First haircut: Will is a boy now

ok I know there's probably going to be some backlash for this, especially from Uncle Adam, but you have to understand Grandma Susan is in town and she has a lot of experience cutting little boys' curly hair so we had to take advantage.

Even though the voters decided we should never cut Will's hair, we did in fact get up to the magic number of five people, and then some, telling us what a beautiful daughter we have, so we decided to test and see if trimming it a little left the curls but made him look more like a boy. When we found out it did, Grandma did a very nice job trimming all around after the bath yesterday.

It was quite an experience and I tried to document it as thoroughly as I could. Basically, he cried a lot but I think that was because he was tired and it was bedtime more than being upset about losing his golden locks. Fortunately Grandpa Mike and Duke helped to cheer him up.

What a little gentleman. Here are pictures from multiple angles so you can see how good he looks!

Thanks Grandma!

Our trip to the pumpkin patch

Last weekend we went to Wasem's fruit farm and pumpkin patch to get some pumpkins for Halloween. Will was just getting over being sick and we were hoping some fresh air would do him good. He had a pretty good time with it, but I think he got tired of all the posing for pictures we made him do. He was a good sport though. We ended up getting tons of good pictures - these are just a few of them - check out Will's picture site for some more pics from this trip.

We got lots of nice pictures posing with mom and dad, although there were lots of interesting things to look at other than the camera, so it took several tries to get good shots.

One trick we used to get him to look towards the camera was to grab a pile of leaves and throw them in the air . That was very fun.

This is a really good picture. We showed it to Will and he started laughing and reaching for the computer screen (more excited than he usually is by the computer). I hope Erin is reading this - she's in Madison with Grandma for a few more days and she's really missing her boy. Will misses you too - he's been asking for 'mama' a lot. Or 'nana' - either he's missing you or he wants a banana.

Eventually Will's patience ran out and we decided it was probably time to go. He was particularly mad in this picture because we wouldn't let him climb into a giant, rotted out pumpkin that was really nasty. We're such cruel parents.

I can't stay mad at you mom. Not when you give me one of my suckers.

Will reads at a 2-year-old level!

I guess this is a good thing, but Will is way more interested in books than your average toddler. Every morning when we get him up, one of the first things he wants to do is crawl to his cradle or bookshelf and pull out (usually a few) books and "read" them. Or at least turn the pages. We also started putting books in his crib when we cover him up in the middle of the night so he has something to look at when he wakes up. He has all kinds of books but his current favorites (other than the singing Thomas book) are Spot's Birthday Party (he can look under all the fold-back pieces to find Spot's friends who are playing hide-and-seek) and the shark book I got him from my recent trip to Baltimore (which he's reading in the top right picture). We also have a few touch-and-feel books he likes where they have animals with different fur or skin that he can touch, but I think he's more interested in looking at pictures and turning pages than touching things quite yet.

Grandma, we hope your piggies feel better soon

Grandma Brenda had foot surgery yesterday, which we were happy to hear went well. Erin went to stay with her for awhile while she goes through a tough recovery. I'm glad we have the flexibility that Erin can go and do that - after all, Grandma was there for us the last time WE had to go to the hospital.

(Will and Grandma in the hospital)

Grandma, we hope you get better soon! We'll try to keep the blog posts coming so you have something to look at while you're (hopefully) relaxing with your feet propped up. Also, so Erin doesn't miss her boy too much while she's visiting.

Will helps get the tupperware out of his cabinet

When we babyproofed our house, we put cabinet locks on everything but this one cabinet, so it could be Will's cabinet to get into since he likes to open and shut them so much. Like many toddlers, one of his favorite activities is to take things out of other things and spread them around, such as books out of the bookshelf, toys out of his toy basket, stuffed animals out of his cradle, toiletries out of mom and dad's bathroom baskets, or tupperware out of his cabinet. It's not so much that he wants to play with the things he takes out, it's that he just likes taking things out. He's been doing this reliably for awhile now - here he is three months ago after a successful emptying of the cupboard. We've been trying to teach him to put things back away, but he hasn't quite mastered that part yet.

It's funny, when it comes to his cabinet, he actually gets upset when he runs out of stuff to pull out. You can see in the bottom right picture that he works very hard to make sure he got everything.

Thanks Cate for my new Thomas (the Train, not the dad) book!

Will's girlfriend Cate got him a sweet book for his birthday featuring Thomas the Train and friends. Will LOVES this book. I hear from Cate's parents Carrie and Jason that she also was a little upset she had to give the book away :)

It's a singalong book, which means there's a panel on the side with buttons to press which play different songs. Great songs, trust me. Also, you can't stop the song from playing until completion, which means mom and dad get all kinds of great songs stuck in their heads.

It took Will a little while to figure out how it worked (see the video below, he had to figure out how hard to press the buttons to make them go) but he's a pro at it now. I took him disc golfing with me on Monday and we took the Thomas book and I think he literally pressed one button after the other for an hour and was perfectly content to sit back and "dance" to the music (see the head-bobbing in the video).

