Three quickie videos

Hey everyone, well we had to take a hiatus from bloggin' for a little while because I was on vacation, camping in Iowa all last weekend. So to make up for lost time, here are 3 quickies. Enjoy - more to come soon!

Dada

Will's first and only word so far has been "dada". Actually, we're pretty sure he's not really intentionally speaking, but his signature noise so far is "dadadadada..." So you can hear for yourself. On another note, he had a really good time playing with Erin's shoes today.

Bed time

These first two videos were shot tonight while we were killing time before bath/bedtime. When he was done saying 'dadada' he started to break down and whine - you can tell he's tired when he starts making noises like this.

Don't eat me!

I took this video a little while ago but it had to sit on my camera until I downloaded everything to the computer. Here I was trying to capture him making noises on camera, but I have to hide the camera because as soon as he sees it he clams up. Or, as I discovered in this case, just like anything else that's small and expensive (or more accurately, just like ANYTHING), if it's within Will's reach he will grab it and put it directly in his mouth.

New trick: standing up by himself, kind of

Will has always been a stander - in fact, before he could sit up by himself, he would cry when we tried to hold him in a seated position, and would stop when he held him in a standing position. This was especially true when we would burp him after feedings. He even falls asleep standing up sometimes! Now he's getting sturdier, and we found that as long as he can hold on to something, he can kind of hold himself up for a little while. At least for as long as there are enough things to keep his attention directly in front of him, like the TV remote. As soon as he sees something interesting on either side, we are ready to catch him as he nosedives.

Yes?...No!

We're not sure if he actually knows what he's doing or if he's just wiggling, but Will has been shaking his head "no" a lot lately. It started when he figured out that when he shakes his head back and forth it's very difficult for Erin or I to get food in his mouth (which, as you know, is a constant challenge). Sometimes he teases us by opening his mouth while shaking his head. Anyway we're trying to teach him to also nod his head yes, but so far his answer to every question is "no."

So what else did we do this weekend?

In between all of our fun with phones, we chewed on a few other things this weekend. Since mom worked all day on Saturday, dad and Will went disc golfing:


Then later that afternoon we watched some TV. There was a Ninja Warrior marathon on all weekend, of which we watched plenty:


And then of course we got some video game time in. Will has his own controller all to himself:


All this hard work left us with a very slobber-soaked shirt!

Let's call Grandma

Basically if anything expensive and colorful enters Will's field of view he very badly wants to hold it and put it in his mouth. So last thursday he and I were hanging out and decided to call Grandma Susan while she drove with Grandpa Mike and Jake up to the lake cabin for a fishing weekend. I put the phone on speaker and Will insisted on holding it while we talked.



He does this frequently and usually manages to press or bite different button combinations which have interesting consequences. This time he started chewing on the bottom end (as in the picture above), which is where the microphone is. So Grandma couldn't hear us, and when I tried to pull the phone out of his mouth, he starts a little tantrum. To quell this, Erin gave him her phone, so he could have something to hold while we kept talking. But the slobber damage was done and my phone dropped the call with Grandma twice, and starts randomly switching into "Car Kit Mode," which is what happens when you plug a remote microphone into the bottom end of the phone (for hands-free use in the car). So Will's slobber shorted out that connection and it took a bunch of cleaning to get it reset. In the meantime, he's chomping away on Erin's phone. When we finally finish the call and Erin takes the phone back, it reports that Will had somehow logged onto the wireless web (which we're not paying for) for 3 minutes of airtime! Then, the kicker - a few minutes later, Grandma Brenda calls Erin's cell:
"What's going on, are you ok?" She asks.
"Yes, what do you mean?" replied Erin.
"You just called me, all I could hear was Tom talking and a strange chewing sound..."
So Will called both Grandmas!

Mr. Wiggles makes the news

This morning we opened the Sunday paper and were surprised to see that the Red Cross put their latest newsletter with the paper. This is the same newsletter that talks about the volunteer recognition event held in March, and to highlight the article, there's a picture of Will in his tux on the red carpet with Mikey (the first picture in this blog entry). Very cool.

pictureful weekend

With it being mother's day weekend, and with all the time we're spending outside since the weather has been so nice, we took a good deal of pictures last weekend. Come along with me, I'll walk you through a few of them.



