you probably had to be there...

Erin and I had a funny moment when we were in Iowa City on Sunday night - I'll try to recreate the situation but trust me it was tears-in-your-eyes funny at the time. So basically when we got to IC all we had time to do (and all we really wanted to do after such a long day of driving) was to take Will swimming and put him to bed, then get some takeout (Taste of China, you can't get good takeout Chinese food in Ann Arbor) and watch the Oscars. The hotel gave us a pack-and-play (a portable baby crib) and we had this brilliant plan to put the crib in the bathroom, so Will was not right next to us in the hotel room, waking us up with every little sleep noise he makes. That turned out to be not a great idea anyway, because the walls in the bathroom act like an amplifier - I'm sure we had hotel guests in neighboring rooms who heard him whine a few times in the night. Anyway, so we figured out that the only way for the pack-and-play to fit in the bathroom was to put it in there while it was still collapsed and then open it up in there - it wouldn't fit through the bathroom doorway when it was opened. So when we did that, it basically took up the entire bathroom - wall to wall. Which means we couldn't use the bathroom for its normal purpose because the only reasonable way to get to the toilet was to climb into and back out of the pack-and-play.
SO... We didn't think about this situation too much before I got us some beers to go with our Taste o' C. About an hour into the Oscars, and an hour after Will was fast asleep, we each faced a serious decision: 1) pee in the hotel pool, 2) pee out the window (we were on the first floor, an open field behind our room), 3) pee in the sink, or try to pee in the toilet without waking up Will. After checking with the front desk to see if there were any public restrooms in the hotel, I chose option #2, and executed successfully. Basically the only reasonable option for Erin was to somehow get to the toilet, but it was going to be especially hard to be quiet since she couldn't stop laughing about me peeing out the window. We scoped out the situation and decided it might be possible to get to the toilet by going under the sink block and around the p-&-p. She had to abort her first try due to a laughing fit - barely got out of the bathroom before cracking up. On the second try, she got stuck. Then she realized she was sitting in a puddle of water from our dripping swimsuits on the counter. As she tried to hold in the laughter of this situation, the pinnacle of our story: she passed a fart. Loudly. Well, needless to say, Will's little eyes opened widely and he looked up at his dad, and directly to his right at his mom (stuck under the sink) who were both laughing hysterically. He didn't cry or anything, but he was obviously very confused. Even though he wasn't in on the joke, he gave us some smiles as Erin got herself unstuck and finally made it to the toilet. I can't wait to tell Will this story some day...

I peed in your pool

I'm on spring break now so we left on Sunday for a trip to Grandma and Grandpa Ferris' in Nebraska. The weather was not the best so we decided to stay the night in Iowa City and finish the trip on monday. We found a hotel with a pool so we could take Will swimming for his first time. Check out the little speedos. He was a good sport about it but I don't think he thought it was anything special. He probably was just wondering why his bathwater was so cold. I guess he liked when Erin did the motorboat with him.

I can't believe I ate the whole thing

Will finally got the hang of eating cereal, so I took this short video to show how enthusiastic he is about it now. He likes to put one hand in the bowl of cereal, and to hold the spoon with the other hand. Also, check out more pictures on the picture site by clicking here

he can move: time to babyproof the house

When Erin and I were at a meeting on monday, Grandma Brenda (who is visiting this week) witnessed Will's first successful unaided roll-over. Apparently it was not very eventful for him - he was having some 'tummy time' (we put him down on his stomach so he can practice holding his head up), and he just pushed himself over onto his back and kept looking around at his toys like he's done it a hundred times. We've been trying to get him to do it again ever since. We'll probably get a video soon.

trying to suck on his pigs

Here he was sucking on his toes and I quickly tried to get the camera to catch a video of it, but just missed when he actually had foot-in-mouth. But it ended up being a really cute video anyway so I thought I'd share it.

A new taste sensation: piggies

Will recently discovered his toes, and has been working really hard lately to get them into his mouth. According to Erin, this is a major developmental step, and it's pretty fun. Today he almost succeeded in taking his sock off all by himself to get to the goods. It adds a new challenge to bathtime since he either tries to dive face-first into the water where his feet are, or he tries to bring his foot to his mouth, which makes it hard to sit on the little seat in his bathtub.

sit-up, stand-up

A game that Will currently finds very fun. When he's laying on his back you can hold out your hands in front of him and he'll reach for them, then holds on as he's pulled up to a seated position, then with a little help he can stand up. Check out the video below. (the video should be online by monday morning)

video: sit-up, stand-up

New record

A sequence of events has led to a new record for loads of laundry washed in a week. For 5 consecutive mornings, Will has peed so much in the night that it soaked through and got his pajamas wet. One of the mornings, the same, but with poop. On returning to his room for a later nap we discovered that all of his blankets and sheet also were stinky, so long story short basically all fabric in his room had to be washed. We also had a couple spit-ups while feeding this week and I won't even get into the tries with rice cereal. So far, we have run 13 loads of laundry in 6 days!

