Will at 23 months

Not sure how another month went by so quickly!

Will is changing so much lately-mostly in his vocabulary.  We can have little conversations now, even if they are a little obscure.  I keep asking him who is in his class at preschool, and he keeps telling me "Owl!"  I have no idea what he is referring to.  He can string four words together now.  My favorite is "Daddy clean up mess!"  

The kid loves songs and requests them all day.  Mostly Wheels on the Bus, Yankee Doodle, Ring Arouns the Rosie and the "party song" aka Happy Birthday.  When he gets in his crib, he always asks for "song" and "back" which means he wants me to sing and rub his back.  I oblige, of course.  :)

His sleep is still erratic.  One backfire, that may change as he gets into more of a routine is his nap after school.  I assumed he would be exhausted and go right to sleep.  Nope.  His brain must still be turned on, because it is usually quite a task to get him down for a nap on those days.  Other days, are pretty easy.  We usually have something fun to do in the mornings, and are back home by lunch and start winding down.  I know I NEED his nap time to get rest too!

Another weird phase right now is fighting getting washed during bath time.  All we hear is "No soap! No soap! No soap!" So that's not easy.  Billy has been taking care of baths, and I'm the sideline cheerleader, trying to get him to calm down.

Eating is still pretty good.  Still on the milk kick, but he drank a cup of water at school last week, and a every watered down cup of Gatorade for me this weekend.  He loves pickles even for breakfast and has been chowing down on applesauce and oranges.  Now that he can talk, it does make things a little easier.  Until he requests a popscicle for breakfast.

He hates diaper changes.  It is a serious task to get him to lay down and be still.  Just getting him in his room and shutting the gate is a small victory for me.

He loves going to the park.  We still go just about every afternoon and some mornings too.  He likes to see other kids there and refers to them as "friends".  We have gotten him into watching football-mostly the Steelers of course, and he likes when we all put on our jerseys.  His favorite book right now is the 3 Little Pigs and when I ask what the wolf does, he says, "Eat piggies!"

He'll be TWO next month!  Sometimes he seems like such a big boy, but other times, still so little.  I'm up in the air about a party still, because I'm about to have this baby, and he wouldn't know the difference.  We have been practicing singing Happy Birthday though.  We'll celebrate of course because October is THE month for birthdays around here.  Maybe two of his little friends over for cake and balloons...we'll see in a couple weeks!

Will at 22 months

This month almost went right by and I didn't even realize Will was 22 months old. Almost 2 years!  Things seem to be happening so fast with him now, especially his language.  It is so fun to watch and hear.  He tries to repeat so much of what we say.  Yesterday I told him I needed to wipe his snot bubble(gross, I know) and of course, he immediately repeated "snot bubble".  Billy then heard this and got him to say it over and over.  Hilarious for everyone, I assure you!

Sleeping is still not great.  I thought he was on to something early this week.  There were three days Ina row that he slept all night and past 6:30am.  Then on Wednesday, he couldn't get to sleep for nap or at night, and two of those nights, was up for two straight hours.  I have no idea what is going to happen when Heidi gets here because he still doesn't want Billy at night.  His eating is pretty good though. He's pretty consistent with what he eats.  Still a lot of fruit, loves noodles with parmesan, peanut butter, and some meats.  Still drinking only milk; no water for some reason.  Vegetables are easier now, as long as this cowboy figurine we found sings a song about carrots, avocado, etc.  Whatever works!  

He can count to ten, and sometimes twelve.  Most of the time, he skips the number one and nine.  But just in a month, he has changed so much!  Billy got him to do it, by inticing him with throwing him on our bed, which he loves!  I don't know why one and nine are consistently skipped though.  

This kid scares me, by what he is not afraid of! We were at a new park, and before I could realize what was happening, he scaled a climbing pole and got onto the playground that was much taller than me.  He's so fast!  The puddle jumper I bought him for the pool has been great!  Now, even as I see him darting toward the lazy river, I'm not quite as panicked. We have had so much fun at the pool this summer!

In less than two weeks, he starts a morning pre-school at our church two days a week.  He knows one teacher from the church nursery, so I don't think drop off is going to be hard for him at all.  His class is four boys, so they should keep their teachers busy!   For about a month and half, I'll have 6 kid-free hours too!

A few funnies:

Yesterday, I was shooting his ball at the basketball court with him and every time I missed, he said "nope!" and laughed.

I was cooking dinner and then noticed a naked little body hugging my legs! He can now take off his shirt, shorts and diaper - and those cloth diapers are not easy to get out of!

My mom sent him the 3 Little Pigs book and when we read it, he flips through all the pages to find the wolf.  He mostly says, "Wolf. Eat. Bad!"

He runs away when he realizes it's time to change his diaper or he'll tell me "no" when I ask him if it needs to be changed.  Ok, this is more frustrating than funny.

He knows that pirates say "arghhh" and always requests his pirate pajamas.  He also asks for the raccoon pajamas, which we gave to Lucas in the beginning of July. How does he remember?!

When he swings at the park, he always says, "Mommy, too?" 