On Friday, mom took Will to the park. Duke helped mom pick out some awesome short shorts to wear.



Then he went swinging for the first time. Weeeeweeeweee!



On Friday afternoon and most of the day on Saturday, we cleaned and restained our deck in the backyard. This stalled our plans of mowing the lawn since we didn't want to get grass clippings on and around the deck, so our backyard was a jungle. Our friends Casey and Rachel came over to help with the deck and also took Will on a little safari adventure.



Sunday was all about mom. We had a nice breakfast sitting at the table like a real family, but Will was constantly distracted by Duke, so Erin took him over to visit after we ate.



Then we went to one of our favorite parks - Gallup park, which connects to the U of M Arboretum, for a nice long walk to burn off the donuts and bacon we ate.



That afternoon, we had baby food chicken for the first time. So Will is no longer a vegetarian. That stuff is pretty gross, and Will did NOT like it very much. The picture on the left is his reaction to the first bite, and then he did his best hockey goalie impression to deflect attempts to feed him subsequent spoonfuls. These pictures are funny because whenever he sees the camera, especially right in front of his face, he automatically smiles right at it. But he also knows that when we're feeding him, we always try to get him to smile so he'll open his mouth and we can sneak some more food in. So he would usually be really fighting not to smile here, but the chicken made him pretty unhappy.



At the end of the day, Erin gave me a summer haircut with the clippers. Then I played with Will a bunch so he would get used to it and know that bald guy is still dad. Here we're singing some songs for mom at her request - "Why Don't We Do It in the Road" by the Beatles - it was a very nice Mother's Day song.

Put Messy Will in the Sink

Last Thursday it was very warm so we had Will rocking in just his diaper at the end of the day. Erin went out to dinner with her friends to celebrate Laura's birthday, which left me at home to feed Will without extra hands to help out in case we made a huge mess (Will grabs his spoon and throws it, puts his hand in the jar of food and wipes it everywhere, etc.). So he was in his high chair, eating messily as ever, and I didn't realize it but since he wasn't wearing any clothes, there was a slippery slope for food that didn't stay in his mouth straight down his tummy to his bare legs. So after dinner I cleaned his face and hands like I always do, took the tray off and picked him up - only to discover that he had been literally sitting in a pool of slobber/water/ricecake/squash and it was all over his lower half, in addition to soaked into his diaper. He was dripping on the kitchen floor so I used some quick thinking and put him directly in the sink. Then I washed him off with the sprayer and he LOVED it. I caught a short video, but we probably did this for 10 minutes.

Happy Mother's Day!

Hello mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day. We had a great weekend with Will's mom and we're very lucky we have such a wonderful person for a wife and mother. We want to also wish a happy Mother's day to Grandmas Brenda and Susan, and Great-Grandmas Carol, Aloise, and Geri!

Iowa City trip: part 2

So on Saturday at noon Will was baptized at the Newman Center. It was very nice to be able to do a private ceremony with Fr. Ed in the place that means so much to our families. When we were getting ready Will got a lot of attention from everyone, which he's not used to as much so he got a little fussy during the baptism ceremony. That could also have had to do with the fact that shortly after noon is usually his nap time. All in all, it went well. We went to the Airliner bar afterward for a celebration lunch.

On Sunday, everyone left for their homes or next destinations and Erin and Will and I stayed for another day. Before lunch we went back to campus and hiked around a bit, showed Will where he will be going to college someday.



No trip to Iowa City would be complete without shopping for Hawkeye stuff. We got Will a little sweatshirt. Unbelievably, we looked at several different apparel stores and couldn't find a decent Herky doll!



We had originally intended to head home on Sunday afternoon, but the weather got really nasty (in fact, about 10 minutes before we started back to our hotel from campus, it started to downpour). So, we bagged it and I'm really glad we did. It gave Will a day to unwind before the long car ride and we got to go swimming again that night. Then we got takeout for dinner, and fell asleep watching a movie. All in all, a great trip. Thanks to everyone who helped make it so!

