Desmond is officially halfway through being a three year old. He's sweet, I'll give him that, but I must admit that we are 2 for 2 in the challenging 3-year-olds department. Maybe Aurelia will give us a break when she turns 3- but I won't be placing any bets on it! It seems that 2 year olds get the worst reputation but 3 year olds are more difficult in my opinion. They're bigger, more opinionated and more capable of mischief than 2 year olds for sure. Maybe it's just my boys, but they are quite strong-willed and it seems to culminate at this age.
All that said, we sure do love our Desmond at any age. At his best he is sweet and hysterical and imaginative. He loves to follow around his big brother, but when he feels wronged by Malakai, Desmond doesn't take it lightly. Lately we've been working on getting him to talk about his feelings with Malakai rather than running to Ben or I for help or just to give us a play by play of what's going on.
Des is still learning how to be gentle with Aurelia, but he really adores his little sister. He has taken to calling her "Sis-tie" which I do not understand, but it's mostly adorable (except when he yells it in her face or when she's trying to sleep). He likes to make her smile (who doesn't) and whenever she cries he will run to her room to find a toy to bring her.
Desmond knows colors and variations on colors. He even problem solved an issue of he and Malakai both having the favorite color green by saying one of them could be dark green and the other light green. He caught on to that and shapes long ago but isn't as interested in numbers and letters yet. He sings about half the alphabet before making up his own words or just ending the song, but to my surprise he knows most of the letters by sight. He counts to 5 easily and to 10 accurately most of the time. He's great with one-to-one correspondence and much to my relief he is great at using his manners when out in public (I've heard this several times from his sweet Sunday school teachers). Just the other day I tried to give him a cuddle and he said "No thank you mama, we keep our hands to ourselves." Who can argue with that?
He sure does love to do whatever Malakai is doing much of the time. We often have to find him something to distract him to get Kai the alone time he craves. It sure is sweet when Malakai reads to him though. I can't help but snap a picture of them huddled up over a book every single time.
The two of them are getting more rough in their play, which I don't mind most of the time except when it becomes one sided and someone stops respecting boundaries. I'm sure that will only get more extreme as they grow, but I hope they always play together.
Desmond loves to play pretend and pulls anyone around into his world of make believe. He will assign you a character and expect you to act accordingly, which can be especially difficult if you aren't familiar with what he wants you to do or say.
The most recently developments have been his ability to completely tune out the entire world around him. I could be in his face saying his name and he's still focused on something else. He's mastered the art of selective hearing.
Desmond is a total bruiser. Literally 5 minutes after I took most of these photos he ran from the grass to the aggregate driveway and tripped, landing on his face. His poor head has endured quite a few dings (including stitches already) and my poor heart has been through the wringer!
He has also started needing less help at bed time over the last few weeks. This has been a LONG time coming. For the past year and a half he has needed Ben to put him to bed and lay with him until he fell asleep. While he was still napping it could take him up to an hour to fall asleep, and if you got up before he was out you'd be starting the process all over. He wouldn't let me put him to sleep except for very rare occasions, which meant that Ben didn't get to go anywhere in the evenings. Whenever we tried Des would just stay up and torture me until Ben came home. Now Ben will lay down with him for 2 minutes, say goodnight and shut the door and Desmond will be fast asleep in a matter of minutes. It's a small miracle that we are thoroughly enjoying.
We absolutely love our creative and rambunctious
little Desmond and can hardly believe he'll be 4 in just 6 short months!
