ROAR contest

Will likes to roar. He likes lions and tigers and dinosaurs (dinosaur swim trunks), all of which roar, and his lion-blanket thing which he sleeps with is named "Roar". Sometimes we have roar contests, like the one in the video below, to determine who is the most ferocious lion in the house. Duke is the least ferocious.



We also sometimes have roar contests in stores just to let everyone around us know how ferocious we are. Mom doesn't like to participate in these contests very much.

Will's secret...

Hey everyone, Will has a secret!

(scroll down)

(keep scrollin')

(almost there)

And here it is:

That's right, Will is going to be a big brother! We're all very excited.

Erin is due in April :) and she is right in the middle of the worst part of the pregnancy :(
So Will and I are being extra helpful for her when mom's feeling sick, and we're hanging out a lot doing dude things when she needs to take naps. We'll keep everyone updated.

Will eats apples like a big boy

Last weekend we went to Wasem's fruit farm, an orchard 10 miles or so away from us, it was great. A classic Michigan Fall experience. We picked more apples than we will ever be able to eat, but we're trying. In case you've never had the experience, fresh apples off the tree are so delicious, like candy. So Will and I ate a lot when we were at the orchard, and still eating them for almost every meal. He insists on eating them like a big boy - won't really be very interested if you slice them, he likes to eat them like so.

By the way, this is how Will wears sunglasses every time - upside down. Probably because they fit his little Ferris nose better that way.



Joining us for our trip to the orchard was my buddy Neal, and Will's buddy "Nee!". He's one of the few non-grandpa people that Will likes to hang out with. Neal also likes baseball and buses and sometimes Will gets to ride the Neal train (similar to the dad-train, but on Neal's shoulders). Neal's girlfriend Susan also came with us, and we eventually got Will to call her something that sounded like "Sutu".

Here's a short video of Will picking an apple which he chose off the tree.

groundskeeper Willie

A couple weeks ago Will and I went to visit mom at work and help out a bit with the annual Red Cross garage sale. They had this lawn mower toy there as part of the sale and Will immediately took to it, pushing it all around the garage. When it came time to leave and for Will to put the lawnmower back where he found it, he was very sad so we decided to steal it. Actually we thought it was a fair trade considering the large number of Will's old toys that were donated to the garage sale.



Anyway, he has been playing with it a lot outside but hadn't had a chance to actually use it to help dad mow the lawn until last week (we didn't get any rain for awhile so no mowing was necessary). So we had a great time mowing together - Will following me at times and mowing a different part of the lawn at times. He was covered in grass when we were finally done.

mama. dada. wyall. ba-ba. wet!

This is the string of words Will has been repeating since we played outside in the rain last weekend. The three of us (mama, dada, and "Wyall") were joined by Will's buddies from next door - Ambrose and his sister Hannah - and we got very wet. "Ba-ba" is Will's name for Ambrose. In fact, Ambrose calls Will "ba-ba" also. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and so Will has been reliving it by telling this 5-word story all week.

We did a lot of splashing - walked up and down the sidewalk and splashed in every puddle we could find. Then we played with some sidewalk chalk. Hannah discovered that sidewalk chalk could be applied to the concrete at the bottom of a puddle and that it then turns the entire puddle different colors. You can see some of that in the video below.

We got a few other toys out as well - threw a ball back and forth, walked with Will's umbrella, and got out some garden tools to use as splashing devices. This ended up backfiring when I showed the kids that the shovel could be used to scoop up water and throw it - Erin and I got much colder and wetter after that.

Shortly after the fun with the garden tools, Will started getting the chattery teeth and got grumpy because he didn't want to share, so we all went inside for a hot shower and shower hugs.

My favorite part of this video is at the very end when Ambrose and Will are walking together with the umbrella. Ambrose wants to hold it and reaches for it. Then Will realizes what's going on and gives Ambrose a very emphatic "NO! MINE!" He said this just before my camera ran out of memory, and so I'm really glad it caught that tidbit.

look at this frog

We've been trying out a few costumes lately, in preparation for Mom's favorite holiday, coming up in about a month. We've been trying to teach him to say "trick or treat" - because we're taking him trick-or-treating this year - and he can sort of say something that could be interpreted that way. I think Erin has this idea of dressing him in a different costume for every day of Halloween week. So this frog suit might go to daycare one of the days. Will seems to really like dressing up in costumes.
This is by no means a request, but if any of you readers were thinking about getting Will something fun for an upcoming gift (birthday in a couple weeks), some fun costume or dress-up accessories might be a good idea...

baseball highlight reel

Often when I ask Will what he wants to do, his response will be "ball!". Which is his way of communicating that he wants to play baseball. Sidenote - it's also a common response when I ask him if he wants to sing a song (Take me out to the ballgame). So we get out his Tigers cap and glove, and head outside to play with this toy. He knows to hit the ball with the bat, then run - he just sometimes gets confused about where he's supposed to run to.

