Well, it's time for a Caleb update because he is 3 years and 8 months old today. So what is new in Caleb-land? He is over the 100-piece pirate puzzle that he was so into last month. We broke open a new 100-piece puzzle that he has done a few times, but it didn't capture him like the other one. Actually, this may be the first month in a long while that he hasn't really had an obvious favorite thing to do. Part of it is that we have been on the go a lot this month, so he hasn't had as much time at home as in previous months. Another odd development this month is that he seems to have (hopefully temporarily) lost interest in being read to. He looks at books on his own, but isn't nearly as into being read to as he has been, well, his whole life. Maybe he is moving toward being ready to read on his own. Or maybe I've just gone too long without checking out books from the library, and he is just tired of all the books he owns.
On the other hand, Caleb has been much more socially-focused this month than ever before. He is always begging to go see a particular friend (usually Matthew Jones or William Pollard). On days when we don't have plans with friends, he turns to Ethan and they have a lot of fun together on their own. (Despite the fact that the fighting to cooperating ratio hovers around 1:2, in favor of cooperating.) Right now, as I type, he and Ethan are putting their 20+ matchbox cars in a perfect row across the play room floor. Last night after dinner, they worked together to clean up the entire play room.
As I helped the boys pick up the toys, I realized that Caleb has inherited a very bad combination of Marcus and my characteristics: he is particular about where things go and how things are done, like me, but he is passive and reluctant to get up and do it himself, like Marcus. So he sits on the floor telling Ethan that he is doing it wrong. This is really a horrible combination, so he is either going to have to loosen up or get to work. Being anal and hard-working is forgivable, and so is being passive and easy-to-please, but it does not work to hold onto the bad side of both of those coins :)
Along with being more social lately, Caleb has gotten back into enjoying more physical fun. For a while there, he'd lost interest in sports and balls and even tumbling, but now it is all back. He is jumping, climbing, somersaulting, wrestling and playing soccer a lot now.
Behaviorally, the biggest challenge right now is a general resistance to everything we want him to do. We are cracking down on the whining that almost always ensues when we ask/tell him to do something, but even when he doesn't whine, he is often sullen and pouty as he complies. I suppose we will be talking about and working on attitude for the rest of our lives as parents (which will hopefully be the rest of our lives :)
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