First real food!

Last tuesday the doctor said we could start trying solid (non-milk) foods whenever we wanted. So sunday was a perfect time because I had most of the day off (it's been a very busy couple weeks). We mixed up some rice cereal, which was pretty much the same consistency as formula. He didn't get it. I honestly don't think any of the cereal ended up in his stomach - it just came right out with his drool. It was fun to try though - we got some good pictures!

Videos

At the request of Uncle Grant, we took a few videos with our digital camera. These were my first tries so they're obviously not cinematic masterpieces. Also sorry about the camera angle in "Happy Will" - he was on his changing table and I didn't think about the fact that I couldn't rotate the video image like you can a still shot.

More of these videos to come!

Video: Will and Dad

Video: Sad Will

Video: Happy Will

new windows adventure

on tuesday, we're getting new windows put in our house, which means the frigid Michigan air will get us if we stay home. So Erin is planning on taking Mr. Wiggles out for the day, and we're not sure what they should do. A major issue is that we don't have any way for him to be able to take a meaningful nap since he'll be away from his bed all day. Also whatever they do it will have to be almost entirely indoors. Any suggestions from our readers out there?

bath pictures: 4 months

Here's my buddy - these were taken a few days ago (now we're caught up, next bath pictures post will be next month). He loves bath time now, and starts fussing about 15 minutes before his bath until we start getting him ready, then he's happy. He's taller(?) now, you can tell he's not so chubby anyway. The only way to prevent pictures like the one on the left is to actually hold his hands!

bath pictures: 3 months

When he was 3 months old, he started getting some baby chub, how cute. You can see the curly hair a little better here. Also he is starting to have some control over his arms and hands now so thus begins the age of sucking on his hands.

bath pictures: 2 months

A little before he was two-months old, Will started smiling. This is a good one.

bath pictures: 1 month

The one-month pictures. He moved out of the sink into his bathtub.

bath pictures

This was Will's first bath at home. He was 4 days old. Erin and I just used a washcloth on him. As you can see, it wasn't the most fun for him.

A father's dream for his son

Some fathers dream for their sons to grow up to be the President, some dream for them to be Nobel Prize winners, and some dream for them to be football stars. I have a dream that is far more noble and honorable: for Will to become the greatest competitive eater on the planet, except for bears.

doctor visit

Erin took Will to the doctor today, had to get some shots, which is never fun. Erin says he was pretty much hysterical, but one of the nurses smiled at him and told him he was a big boy, and in the middle of his sobs he gave her a huge smile.
He is now 15 lbs and 26 inches long, which is indeed a big boy, according to the doc.
Last night was hang out with dad night while Erin went to choir practice. We had a great time looking in the mirror and laughing at the other baby for about 25 minutes. For those of you who haven't seen him do this yet, it's the best and almost always works.
I took a 4-month bath picture last night. Erin and I have taken a picture of him in the bath for every month of his life - it will make a nice picture history until he gets too big to take naked pictures. I'll put up the pictures in an area of this site soon.

Thanks for all the comments - it's fun that people are actually looking at this site.

Will's Super Bowl Pick

We conducted a controlled study - we happen to have 3 baby books that have horses in them, and three that have bears in them (actually many more than that, thanks to Winnie-the-Pooh). This allowed three separate trials in which I held up the books with the pictures of each animal showing, and Will touched the animal which represented the team he thought would win. He touched two horses and one bear, therefore picking the Colts to win by a touchdown.

Welcome to Will's blog site

Hello everyone, welcome to Will's page - your site for everything Will. Here we'll post anything post-worthy that's going on in his life. You can check this site periodically or subscribe to it with an RSS feed (click the link 'Posts (Atom)' at the bottom of the page).

As of today, Will is 17 weeks and 2 days old. He is a very sweet little boy, Erin and I couldn't be happier with him. Here's a quick catch up on his major life events thus far:

First smile (confirmed by dad): Dec. 2nd. Unconfirmed reports of smiles in the previous week.
First laugh: when dad blew on his tummy, approximately Dec. 15th.
First tooth discovered: January 23rd
First positive experience with the cats: January 30th. Duke nuzzled him like he does when he wants to be petted then Will pulled out a chunk of Duke's hair.

He likes red things, especially Bob the Bird and his red block. He also likes playing the piano with dad or dancing with mom to Wicked songs or to the various classical music samples that play on his toys. He tries to suck on everything he can get his hands on, and if he can't reach anything he just sucks on his hands. First thing each morning and after each nap he is very smiley and it's usually not too hard to get him to giggle by giving him a little attention.

For the time being, you can get caught up with Will's first 4 months through his picture site:
http://picasaweb.google.com/thomas.k.ferris