Sick Willie

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Will got pretty sick over the weekend. This was the second time in his life he's been sick, so we knew a little better about how to handle it this time. It was a real bummer because we had big plans to have some friends over on Saturday to watch football and had to cancel. But it was for the best, he turned out to be pretty sick. He ran a fever all day Saturday and vomited several times. The first time, he was standing up at his cradle and projected right into it, all over some books and an Elmo puppet. Later, on separate occasions he puked on me twice and Erin at least once. We spent a lot of time getting cleaned up in the bath. Fortunately the clothes, carpet, and Elmo were all successfully cleaned.

It's not fun at all when your little guy is sick, but if you can get one positive out of the situation, he's most content to lay with you and be comforted like this (also here's a picture from the last time he was sick). No way he tolerates snuggling like this when he's well - too many other things to explore.

Will tries Jello

Will started getting sick at the end of last week (lots of that going around, it seems). This usually means he eats and drinks much less, so in an effort to get more in his stomach we tried some new things. Jello has a lot of liquid in it, which is good for sick little ones so we gave it a try. He seems to really like it. I continued to feed it to him when he got sicker over the weekend, and there were a few meals where that's all he would eat! good stuff.

cat litter helps Will to walk

On monday this week the University had their 'fall break' and since mom was at work and I was watching Will we decided to try to do minimal work and just play all day. So the only work we did was to clean the cat litter. That's an adventure in itself - Will desperately wants to touch the horrible things I scoop out of there and also would be happy as can be if he could climb into the litterbox. So it usually requires some distractions, like toys or the cats, to avoid me having to take him straight to the bath. This time I emptied the box of fresh cat litter so I gave him the box to play with, which was a big hit. We took it upstairs and he showed me this new trick (see the video):



I was very excited to tell Erin about it and to show her the video when she got home from work but she burst my bubble. Apparently Will has been doing the same thing with the tin of cat food for a couple weeks, I just hadn't seen it yet. But since then I've seen him push the food tin around several times. It's pretty funny when he pushes it into a corner and can't figure out what to do - he just keeps pushing it and starts whining until we help him turn around.

spaghetti!

When Will was in Madison last month he had spaghetti for the first time. First Grandma and mom wisely stripped him down to just the diaper. He made quite a mess, which was fun, and the word is he liked the spaghetti too. I think at some point this became a messy game of peekaboo with the dishtowel.

More birthday cake

These are pictures which Grandma Brenda sent us from last month when Erin and Will went to Madison for Katy Sands' baby shower. Will had his cake and fun at home too but got to celebrate a little with Grandma and Grandpa at their house.

After he finished his cake Will was asked what else he wanted to do for his birthday - he decided he would like to slap some balloons and go on a fun ride.

I see you!

This gate has been an absolute necessity for a couple months now, as it keeps Will from divebombing right down the stairs (or climbing up them) like he would otherwise do without batting an eye. He is starting to recognize the gate as the barrier between where he is and where there's tons of fun, especially if Erin or I are doing something on the other side of the gate within his view. So he climbs up and peeks over the gate like this, pleading for us to lift him over it.

Will hugs his bunny

This is video is a really good one - I've been saving it for a few days so I could post it before I'm out of town for the weekend. Will not only hugs his stuffed animals now but also gives pretty good hugs to mom and dad (and grandma Brenda) as well. At the end of this video you can see Will gets tired of hugging the bunny and comes over to dad for the real thing (I had to put the camera aside so there's no video of my hug, but believe me, they're great).
For those who are coming to visit soon, you're in for a treat!

Will puts away his toys

Will has gotten really good at taking his toys, tupperware, clothes, etc. out of their storage places and leaving them strewn around the house. We've been trying to teach him that before bed he has to put away his toys, and it's just now starting to work. See for yourself as he puts his zoo animal friends (part of the present he got from Aunt Sara and Uncle Jeff) away in their case.

Happy birthday Will!

Will turned one year old last Thursday. I missed out on most of the fun because I was away at a conference until late that evening. Still got my birthday kiss in though. Fortunately Grandma Brenda was here to help mom & Will celebrate. Then the three of us had a make-up birthday celebration on Saturday.

Here Will's playing with the sweet present Aunt Sara and Uncle Jeff got him. It's a zoo fun land that's a big hit. There's an animal figure for every letter of the alphabet, and a creepy zookeeper guy who has a car that Will really likes. Also, the pad thing that Will's sitting on here says letters and animal noises when you put pressure on the certain pictures. Mostly what happens is Will is sitting on it, so we hear "U is for Urial" or other letters/animals over and over. PS a urial is a mountain goat.

Will was equally interested in the box that his zoo came in. I wonder why...?

Oh, that's why!

It wouldn't be a birthday party without birthday cake. Erin made a fun train cake with the mold she got for Christmas from my parents. Will was very excited, as you can see, and made the appropriate amount of mess as he ate it/rubbed it on his face and in his hair.

Thanks for all the gifts, calls, and birthday wishes everyone!