Here's a video of some of the highlights from a game we played one afternoon.

these piggies smell yucky

Will thinks stinky things are funny, I'm so proud.



He actually does this all the time. Often when we're in the car, since I assume there's often not much else to do but to play with his feet. So he'll work to get both shoes off, then pull his feet up to his nose, sniff them, and loudly proclaim how stinky or yucky they are. Then he'll look at me, point his toes and say "dada?", as in dada, it's your turn to smell my feet. I always do.

"booh bah"

Erin is a big fan of Winnie-the-pooh - aka "Pooh bear" ("booh bah") - and she has been her entire life. Any of you who, like me, have spent time teasing her about her stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh bear know this (only light teasing!). So anyway we have lots of Pooh books and art and stuffed animals, and sometimes we watch the cartoon "My Friends Tigger & Pooh" (although Erin and I usually watch ironically and I have a hard time suppressing crude jokes about which characters I'd like to drop-kick). Fact is dad's a bit of a fan of Pooh also, at least his friend Tigger (that's Tigger on the right).

A little-known fact: Erin actually has a tattoo of Pooh next to her navel. Will knows this well, and whenever he has an opportunity to check out Pooh and say hello he usually will. For example, when we sit him down in his highchair to eat and are putting on his bib, he is at the right height to look for "booh bah". Even when I am seating him, he'll pull up my shirt, talking about "booh" and then he's confused when he sees my big tummy but no Pooh.

So last time Grandma Brenda came to visit she brought Will his own Pooh costume and he played in it for awhile. Sadly, I guess it was too small so it had to be returned. But he had a good time in it for awhile.

bath pictures: 23 months

Well, Willie is almost "doo" years old. And he's my little buddy. I've been quite busy and so the blog posts have been limited, but we've had some very good times together over the last month - highlighted by a fun trip to Madison to visit Grandma and Grandpa and play with his new friend, Connor. He is becoming a big boy now, with a developing sense of humor, an increasing vocabulary, and a strong sense of order that he probably got from his mom. For example, he will often rearrange his toys or stuffed animals to be just so, and gets frustrated if we mess with them after he's set them up according to an arrangement only he understands. Many times when he's playing with something, he'll insist that Erin or I sit in some particular location and watch him. If we get up or change seats, he will angrily insist we return to the location where he placed us in the first place. This makes for a fun game - I'll get up and move somewhere else when he's not looking, and then watch his reaction when he realizes I moved.

Another indication that Will is growing up: we are starting potty training, and we have thus far had two successful pee-pees. It has been very exciting to cheer along with Will for these successes.

What's hot right now: baseball, hotdogs, kitties, music, tickling, kitties, and choo-choos.



Will is also getting the hang of brushing his teeth, so we're letting him do more of it by himself. He still needs a little help (which he's pretty reluctant to accept), but he's getting better. We're trying to teach him to spit (see the picture below-left), and he knows to rinse his mouth when he's done (with bathwater).



Erin and I have decided he's finally too big for the blue bathtub, so this will be the last set of bath pictures with it. Tonight he took a bath like a big boy (in the regular bathtub), but I had to take a bath with him to show him it was fun and not scary. We played with his bath choo-choos.

As of this post, there have been 7117 views of Will's page since last December.

what does Will want for lunch?

a HOT-DOT! (hotdog)



He sure likes hotdogs.

a potty pee-pee PS

Will peed in his potty for the first time on Sunday. But I missed it (I was playing video games with my friend Dan). So last night I got Will ready for bath, he sat on the potty for awhile, did the tuck, and ordered me to leave (he insists on privacy when he's in the bathroom, even though he does not give it when the roles are reversed). I peeked in on him several times to encourage him, and each time he ordered me out of the room. But after several tries, running out of and back to the bathroom a few times and then resetting and re-tucking, he couldn't do it. Eventually I had to give him his bath, so even though he wanted to keep trying, I had to take him off of his seat on the potty, and he was not happy about that.

