Reed at 3 Years Old

Reed is growing and learning and changing so quickly.  I want so desperately to remember how he is right now.  Here are a few notes about Reed at 3 years old:

• Anyone who knows Reed knows he loves vehicles.  Really, really loves vehicles.  He doesn't really care about cars or daily transportation vehicles, but he loves all vehicles with jobs: grab excavators are probably his favorite, but he is an avid fan of everything from concrete piping trucks and bulldozers to tractors and fire trucks.  His eyes and mind race while we're on the road, calling out "Man lift!" and "Helicopter!" and "Look, Howand, a semi" one after the other.  He loves vehicles.
• Reed adores his legos (Duplos).  There have literally been maybe two days in the past 3 months (6 months?) that he hasn't played with them.  It's the first toy he asks for in the morning, he plays with them every single day during quiet time, and if we have downtime with TJ in the afternoon they do legos together.  We've bought him several construction sets and he makes endless vehicle creations, hooking them together, putting them in rows, having them work together, building things.  The other day he put one of his trucks on a stack of Legos and told me "Look, Mom - outriggers!"  He calls the little people either his "workers" or his "guys" and the first two were Mac and Joe (named by Nana).  He has since named another two Jeff and TJ.  :)  We bought him a train Lego set for Christmas that he rarely uses - typically just his construction trucks and then his blocks for other creative play (like he just brought me a tall tower and said "Look, Mom, I made a walking stick" and the other day he made a violin.)
• Every day Reed asks to "scoop and dump" - go play in the dirt in the backyard.  He is most delighted when people will go out and dig with him, but most often he spends time out there by himself, surrounded by shovels, digging in the dirt we've always intended to make a garden.  He fills his bucket and dumps it back out, moves dirt from one spot to another, rakes and digs again.
• When he pushes down with his foot on his big shovel he calls it "pedaling."
• He loves dirt so much he has dug up and/or dumped out two of my containers of seeds/food (I put the seeds in containers so he could keep his dirt to himself!)  When I asked him why he dug up my seeds he replied, "I wanted dirt."  
• Reed is still very analytical and thinks a lot about the things he observes or hears.  He is full of questions and surprises me by randomly asking questions about things that happened months ago (remembering enough accurately to ask valid questions).    
• His hair is incredibly coarse.  I don't think I know anyone else with hair the same texture as his.  When we do it I always ask him, "Do you want it spiky or combed?" and he always chooses combed, so we do it combed to the side with the Got2b glued stuff, which works pretty well.
• For the past 2-3 months he has told us every day, "I'm a tiger."  We have no idea where this came from.  He roars randomly throughout the day.  Sometimes when we ask him to wash his hands he'll tell us they're paws.  He'll holler, "We are all tigers!" when we're eating.  When he's especially tired if I say something like, "Hey, pal!" or "See you later, alligator!" he'll start crying and say, "I'm a TIGER."
• Thanks to Poppy, Reed is really getting into birdwatching.  Poppy gifted him a (really nice) pair of binoculars a few months ago.  We're not confident he actually sees anything yet, but he does know now which way they go and he can consistently hold them up to his eyes (yesterday, while riding in the stroller, he was holding his binoculars and kept telling me, "I'm watching for hawks, Mom.")  He easily recognizes and can name ducks and geese, but also pigeons, mourning doves, yellow headed blackbirds, quail, and coots.  He also knows the names of many more (grackles, red winged blackbirds, etc.) but can't accurately name them by sight.  
• As Reed learns more about birds, he becomes less patient with Holland's inability to differentiate them.  :)  Holland loves ducks and calls out "Hi duck, hi duck, hi duck" whenever she sees one.  But she also calls "Hi duck" when she sees any other bird.  When Reed hears her he'll yell at her, "Hahn!  That's a QUAIL!  Say 'quail!'" or "Howand, that's a yellow headed black bird.  Say 'yellow headed black bird!'"  He just can't understand why she keeps saying duck.
• Reed adores books and reading.  He'll listen to books as long as anyone will read to him and asks us to read with him several times every day.  We read pretty widely and he likes everything from poetry to nonfiction to board books to picture books.  A few favorites right now are The Digger and the Flower, Zen Shorts, Chester's Way, a nonfiction book all about tractors and what they do, Brambly Hedge, and Jamberry.  He has many books that he can nearly recite and more that he can finish the second half of every phrase.
• In addition to being read to, Reed both reads to himself (by sitting with a stack of books and flipping through, looking at the pictures, and asking us questions if we're near) and loves listening to audiobooks.  We put a CD player in his room and checked out a number of books on CD from the library and he listens to at least one every day (during quiet time).  His favorite is Zen Shorts this week.
• Reed's job at dinner is to set the silverware (typically just forks) on the table.  He sets them near each person's seat, facing all different directions, and it makes me smile every time I look over.  It's especially darling when he's done more than forks (added spoons and/or knives) and there is cutlery all over the place.
• He is really good at saying thank you - to most everyone, for most anything.
• He says a few "grown up" phrases that crack me up.  When I ask him how he's doing he nearly always responds, "I'm doing fine, how 'bout you?"  He says "absolutely" and "seriously" all the time.  Today while we were driving he said, "That makes sense." but couldn't tell me why he was saying it.  :)  (Maybe just heard it and was trying it out?)  
