Beckett at 3 Years

This kid just keeps getting better and better. 

I wrote this caption for a birthday picture of him on Instagram and it’s about the best way I can summarize him at this age:

He’s funny, responsible, social, smart, strong-willed, polite, and chatty.  He loves baseball, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, cantaloupe, Kolby, and bonus time.  He loves learning and is always saying the cleverest things.  Everyone he meets is a “new friend” and nothing in life is worth anything unless he’s sharing it with someone and narrating everything about it.  I so wish I could bottle up his sweet little voice.  He’s the most perfect blend of the best of Kolby and me and the exact answer to our years of praying.

He’s loving school and made his first real friend on his own.  The boy’s name is Will and they aren’t in the same class but they do story time and the playground together and apparently they have hit it off.  If we see them on the way in the boys run to each other and hold hands all the way to their classrooms.  It’s pretty darn sweet.

I don’t think I’ve documented his bedtime routine as a toddler and I want to for my own memory’s sake (and to explain the “bonus time” mention above!).  Every night (and naptime too) we put his pajamas on then he gets 5 minutes of bonus time, then we read two books.  What is bonus time you ask?  Well, it’s basically nothing.  I don’t remember how exactly it came about, but I think he was doing his usual wigging out about getting his pajamas on one night because he wanted to keep playing, so we told him that if he got his pajamas on now he could have a few minutes of bonus play time before bed.  It worked like a charm and over time became this amazing bargaining chip for us.  If he’s not being cooperative or if he’s disobeying, all we have to do is tell him he will lose his bonus time if he doesn’t listen and obey and BOOM, magic.  He takes keeping his bonus time really seriously, which cracks us up because it’s really not that cool of a thing.  We set a timer and he gets to choose what he wants to do with his bonus time, and usually by the time he decides what he wants to do and starts it, the timer goes off.  And the funniest thing is he runs over and turns off the timer off then chooses his two books and meets us on the couch, not even flinching about how he ran out of time right when the fun started.  Dude respects the rules of bonus time, ha!  So we read the two books, then we brush his teeth and go to his room to pray and tuck him in with his stuffed animals (his favorite is his wolf named Brian) and sing him Beckett Boy, which is a song Kolby made up for him when he was a baby that has stuck.  Usually he calls for us a couple times—he likes to hide under his covers then ask us to find him, or he’ll have some random question, need water, etc.—but he goes to sleep pretty easily.  He sleeps from about 8pm-6am.  Can’t complain!  And right around his third birthday he had a nap renaissance of sorts and takes a nap 95% of the time now, after being kind of hit or miss with naps the few months before that.  I thought maybe his napping days were coming to an end but man, I can’t tell you how amazing it is that he’s still going strong with it.  Mama sure enjoys that break in the afternoon :)

Beckett still loves to read, and we always have a slew of library books around because Kolby takes the boys to the library a couple times a week.  His favorites are The Jungle Baseball Game, I Really Like Slop!, and anything construction themed, like Dig Dig Digging and Tap Tap Bang Bang.  His teacher at school reads several books a day to them and he eats it up, and I love that he’s a little bookworm.

I don’t know what else to say about him these days—he’s just a hoot to be around and I could listen to him talk all day long.  He is always learning and picking up on things and every single day he surprises us by saying something really thoughtful or clever that seems beyond his years.  I love that he’s so talkative and that it lets us get a peek inside how his little brain thinks about things.

Now on to some pictures…

Getting dirty being a boy
Playing with his bud Liam
Storybook Parade at school

Still a baseball fan...



This was Beckett's first year to go to Grams Camp and he loved it!  A week packed with activities and crafts and field trips with my mom and his cousin Tucker.
 

Carving our pumpkin

Hanging with my best play-doh, puzzle and trampoline buddy

Helping me at work
Cool dude
We went on a breakfast date and he was the best company!
Texas State Fair!
Baylor Homecoming 2015- it poured and poured but we had a great time at the game with this guy!
To my fellow Arrested Development fans, he started doing the George Michael sadness move and it's so hard to take him seriously!
We spent Thanksgiving with my family at the ranch and Beckett has reached the age where he can run wild outside with his cousin Tucker and they have the best time together.  They play with sticks and go on fake hunts and ride the Gator and do who knows what else but it's the coolest thing that they have each other and all the space to be boys together!
Neighborhood patrol 
 His hair is still crazy and I love it

1 comment:

The Jesters said...

He is seriously the cutest boy. I mean, that picture of him holding his hat over his heart at the baseball game is too much! And him fast asleep with a thousand toys on the bed. Ha! I'm not surprised that he's so good about following the bonus time rules. He's got a couple of rule-following parents, after all. :)

 
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