An Adolescent 3 Year Old

Andrew has been remarking often these days that he is "almost a teenager!" or that he "will be a teenager soon!" He then adds that I "will be so sad because [he] [is] not a baby (or little boy) anymore." He has assured me that we will still be best friends, however.

Andrew is sort of like a teenager already in some of his behaviors. One of them is that he likes to stay up late and sleep in. Last night he went strong all day long (we even had preschool at our house) and resisted bedtime until after 10pm. (And no, he has not napped in a year.) We had check-ups with the doctor today, so I let him sleep until he woke up naturally, knowing that I would pay the price tonight with another late bedtime. He slept until 10:45 am. He is still up now. He is in an excellent mood, and I am glad to he is hanging out with us. He is laughing in these shots because he had snatched an entire cookie dough ball off the sheet while the oven pre-heated. He thought it was very funny.


After his bath, he got to spends lots of time with Daddy, who got home after 7:30. He left his NFL viewing to come bake some chocolate chip cookies with me (he did all of the dry ingredients). Then we made a bunch of Thanksgiving crafts, one for every member of our extended family and Will. Right now he is drawing lumbermills with crayons (in honor of a recent toy).

So we have not watched The Office, and maybe we won't tonight. But I don't feel deprived. These late nights with Andrew are actually really fun, and the sleeping in is nice for me and Will, too, since we get our own one-on-one in the morning. When school starts in a few years, we won't be able to do this stuff anymore, and when Andrew really is a teenager, he won't be staying up late to bake cookies with me.

And he is right, he will be a teenager soon. And I will be wondering where it all went. I will hold him to his assurance that we will still be great friends.