• Reed is not at all into crafts or artwork.  For his birthday I got him sticker books, twistable crayons, paints and paintbrushes - all of which he looked at, set on the ground, and never picked up again.  :)  Every couple months he'll put stickers on a paper for about 5 minutes and then go back to his normal life.  
• I thought Reed would be more into puzzles, given how much he LOVES the bus puzzle Nana gave him.  He will do that one by himself easily, but that hasn't translated to enjoyment to all puzzles.  
• Reed's favorite show is Random Acts on BYUTV.  It's really the only show he watches, and he always prefers the exact same episodes: ones that include construction (where they put together a backyard or pour a driveway).  The show is set up to surprise people by doing kind things for them and he knows the hosts by name.  We've heard him many times quietly singing the theme song to himself or repeating their closing line, "A ha ha ha - you're welcome!" when he's doing something else.  It's pretty funny.  Poor boy has...never seen a cartoon.
• He's excellent on his "lean" bike - his strider bike that he got several months ago.  We walk at Daybreak Lake every morning and he rides his bike.  He's never taken a really nasty fall, which I'm grateful for, and he doesn't complain about wearing his helmet (orange - he chose the color himself).  For his birthday all he wanted was a "pedal bike," and when he started telling strangers he was getting one we caved and bought it for him (we intended to wait until his 4th birthday, given he's had his balance bike just a few months).  He tried it for about ten minutes, got frustrated, and gave up.  Ha!  He's tried maybe twice since but just can't figure out pedaling (it's probably very difficult to visualize since he really doesn't see anybody riding bikes except those he passes while we're out walking).
• In spite of being such a picky eater when he was 1, Reed is now an excellent eater!  It is really thrilling.  :)  It feels luxurious to be able to make whatever I want for dinner and have all of us eat it.  Yahoo!  Reed won't eat eggs, but he is game for pretty much anything and everything else.  He happily eats vegetables and fruits, meats, grains, etc.  It's so nice.  He especially loves shrimp, steak, watermelon, M&Ms, roasted carrots, cinnamon rolls, cucumbers, chips or crackers and red pepper hummus, ice cream, toast with butter and jam, waffles, clementine oranges, fruit snacks, and chocolate milk.  
• Reed has a soft heart.  He notices and sympathizes when people are sad or upset.  If I'm crying he'll come give me a hug and ask if I'm okay.  ("You okay, Mom?")  If Holland is upset he'll put his arms around her a squeeze (which...might often worsen the problem, but it comes from a loving place).  If he sees someone else crying he'll ask me what's wrong or what's happened.
• This boy is tall!  He is wearing 4T this summer and he's knocking on 40", which puts him in the 96th percentile for height (and up from 35% to 65% for weight - go, Reed!)  I don't really notice his height right now because we're not interacting with others his age (covid) but it seems he is definitely tall.
• Reed wears Crocs every day.  He has an "outside" pair and an "inside" pair so that he can wear shoes all day, every day.  He refuses to wear them without socks and hates being barefoot anytime, anywhere.  
• Reed's the first one awake virtually every morning, between 6 and 6:30 AM.  He does go to sleep about 6 PM, so we're incredibly pleased he's putting in so many house sleeping.  He will go weeks when he sleeps through the night every night and then weeks when he's up every night during the night.  When he wakes up he always walks into our room (the sound of opening his door usually wakes me) and comes right to my side.  He sleeps with his cherished, beloved, battered "white blankets," which are his ultimate comfort item.  After three years they have holes in them and the tags are connected by just a thread, but he clings to them and loves them all the same, sleeping with his tags grasped tightly in his fingers.
• Reed is really smart.  I can have full conversations with him about we discuss a number of topics.  Poppy was just telling me how inquisitive and curious he is: intelligent beyond his years with an incredible memory.  And he's right!  
• We have - for some time now - been trying to teach Reed how to get undressed himself.  It is so funny to me that he just can't seem to figure it out.  :)  He pulls down his shorts or pants by grabbing the fabric on his thighs and tugging straight down - both legs at the same time.  He then gets upset (every single time) that he can't get his feet out of his pants by himself.  :)  He has learned to pull his arm into his sleeve, but inevitably sticks it out the neck instead of pulling it down to the bottom of his shirt.  :)  And socks?  They're just infuriating.  Ha!  And to think we haven't even started how to put clothes on...
• Instead of "Where are you" I hear "Whey ah you" several times a day.  It's adorable.  
• He's in the middle of trying to figure out "anything" and "nothing" and it's cute to hear them get hashed out.  "What did he say, Reed?"  "Not anything."  "Do you need something?"  "Anything."  
• Instead of saying "won't" he says "weeon't."
• He is excellent at recognizing a couple letters: H (he always says "H for Howand!"), R ("R for Reed!"), and D ("D for Dad!")  He finds these letters in the most abstract places, which blows me away.  First of all, he recognizes them no matter their orientation - backwards, upside down, it's all the same to him.  Then he sees them in things that I'd never notice: this morning he spotted a blue box on our neighbor's porch with white tape sealing the bottom and top.  The pieces of tape were across the middle of the box and they came halfway up and down the sides of the box, which made Reed yell out "H for Howand!"  
• He's wearing 4T pants and shirts, 5T pajamas, and I just ordered him size 11 and 12 shoes.

There are, of course, a million more things that make Reed uniquely Reed, but I've been writing this post for a week so I'm calling it a wrap.  He is one in a million and we are so incredibly grateful he's ours.