After his bath, I had him wrapped in his bath towel and he again insisted on sitting on the toilet. After an argument in which I told him he either had to take his towel off and sit on the toilet buck-naked or go and get ready for bed, he took it off, sat and tucked, and ordered me out of the bathroom.

I went into our room to tell Erin about this situation, and the next thing I know, I hear excited footsteps, and Will runs out of the bathroom with a huge grin on his face, and literally does a Tiger Woods fist pump and yells "YEAH!" Sure enough, I checked and there was pee in the potty. We were very excited. Will got a gummy dinosaur (he gets a treat after every successful use of the potty - a trick we learned from Cate's parents), and he just beamed for the remainder of getting him ready for bed. So we'll see if he can do it again tonight!

More things that Will says

Erin has been making a list of the words Will says lately, the goal is that he will have 100 words by the time he turns two years old (next month). Pretty sure we're forgetting a few of them, but the list is currently at 52 words, and many of those he has only started saying in the last month. So his vocabulary is accelerating rapidly and could very well reach 100 in a month.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to share that list. It's kind of neat to look back 7 months ago and compare with what he can say now.

Will's word list:

Mama
Dada
Will (pronounced "Whyall" - refers to himself, anything he owns, or anything he wants to be given to him)
Grandpa (pronounced "Rah-rah" or "Bwa-bwa")
Ad ("Aht": Uncle Adam)
Duke (he clearly says "Dook" now instead of "doodoo" or "deekdee")
Otto ("ottott" - the nextdoor neighbor's cat that Will plays with outside a lot)

hi
bye/bye-bye
ow! (says this when he gets hurt or when something isn't going his way)
uh-oh!
yeah/yes
no
up
down ("dowww")
out (if he's somewhere he doesn't want to be, like the carseat or in a grocery cart, he will alternate the words up/down/out over and over until he gets what he wants or is convinced to stay there)
help ("hep dada": help me climb up so I can reach your computer and press buttons, dada)
mine (this one is fun, usually an exclamation: "MINE!")

juice ("dooss")
pie
hotdog ("hotdot!" - invariably, Will's answer if you ask him what he wants to eat)
two (as in "hey Will, you want a cookie?": "doo.")

neck (the body part, also the name given to his stuffed giraffe)
eye
butt

stinky ("dinngky")
yuck/yucky (often accompanies the declaration of something as "stinky")
hot
wet

bat (pronounced almost exactly like butt)
ball (applies to the object and to the sport baseball)
hit (he can say "hit bat" or "hit ball" but not "bat hit ball")
bus ("busss!")
kitty (prounounced "deekdee", formerly the label given to Duke)
this (a common response to the question "Hey Will, what's this?": "thissss!")
car ("gharr!")
mop
guitar (" 'tarr" - this applies to real guitars, Guitar Hero guitars, and a little mini broom we let him use which he plays as a guitar)
choo-choo
motorcycle (he just says "mmm" ok this one is a stretch, but he consistently refers to motorcycles as 'mmms')
bike (he calls them "bump-bumps", because it's his job to yell "bump-bump" when we go over bumps on bike rides)
hat
house (and he can identify "Wyall howwss")
tickle (hard to spell it phonetically, but there's a particular sound he makes as he's trying to tickle my tummy or piggies)

Animal noises:
moo
meow ("maow" - also all cats who are not Duke or Otto - including Clementine - are being called "maows" lately)
woofwoof
baa (this one is really funny, kind of sounds like he's trying to clear his throat)
hiss ("ssss!")
roar ("Rarr!" this is the sound that lions, tigers, and dinosaurs make. It's also the name of his lion that he sleeps with)
eee-eee (monkey noise, with accompanying armpit scratching)
tweet-tweet ("teet-teet")
hoo-hoo (owl noise)
quack-quack ("cuck-cuck")

first peepee in the potty

Will has been sitting on his potty chair a lot - often when he's hanging with me in the bathroom, and pretty much every night before his bath. He insists on it.

Anyway, last night before his bath, Erin reported that he sat down, did the tuck, and with some encouragement, he peed! Some of it got in the potty, but much of it was all over his legs and the floor, so it wasn't a completely successful tuck. To add to the fun, he had been playing outside and had dirty feet, so when he got up and was dancing around excitedly, he left little muddy footprints among the puddles of pee on the floor.

Here's hoping for more of this as we enter into the adventure of potty training.