Luckily for John, he is about the most lovable child around because he can also be a bit of a handful. And he's actually so charming half of the time he's being a handful...like yesterday when he was snoring loudly in his room instead of napping and when I went in and kindly asked him to stop he reported that I woke him up from a great sleep that had him snoring and snoring. Ohhhh John.
John goes to school on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and is my side kick the rest of the time. He has been around the world with how he feels about school, but now he LOVES it. He clearly loves both of his teachers and tells them he loves them when he's leaving school a lot of days. He has learned more than I ever expected him too and is now recognizing his letters and starting to know a lot of the letter sounds. He counts everything he can come across and can count to 29 (can't quite remember 30 for some reason to start the process over). He has started to love to draw and do "activities" as he calls them like painting and arts and crafts. As busy as he is, he would rather be in your lap reading than doing anything else. Surprisingly he is a little bit shy at school and is more of the sit back and observe type. Next year he will go Monday, Wednesday, and Friday half days and we found out today that he is going to bump up to the next classroom. As of now our plan is to let him go Mon-Fri half days the year after next, and then start kindergarten rather than let him start kindergarten right away. He has one of those dreaded mid-August birthdays that can go either way, but for now we're settling for him being the oldest in his class and not the youngest. Fingers crossed that this all works out for the best for him.
Besides letters, numbers, and reading, John loves music and animals. He has discovered the joy of the internet and if he asks me something that I'm not sure about he's very quick to ask me to "look online." He still loves all things imaginary play and spends 90% of his time in a costume. He is getting much more serious about his super heroes and sticks to them mainly. He is so funny about asking me to play with him, but then feeding me the exact lines I have to say when we play. I dare say he's slightly neurotic already, but he comes from two type a's so I guess we had it coming.
John has adjusted so unbelievably well to Sam's arrival that I feel like it should all blow up any day now. He has a moment here or there when he's frustrated and has given him a soft blow once or twice, but for the most part John has nothing but love for "little Sammy Lou" as he calls him. I guess he hears me comforting Sam when he's crying and it's adorable to hear him mimic my voice when he talks to him. Sam is quite taken with John as well and has started crying every time John leaves the room. I hope they always love each other this much. No one can get the giant smile from Sam that John gets...I mean we all get sweet smiles, but Sam smiles with his whole body at John.
John continues to be picky, but I do think he is coming around a little. He has Matt's exact body (seriously it's weird to see how exactly alike their body shape is) and will never gain an ounce of fat no matter how much he eats.
In seriously big news, he also recently lost one of his beloved pals. We hid John's dirty secret as long as we could, but the child LOVED his pacifier better than life. We kept saying we were going to get rid of it, but then Matt and I would come up with some excuse about why it wasn't the right time and so at 3.5 he still slept with it. It never left the bed, but it was definitely in there. WELL a few weeks ago he decided he was ready for a visit from the pacifier fairy so we called her up and she came and scooper them up. John never mentioned the thing again, and I cried. There you have it folks.
But mostly what I want to remember about John at this age is that he is the funniest child around. He literally has me rolling over laughing because he comes out with these totally unexpected and hysterical things. I'm not sure that he always does it intentionally, but sometimes I think he knows he's funny. His sense of humor is what keeps me going on days when I feel like mommy needs a break...and by break, I mean a month in Greece. He has recently developed a love for telling knock, knock jokes, and his delivery is pretty good. Reminds me of another John Murray I knew (Matt's dad was an avid joke teller).
And there you have it. All I can think to write at the moment about our sweet John....joke teller, nap time fighter, chicken nugget eater, avid reader, and super hero worshiper.
And a few 3.5 year old pics from my phone...
