At three years old, Jayson is 38 inches tall and weighs 35.8 pounds. I have no idea where that falls in percentages, but I'm guessing somewhere around 50th percentile....he seems pretty average compared to most kids his age. Three different height estimators have said that based on his current age, height, and weight, he is likely to be 5 feet 11 inches by the time he is all done growing. Scary to believe that some day he just might pass both Sam and I up in height--glad we've got a few years before that! He is more potty trained than not (particularly if he is motivated with some kind of prize chart), which I am SO proud of him about. Jayson's top favorite foods as of late are his special coconut bread french toast, special bread-crust pizza, chocolate milk, and smarties/sweet tarts. Gotta love the balance to his diet there....I promise he eats other healthy stuff occasionally! As a funny side note, Jayson does NOT like ice cream, apparently because it is too cold--the two times we've tried to give him some recently, he keeps asking us to give it to him hot! His favorite TV show is definitely Dora the Explorer, but it keeps him occupied and learning a few things, so I don't complain too often about watching the same episode for the millionth time. I know he's learning from good old Dora, because one time I told him to tell Daddy to stop tickling me, and he told Sam to stop alright.....but in Spanish. We may or may not have laughed hard enough to forget the tickle fight we were having. I've tried to ask Jayson several times what his favorite color is, but he always tells me whatever color my shirt is, silly boy! Jayson really cares about other people, and will always ask someone what is wrong if they are crying, which I find totally adorable. He is getting so much better at listening to what his grown-ups tell him (that's what he calls his daycare teachers, extended family, etc) and overall I couldn't be more proud of how he's growing up and learning things!
I took Jayson to his first party ever on Friday afternoon, as a Mommy and Jayson only activity, for about an hour and a half. By the way, that's the perfect time frame for a three year old, in case you were wondering. There were bounce houses, face painting, a splash pad to play in, tons of kids all ages, and lots of really great food (although Jayson couldn't eat any of it, so it was a good thing I'd packed him a few snacks). The party reminded me that Jayson is definitely more of an observer and introvert than I ever was; he wanted me to stick with him and try new things out together, but after a while became more comfortable doing things himself. Anyway, here are a few fun pictures I took at the party.
Jayson was actually really excited to get his face painted, but had no idea what he wanted. I prompted him to pick a star with his initial, because I figured you couldn't really go wrong doing something that easy. I took this picture so he could see the results after it was all done, and he was so excited! Pretty sure he cried when it came off in the bathtub Sunday morning lol.
Jayson's sultry pose. This one just made me laugh, so I had to share with you guys.
Jayson and I taking a selfie in the bounce house. By the way, it's really tricky to do when lots of kids are jumping like crazy! I was surprised to see some of me in Jayson when I looked at this picture. I feel like both my boys take a lot after Sam (which is all great cause he's pretty handsome), but it's nice to know that I made it in the gene pool mix a little bit lol. You can't really tell in this picture, but we also both share the same strange blue/green/brown eye color :]
At 18 months old, Max is around 31 inches tall and weighs 26.8 pounds--this kid doesn't let all of his problems keep him skinny hehe! Once again, I have no idea where that falls, but am guessing in the 50th-75th percentile. We will just have to wait until their well checks next month to know for sure though. Max's top favorite foods are eggs, special coconut flour bread/french toast, cottage cheese, cheese sticks, ice cream......and really whatever you will give him on his highchair tray. This poor child struggles a lot with hearing the words no at mealtime, because he is STILL on a no oral liquids diet, and has that gosh darn naso-gastric tube. All of the tape required to hold it in place is honestly ripping his face to pieces after having it for 8+ weeks, it's super sad. His hysterical tantrums at meal time have become the norm (our new duplex neighbors are gonna love us!) but we try very hard to all be understanding of his struggles and not lose our patience too much. He has a follow-up swallow study on August 12th, to see if this last surgery helped improve his aspiration issues, but I fear that I already know the answer. He has made minimal at best improvements from what we can see, and that probably means he will need to get a gastric tube (surgically put directly into his stomach) and continue to be on a no oral liquids diet. I don't ask this kind of stuff very often, but......please please please pray that Max's doctors will be inspired to know how to best help him, and that we as parents will know best how to advocate for him. It's a very long haul that he and we have been through, both physically and emotionally, and some days we just don't know if we can do it any more! (Yet somehow we do, by some miracle.) We all would like nothing more than to be able to get Max to a functional point with swallowing liquids!
Max loves anything his big brother does (fights over toys are aplenty at my house), and those two are always trying to get into mischief together! He's a real Daddy's boy (to the point where he cries if Sam leaves his sight for more than a few seconds) but does love to give hugs and high-fives to everyone. Even at this young of an age, I see that he is going to be more extroverted than Jayson; Max just has a certain charm about him and honestly lights up a room whenever he walks....okay toddles.....in. He's getting incredibly vocal nowadays, and the amount of understandable words that come out of his mouth often astonishes me. The one word he refuses to say though is please; instead he does the baby sign for it, which is rubbing the tummy/chest area in a circular motion. We thought he was just being really weird for a while, but a few months back when my mother-in-law was here, she caught on to what he was trying to do, and now I find it rather adorable. His hair still has a reddish tint to it (found myself!) but he has dark greenish brown eyes and slightly darker-white skin like daddy does. He is growing very attached to his monkey stuffed animal and blanket, and calls his monkey "baby". It's the cutest thing ever to hear him yell "baby!" and run from across the room to his monkey, and it happens at least three times a day--lucky for me! Even though we have had a lot of ups and downs with Max in the last several months, he tries hard to be such a good boy, and I couldn't be happier when his little face lights up with a big smile. Sadly, the only picture I have of him is about a month old, but it's better than nothing I figure.
Enjoying a super giant cheese stick from 7-11. All of his cousins and brother got Slurpees, which was sad for him, until he found out he got a treat too! Looking forward to the day (hopefully) where his only dietary restriction is CSID, and he can enjoy drinks with everyone else :]
We get to go visit our cousins and Auntie Aubum/Uncle Dot (Jayson's pet names for Autumn and Brett haha) this upcoming weekend, definitely getting excited for that! I am going to try hard to remember to take some pictures, so I can post about it.
P.S. If you think that Dot is a strange name for Brett, Jayson used to call him Uncle Butt--his own interpretation of how to say Brett--I'm willing to bet he prefers Dot haha!
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