Atom

I finally got Atom's 3-year old photos taken! (Now that he is 3 years, 9 months old.) My totally unbiased opinion is that they are adorable! A few things about Atom's unique personality:

He loves to watch/listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. We got him a director's baton at age 2 because he likes to lead the choir while they sing. He hums constantly to himself while playing--often I recognize the Star Wars theme, especially when he is playing with Star Wars toys. He hums to himself a lot in church, too, and we can't get him to stop!

He loves DVD's and "movies" as he calls videos. He hardly ever actually watches a movie--he just likes to have the remote and goes through all the menu items, clicking on each option. He especially likes to watch the previews or "commercials" as he calls them. He also likes to get lots of DVD cases down and line them up in rows on the floor or couch (yes, this drives me crazy!) He also can be heard quoting the promotional words they say on the previews: for example, "Coming soon to DVD and Blue Ray!" And he also informs me when he starts the actual movie (as opposed to the previews and bonus features) "This is the feature presentation, Mom!" He also pays attention to which DVD's have THX sound on them and he will hold up a DVD and say, "This one says..." and then he makes the music sound they make when their logo pops up. Today he pointed to the bottom of a DVD case and said, "This is a special edition." I looked to where he was pointing, and sure enough, it said "Special Edition."

Atom loves the computer and probably knows how to operate it better than I do. Yes, he has deleted some important items from time to time!

Once when Atom was watching "The Little Mermaid" it was at the part where the seagull is telling Ariel and Flounder the names of the human treasures they found in a sunken ship. Of course, the seagull doesn't know what he's talking about and he tells them that a fork is a "dinglehopper." When Atom heard this, he said with some surprise and indignation, "That isn't a dinglehopper, that's a fork!" Then he noticed that the fork in the movie only had three prongs on it--we have a few child-size forks that only have three prongs on them so he now calls them dinglehoppers. But the ones with four prongs are still forks.

Atom pays attention to details--he's a little fussy about it at times. When we were having the whole family over for pizza once and I told him a whole bunch of people were coming over to eat dinner, he was insisting all afternoon "Need more chairs!" Who would imagine that a 3-year-old would concern himself with such things?

Atom is a night owl and it is a constant (losing) battle to keep him on a schedule of going to bed early and getting up early instead of going to bed late and sleeping in late.

Atom's brain is a sponge--he has a great desire to learn new things. When Jet was in kindergarten (Atom was 2), and I would quiz Jet on his phonograms, Atom would get angry if I didn't give him a turn to give the answers, too. As a result, he has known all his shapes, colors, letters, numbers, etc. since he was less than two-years-old and we strongly suspect he knows how to read much more than we realize (we know he can read quite a few words.) He'll probably be bored in kindergarten, but I'm worried he won't be potty-trained in time for kindergarten since he shows no interest or readiness in that area!!

Atom talks at the top of his lungs (we've tried to teach him to whisper but he just doesn't grasp that concept) but we don't understand a lot of what he says yet. One of the funny things about his speech is that he can say "Grandma" but not "Grandpa!" He pronounces "Grandpa" as "Ca-ca" which all of us find quite amusing, except Grandpa! :)

We love our little Atom--although he can try our patience to the extreme--our family definitely wouldn't be the same without him. He is a delightful little personality!