Lucas at 34 months

One significant milestone is that Lucas is now stringing words together to form sentences. He is also half potty trained - yay! Lucas now pees in the toilet and in the potty.

It just happened last week - at lunch he turned to Fred and said "papa, pee pee" and Fred put Lucas on the toilet (I continued eating lunch, not expecting Lucas to really pee as he's been doing that for months now, sitting but not doing the deed and then I heard Fred going "Bravo! Bravo!) and voila! Our baby boy is now happily peeing in the potty :)

So that's bye bye Halte Garderie and hello Ecole Maternelle in 2 weeks!!!!

We found that as Lucas grows older, he is also more obedient and listens more now. When I call him to come to me to get changed and he runs away, I start counting 1... 2.... and I say "don't make me count to 3", he actually comes to me!

When I switch off the water in the shower, there is no more screaming or crying. When I bring him out of the bath, he doesn't cling onto me anymore - instead he lets me dry him with a towel and slather moisteriser and dress him.

When he asks for ice cream for breakfast and I tell him no, he doesn't throw a tantrum.

Nowadays when Lucas does make a fuss and cry, I tell him to tell me what he wants as he is able to speak now, he promptly stops crying and TELLS me what he wants.

At the church yesterday for Roger's funeral, Lucas was really good. We decided to bring Lucas (I insisted on it even though my MIL said I should get someone to watch Lucas at home as I wanted Lucas to say goodbye to Roger as well) and before we left for the church I told Lucas that he needed to be quiet and to be good. And throughout the funeral, he was good. My MIL who was seated up front with Fred thought Lucas and I were outside the cathedral when in actual fact we were seated on the last pew. Lucas maintained calm throughout, even when he wanted to go up front to see what the priest was doing (preparing for holy communion) Lucas whispered to me instead of talking in his normal voice! AND we left his pacifier at home...

One thing that was important to note is that with Lucas, he needs to have boundaries and limits. And as parents he looks to us to show him his limits. We found that if we tell him no, we cannot relent to his tears or tantrums later. Also, we have to mean what we say. For example if he misbehaves and I tell him "if you do that one more time I will put you back in the stroller/ we will go home" I have to make sure I do what I say or else Lucas will do the forbidden thing again and again. Since we put this into practice Lucas has been easy, and stopped being tiring.

He now sits with us for meals. He now also knows that he won't get ice cream for dessert if he doesn't eat or if he throws his food. He knows better now how to express his frustration because we keep telling him that when he screams and cries we do not understand him and that he can tell us in his normal voice what is making him so angry. He plays independantly now and we often find him in his room reading or listening to music.

Lucas' last day at the creche