My 3- Year-Old

Austin pretty much rules the roost around here, don't most 3-year-olds? One of the things he likes control over is the lighting. When my mom and Jim came about 2 months ago, he had all the curtains closed and the lights off, so it was pretty dark in the house the afternoon they arrived. Sometimes he likes to have it all dark like that, sometimes he likes to shine a flashlight. Luckily, he's getting better at letting me have the lights on that I need. Now that it's Christmastime, he loves to keep the just the Christmas lights on, all day long. We have a little game. I will turn them off, when he's not noticing, and he will turn them back on as soon as he realizes they're off. Sometimes that's right away, sometimes not.

This year our tree is on a table so Erik doesn't ruin it.

It's right next to the Village set-up, so all the lights there are plugged into a surge protector. All Austin has to do is press one button and all the lights go on!

 You can't even see the lights are on with the flash in this pic. He wanted me to take another one with the lights shining without him in it.

The other Christmas thing he wants control over is the stockings. For some reason when I first made Jason's, mine, and Victoria's stockings, back when she was a baby and I didn't have toddlers or kids learning their letters, I wrote our names in cursive. It was easiest to do with the glue and I thought it would look fancier. When the girls were Austin's age, they were okay with it, even though they didn't recognize all the letters. But Austin was not okay. This is the way our conversation went the other day:

me: Here's your stocking Austin.
Austin: That's not mine.
me: Yes it is.
Austin: No, there's no A.
me: It's a special A. It's in cursive.
Austin: That's not an A!
me: It looks like a lower case A.
Austin: I want a big A.
me: Do you want me to fix it?
Austin: Yes.

Instead of scraping off the glitter and making it look awful, this is what I did.

 I just cut out a golden-colored piece of paper. He's happier now with this temporary fix. Since then, I have made Erik's stocking. Now Austin thinks that is his too because it has a "3" on it!