Iowa City trip: part 1

We had a very fun trip to Iowa City last weekend for Will's baptism at the Newman Center. For those of you who haven't known us as long, Erin and I met at the NC as members of the Newman Singers. (See for yourself - you may recognize a few people on the promotional material on the NS website). Fr. Ed, the pastor at the NC, is a friend of ours and performed our marriage ceremony, so it was a natural choice to come back here to have Will baptized. Also it worked out well for our families to meet at a more central location.

So here we are in the car on the way there. Will has had his share of long drives, and he's a good road warrior. But sometimes he gets a little upset so Erin or I jumps in the back with him and entertains him. On this trip, the carseat monkey was a big hit.


When we got to Iowa City on friday, the first thing we did was check in with our friend Jane, who is the Director of Admissions and Scholarships for the Engineering college at Iowa - she was one of the main reasons I decided to attend the UI, and we've kept in touch since moving to Ann Arbor.



That night we had a great time that night with those who were there already, including the best dinner ever of Culver's and pizza, when the pizza guy showed up late. Then dad and Will slept in a little bit on saturday morning.



A bunch of us got up the next morning to take Will swimming in the pool before we all got ready for the baptism. Erin messed up and got him girl swimming diapers - in the first picture Will is showing off his pink Dora the Explora's. Fortunately he wears very manly dinosaur swim trunks over the Doras. In the bottom right picture Will is trying out the lifevest that Grandma Brenda and Grandpa Paul got him.






Swimming!!

bath pictures: 7 months

Well, we're back from a long and very fun weekend in Iowa City. Because we were out of town and away from Will's bathtub, these pictures are a few days late, but he doesn't look much different than he did 4 days ago.
As far as bathtime goes, Will's a little less afraid of the water than he has been, probably because we try to make it more fun. He has some bath toys, and we encourage him to splash around. Also, as some of you saw last weekend, he has a good time swimming in pools. He even went underwater a few times without getting upset.
Despite being a little overwhelmed by all the people around for much of last weekend, Will has been doing pretty well socially. Erin and he go to several different events during the week (today they're going to Jungle Java to meet some friends and other babies). He's also been going to daycare for a little over a month and the little girls who are there just love him. Still, whenever someone he doesn't know very well holds him he tends to get a little upset, so don't take it personally if that's happened to you!
We feed Will baby food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner now, and probably within a month he'll be completely weaned from nursing. During these meals, it's a constant game to devise new ways to get the food into his mouth. He usually keeps his mouth shut tight, so we try to make him smile or laugh, then slip the spoon in. He's started recognizing this so sometimes you can see him fighting to keep from smiling even though he is enjoying the goofy mom/dad show. It's really cute and funny when he does this.
He's starting to make noises a lot more: the "dadadadadada" I figure refers to me. Mostly he talks when he's by himself, or can't see anyone else, but clams up when he sees someone, which makes it difficult for me to capture on video.
Toys are becoming more interesting, mostly as new objects to suck on. He gets mad when you take away things that he has decided are rightfully his, like the TV remote or mom's necklace. He has become attached to his lion and hugs it when he goes to bed, which is sweet.

Pictures from our trip to Iowa City, and Will's baptism, coming soon...





6 months
5 months
4 months
3 months
2 months
1 month
first bath

hanging out with the cats

Will really likes the cats, and they seem to like him, or at least tolerate him to a surprising extent. We're heading out of town for a long weekend (to IOWA CITY!) tomorrow morning, and we're leaving the cats at home. So we have been making sure Will spends a little extra time with them. Also, we needed an excuse to post pictures of Duke for his #1 fan, our friend Chelse.



These pictures are especially amazing because Clementine hardly tolerates anything, but she apparently has no problem with Will sharing her seat and touching her.

AAAhbrbrbrbrbrabrah!!

well, kind of...

So after several near misses, here's a sneer shot that I captured this morning. But believe me, there have been MUCH better ones. He has learned that when the camera is pointed at him, he's expected to smile, so the sneer shot will probably be like the one above - where he's not looking at the camera.


Sometimes the near-miss shots like this one aren't too bad either.