31 weeks

Countdown is now in the single digits in weeks.  I finally ordered a crib, and it arrived yesterday.  One thing down, 25 to go! We decided to keep Will in his crib, since he's still not a great sleeper, and this way, they'll both end up with full beds once the cribs convert.  The fed ex man isn't going to be happy with the rest of the ordering I plan on doing over the next few weeks!

            

See Will's little head getting into trouble in the background? Taking him to dr. appts is so fun.

It seems that I got so big all of the sudden!  Baby Heidi is pretty much full grown, and is just fattening up now.  You know I love a chunky baby and I hope she does not dissapoint!  I've been so hungry lately, I am sure she's getting enough to eat!

This pregnancy is different in some ways.  I have an outie belly button, which I never had with Will.  I started eating meat again a lot earlier.  The heartburn is minimal, in comparison to last time.  My lower back and what I think is my sciatic nerve hurts so bad, I have a hard time walking sometimes.

A mom of three boys was chatting with us at church today, and Billy was asking about having multiple children.  She sort of laughed and said that it really is a full time job for about six years.  What???  No.  I guess with all the tying shoes, meals, baths...until they can do it on their own, it can be consuming.  For some things though, I can already see it getting easier with Will now that he can(sort of) talk.  

So since I've barely done any documenting of this nine months, I just wanted to jot a few things down to remember!

Mo?

Just another cute story I want written down...

At Will's pediatrician appointment last week, the doctor needed to look in his ears and mouth.  Most toddlers I know won't let that just happen.  So being the baby whisperer that she is, the dr. told Will that Elmo was in his ear and she needed to see him. Lo and behold, he let her take a look! Then she said Cookie Monster was in his left ear, and Big Bird was in his mouth and she needed to see them.  He was such an easy patient after that!

For the rest of the day, he kept pointing to his ear and asking me, "Mo?" - as in Elmo.  Several days later now, he still remembers it, so today, I tried to tell them that they moved back to Sesame Street.  He did not buy it!

Will at 21 Months

What a fun little boy we have!  He makes us laugh so much.  And those terrible two tantrums are peeking through too, I can't lie.  And trying to guess what he's saying...it's like a game of charades.  The other day he was trying to tell me, "bagel" but what I heard was "bowl" and boy he was not happy about that!  So I think I have that "ba-yu" term committed to memory now.

Another "funny" moment was our trip to SAMs this weekend.  I let Will hold the umbrella on the way in.  When we got inside and in the cart, I told him it was time to close the umbrella.  Well, he was not a fan of that idea!  So, there I was, that parent, with a screamer for the next 3 minutes.  Then I realized I had raisins and that was the end.  Always carry snacks.  That's the rule now.  

Will had a nice meeting of his face with the concrete at the pool last week.  Those scratches look like Mike Tyson's face tattoo.  

We went to a much bigger pool today, without a gated toddler area and I might as well have worn sneakers because I was running after this dare devil constantly.  And he just laughs and thinks its a game!  I promptly ordered a life jacket online.

Will discovered shadows last week.  He points to mine and says, "Mommy" and points to his and says, "you".  I guess the English language is pretty confusing.  I refer to him as "you", so why would he call himself, "me"?

For a month now, I have not been able to get this kid to drink anything but milk!  Not water, juice...nothing but milk!  It started when we began our 2 week journey mid-June and I can't break him of it.  So now when we're out, I also tote around a little lunchbox with an ice pack and milk.  Oh, the things we do for them!

Everything is green and we have two of them.  

"Will, what color is this?"  

"Geen!" (It could be purple)

"Will, how many ducks do you have?"

"Two!" (There are three)

He has started organizing toys and lining them up.  I looked up the other day and all of his Little People were lined up on the train table staring at me.  Same thing with his stuffed animals in his crib.

He says Heidi's name a lot and points to his belly when he says it sometimes, too.  Not quite, bud!

We head to the pediatrician later this week and my guess is that he's still just over 30lbs but has certainly grown taller.  He is growing out of his 2t pajamas and most of his size 6 shoes.  

Kitchen Reno

Still a lot to be finished up, including countertops and moulding, but the change so far is amazing!

First there was a wall:

Then no wall!

Not sad to say goodbye to old cabinets, a sagging ceiling, laminate flooring and a plastic sink.  Will is especially pumped about the crushed ice option with the new fridge.

24 weeks

Baby Heidi is now about a foot long and just over 1 pound.  Seems pretty skinny to me, so she has about four months left to fatten up.

2014:

(Will with a mouthful of fig newton)

2012:

We've been in NC for over a week now and Billy/Patton come tomorrow.  Traveling with Will is generally not easy, but here, they have 2 high chairs, 3 cribs, tons of toys and books, and under the house is nice and shady for us to play in the afternoons.  Will's sleep isn't much different than home(terrible all the time) but here, there aren't any black out curtains, so he's up before 6 just about every morning.  

He calls my mom Gram-Gram and my dad, Gaamp.  We'll see if they stick, but it's pretty cute right now.  During this extended stay, they're also getting to see all sides of Will: the whining, crying and stubbornness too.  Billy keeps asking if they want us to leave yet.  I'm pretty sure the answer is no.