumatic for him!

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In the past few weeks, Nathan has gotten better and better about saying  "please" and "thank you" without prompting.  But he figures if he's expected to say it, Mommy and Daddy need to be on the ball as well.  So if he says "thank you" for something and doesn't receive an immediate "you're welcome", he continues to repeat himself "Thank you.  Nathan say 'thank you'!  Thank you." until we respond appropriately.

We are also working on combating whiny-ness (what?! a whiny two year old!! no!).  He'll ask for something, lots of times its his milk, in a whiny tone.  I'll ask him to say "please", and he does it, but still being whiny.  Getting the idea from one of my friends, I started having Nathan ask me with a smile.  Its amazing how adding a smile to your face instantly changes the tone of voice!  And it also makes me smile to see his sweet grin, so both of us get an instant attitude adjustment!  He usually remembers to do this on his own now, grinning and pointing to his cheeks with his fingers to make sure I notice his smile.

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 Nathan has been going through a growth spurt.  He has outgrown the length of his 18 month pants and is now into 2T size, but we definitely need adjustable waist pants for this boy because he is so slender!  He has also moved up to 3T shirts because of his long torso.  I weighed him at the pediatrician's office while we were there for Sarah's 4 month check-up.  He has gained weight since his two year checkup, about a pound and a half in the last 5ish months, which keeps him between 25% and 50% on the growth chart.    Unfortunately I didn't think about checking his height, so I pulled out the tape measure and eyeballed his current height at 34.75 inches (25%).  But the main indication of a taller and bigger boy is that now he can open the fridge by himself!  This makes for nice mornings, since he can now get his milk out of the fridge and climb into bed with me (sometimes joining Daddy and/or Sarah as well).  But we are also having to now train on making sure the fridge is closed!