Project Submarine: I'm Three!

Last Friday was Callum's third birthday, and while I don't do nearly as good a job anymore on blogging about the milestones he's hitting, rest assured, he's still hitting them. ;-)

While I could go on and on about how fantastic Callum is at keeping up a pretty thorough and complex conversation these days, or how physically agile and flexible and coordinated he is, or how much he's just flat out GROWN over the last year, I think the most significant milestone for (all of) us is his potty training.

We started potty training a few months ago, but the biggest leap happened about a week or two ago, where we decided to send him to bed without a diaper. He's been napping for the last month, I'd say, without a diaper, and he's been waking up in the mornings with a totally dry diaper, but we'd been slow at stopping the diapers all together, mostly because they are actually pretty darn convenient, when we need them to be! ;-)

But, Callum started asking to go to bed in his underwear only, without his diaper, a couple of weeks ago - so we tried it out a night or two and then finally just took the leap of faith. Suffice to say, he's been terrific! So, I've moved the changing pad and diapers completely to the side in our "giveaway" pile, and will soon be donating all of our "baby stuff" away.

Newsflash: We now lead a diaper-free life. Crazy!!

It's a huge milestone not just for our big boy Callum, but for Mama here as well. Since, I still struggle with a bad back (in fact, the last week or so I've been trying to get in front of a mini-flare up), and getting rid of diapers means I'm just one more step closer to a life with less picking up or bending over.

Sure, I will always have some of that with these little guys, at least until they're about 10 and sprout up taller than me ;-) but it's these small wins like potty training that really make the sigh of relief that much more significant. And reassure me there's an end in sight to some of the regular pain I'm dealing with, which I know will lessen with some of our life's changes.

But back to Mr. Callum - yoohooo!! He's a big boy now!

As if he was anything less. ;-)

We had his 3 year checkup this morning and he's right on track of any other 3 year old. Spunky and curious and talkative and charming. He's slowed a bit on the growth front, weighing in at 30 pounds (30-35%) and measuring 38" tall (75%). As I told Jon, still on track to have a tall and slender build.

As for his birthday - we had a very low-keyed day for Callum, which was really nice for all of us.

Logan, interestingly, has been pretty excited about Callum's birthday, perhaps more so than Callum, literally counting down the days until Callum's birthday (marking the days off the calendar and every morning, telling Callum how many more days are left until his birthday). This helped get Callum ramped up all week as well. A few days prior to Callum's birthday, Logan couldn't stand it anymore and insisted we wrap his presents - which we did. Of course, the wrapped and waiting presents just increased the excitement level in the house after that. :)

Come Friday morning, the boys were SO SAD when I told them we weren't opening presents that morning, but would have to wait until after dinner and cake that night. WHAT!!! But it's his/my birthday!! What an Evil Mom. :)

Jon took the day off and, per Callum's request, took him out for a breakfast donut. They had a pretty laid-back day after that; shopping and running around like crazy at the mall. I took off early, picked up Logan from school, and the two of us were in charge of picking up Callum's cake, a carrot cake, per the birthday boy's request (very surprising!). We then met up with Jon and Callum at home, and the four of us trekked out to our favorite pizza joint where Uncle Zane joined us for dinner.

After dinner, the real festivities began (according to the boys) - we immediately dove into present-opening mode, where Logan gladly helped out his little brother with anything he might need, like grabbing the next gift to open, or just opening the gift up for him. ;-)

He absolutely loved everything he got, but his favorite was probably his new puzzles, that his grandparents, Ito and Ita, got for him. One of those puzzles (a 3-D block one pictured above), was actually pretty tough! Uncle Zane and Mama had to pitch in to help figure it out. ;-)

Once the excitement of presents wore off, we set up his cake and boy did he ham it up for us all. Particularly when he could only blow out one of his three candles.