Otso: 3 Years, 8 Months

Summary
He seems pretty age-typical: complains about things, but generally happy to be around people he knows and trusts. He likes to make us laugh.

Learning/Development
Most of his learning these days seems to be vocabulary. Now that he has the main things down (at least in English), he is trying to fill out the details.
He loves to make "jokes" that are simply him using nonsensical words that rhyme with the real word. For example, he will say "Hi Bläiti" instead of "Hi äiti".
Another word he throws around is "baby". For example, sometimes when he is annoyed he will repeat everything back in a mocking way, replacing a word with "baby":
   A: put on your socks now, Otso.
   O: put on your baby now!

He acts difficult most days during the things he must do: in the morning we struggle to get him to brush teeth and change into daytime clothes. In the evening, we struggle to get him to change into pajamas and brush teeth.
19.6 Both parents were trying to get him dressed, but he kicked off his underwear whenever we got one leg on. So we enlisted Lumi's help: Isä held the legs, Äiti held the arms, then Lumi put on his underwear and shorts. But that changed everything: he went from cranky to laughing, declaring "This is fun!" and a bit later "I love this!"

Language
He is trying more Finnish with Isä.

When he isn't tired, he does seem to work on his pronunciation. He was really trying to say "Mr. Frumble" properly when we were reading Richard Scarry books. His "r" comes more clearly now, though inconsistently.

Toys/Games/Other
He likes to turn things into "shooters" (note: he means "guns" but I'm fine with the more innocent sounding "shooter" for now so I'm not correcting it). Even a piece of bacon got turned into a gun.
21.5 we went out with the balance bike and he rode it so easily! what a difference a month makes.
He loves to play cars.
The Richard Scarry "A Day At The Airport" book is very popular with both kids.
He likes to have his nails painted with a very pale color.
He likes games like Sequence and Alias and the Pikku Myy game we got for free from Hesburger last summer.

Social
He is getting braver about birthday parties (it helps that we have at least one every weekend these days, so he gets lots of practice), but he still doesn't like them. He is now brave about saying that he doesn't like saft (juice-like sugar drink that is a must for kids at parties here), but he seems to panic about getting cake. He really hates to say what he wants, and he consistently ends up in tears whenever people are serving birthday cake.
He has a big belly laugh and his sister delights in making him do it.
He loves isä and loves to play Legos or cars with him.

Eating
Favorites: eggs, ice cream, pancakes
He only likes milk and water to drink, and sometimes hot chocolate.
He does not like maple syrup, or icing on cake, or fruit in his ice cream, or juice, or other fruit-y sweet things.

Sleeping
He is resistant often at night when trying to get to sleep. But he rarely comes into the parents' bed anymore, unless he is sick.

Health
25.5 we got up to hike to Vettakollen, and then he had a big fall on the sidewalk less than two blocks from the apartment. He was wearing shorts so he ripped up his knees and for the rest of the day claimed he couldn't walk or stand. He only felt non-ouchy when his knees were bent, so he pushed himself around the apartment on his bottom.
He did accept a band-aid, which is new. The downside of that was that part of it was stuck right on the wound, as we discovered in the late afternoon. After that got removed (with much crying on his part) he felt better.

8.6 he fell into the edge of the bathroom door and got a gash in the forehead.

10.6 sniffly and coughing a bit; we spent the weekend inside and resting because of it.

Stats
Clothes: size 104/110. Shoes: size 28.

Teeth: 20
Weight: 17.6 kg on 2017-05-12
Height: 102 cm on 2017-05-21

Events
21.5 helmine's birthday party
25.5 holiday; playdate with rolv
26.5 teacher planning day, home for the day
27.5 barbecue at Eino's house
28.5 barbecue at Hans' house in Fornebu
5.6 hike up Vettakollen (which he called "Vettä koulu")
16.6 Helmine spent the night
18.6 lunch with Helena & Johan and family

Random
At Eino's place we played with some Alias cards and quizzed him on the finnish words. He knew most of them! But then when I showed him the picture of the rhinoceros and prompted "äiti says rhino, isä says..." he answered "nuuskamuikkunen".

7.6 Äiti tooted and Otso said "maybe you're hungry!"

11.6 he wanted isä to be next to him while he played on the tablet, and he really meant immediately next to him, with no space in between. If there was so much as a centimeter of carpet visible, Otso would point out the gap and demand that Kimmo come closer.