Again

Will had a well-baby (toddler) appointment today. I think we all know what that means--the unsuspecting doctor discovered an ear infection. I was actually slightly suspecting because he's had a pretty goopy runny nose for several days now, but as always, he showed no signs of being in pain. So we're taking him to an ENT doctor, at the pediatrician's urging. She seemed to think that four ear infections in six months was an awful lot, especially considering that the cold and flu season has barely begun. But other than that, the appointment went well. Will has catapulted himself into the 80th height percentile and 50th weight percentile. Compare these numbers to his nine-month appointment, just three months ago, when he was in the 30th height percentile and 10th weight percentile. The doctor was pleased with his progress. This was his first appointment with his new pediatrician in Delaware. We thought that she was awfully nice and were overall impressed with how the office was run (though the office itself was rather shabby).

We spent this last weekend with Liz, which was great. Will is in love with her. Saturday morning when she got up and came out of her room Will could not believe his eyes. You can tell he doesn't really get the concept of overnight guests. But he was thrilled to see her, which was pretty cute. Liz noticed that by Sunday he seemed to take it more for granted that she was around, but he still enjoyed her company, for sure. Saturday evening Megan and her mother joined us for dinner and a small bachelorette soiree. We drank amaretto sours, ate cake, chatted, and had a lot of fun.

And finally, happy birthday to Robbie!

Another new baby!

Congratulations to Matt and Courtney on the birth of Graham last weekend. We're glad it looks like everyone is doing well in Haifa, as Graham was born a bit earlier than originally expected.

Walking Will

Now that Will is one, he thinks crawling is for babies. It happened remarkably fast. Even this time last week he didn't seem ready to take independent steps. Then late last week he took several independent steps accidentally, and realized for the first time that he was capable of it. Since then he's been steadily improving, and this morning he walked from one end of the house to the other, totally by himself. He is really, really cute walking because he is short. Very short. And he stops every now and again to readjust his balance. And of course sometimes he falls on his butt, but he recovers quickly and gets back on his feet.

Ah-ha, speak of the devil. Here's Will now, walking in from the kitchen. nnnnnfj vvv b bbbb v nnnb jhe v xxxxxcxvnzggzaaaazBHJAZhz¥©∫b

Happy birthday to Will

Will has gone to bed, so I am now at liberty to wish him a happy birthday online! I think he had a nice birthday. He woke up a bit on the early side, but I'm sure he was just very excited. Matt started off the morning by presenting him with a Curious George "Happy Birthday" stuffed animal, which he seemed to both love and fear. His next birthday surprise was somewhat more age-appropriate--a Leapfrog table from my parents, just like the one he always plays with at the pediatrician's office, but this time with batteries installed. He loved it. From that point on the day progressed basically as usual, except at lunch I kept warning him not to fill up on nutritious stuff because we were going out for ice cream afterwards, which we did. It was an event planned by a moms' group that I joined, so it wasn't an actual birthday celebration for Will, but the timing was good. Then after Matt got home we made pizza for dinner and ate ice cream cake and opened presents. His primary present from us was a set of big Legos. He seems to like putting things together and taking them apart, so I think he'll enjoy these. We also got him a stuffed animal and some bath toys, which have been hits so far. I'm pretty sure the cake and ice cream are his favorite parts of his birthday, though. He cried when Matt took the cake away to cut it after he helped Will blow out his candle (see the picture below). Here I will present you with a collection of pictures from today and from the first of Will's birthdays observed, which was last Saturday with Matt's parents.

today

One year ago today I called my doctor's office because I'd been having painful contractions that I couldn't sleep through for 14 hours. They told me to take Tylenol. Extra strength. Hrmph.

In other news, I just checked the weather report, and aside from Friday, which has a high of 82, the highs for the next ten days are in the 70s. Praise be.

Expect more posts tomorrow from here, Party Central.

The sleepless wonder

Will and I are in the process of working on our daily routine. One thing that is kind of nice is that Will seems to have shifted from waking up at 6:15 to waking up at around 6:45, which we can sometimes stretch until close to 7:00 if we ignore his initial whimpers. So we're not complaining about that. But he doesn't seem interested at all in napping anymore, at least in his crib. This isn't too surprising because Will has never been particularly into napping in his crib, but last Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoons he took a nice, long nap in his crib, leaving me with lots of time to do things and hang out and relax and I got spoiled. But in the last week that has not happened again, and it's a little bit frustrating. He'll fall asleep in my arms and the second I put him in his crib he starts screaming. I usually let him scream it out for twenty or thirty minutes, and most of the time he falls asleep eventually, but not for more than a half hour or maybe forty minutes. And then he wakes up and screams again. I usually let him do this for another ten minutes before I conclude that he's definitely not falling back asleep, and then I get him and he cries even louder for a while just to let me know how much I've hurt his feelings. And then we cuddle and eat a banana and he's happy again. But other than not really napping, it turns out that Will's a reasonably fun guy to be with. Sometimes he's pretty clingy and he only wants me to carry him, and sometimes he wants to walk with me holding his hand, but sometimes he's happy to play in his playroom (like above) while I do things like start to get dinner ready.

Sometimes we go to the playground, where Will mostly plays with wood chips. He's very interested in other little kids, and he'll often go up to them and try to play with them, but it seems like he's an unusually social little guy because for the most part the other kids seem to turn around, melt into their mother's legs, and pray that when they open their eyes the smiling one year old will be gone. This has created some awkward moments for me, because although I was a shy kid, that was a long time ago and Will is the only person his age that I regularly interact with and he is not at all shy, so I don't really know how to handle the situation. Usually I just pick him up and we go back to playing with the wood chips. But I think I've started to understand at least part of what is going on. We went to a playgroup today with a few kids around 17 months old, and one in particular acted very threatened by Will. He cried and freaked out any time Will approached him. His mom explained that he was afraid that Will was going to take the toys he was playing with. One of the moms at the playground yesterday said something similar about her daughter, so now I wonder if in a few months we might reach the age where Will starts caring if other kids take his stuff. But maybe not, it might be more of a personality thing. In any case, today was fun and it was nice that Will got to interact with some other kids close to his age and play with lots of toys that were totally new to him.

Happy Labor Day

This is Matt and Will, obviously not having any fun as we started our hike this afternoon at the Judge Morris Estate in White Clay Creek Park, a state park that is right across the street from our house. But the hike was fun and eventually their spirits rose, Will's especially after we let him carry a stick, a desire he seems to have inherited from my sister Emily. In fact, he's quite into dirt, sticks, and woodchips these days. When we go to the playground he swings for about three minutes and then wants to sit on the ground and play with woodchips, which is way less fun for me.





Then we came home, had dinner, and Will took a bath. He didn't really feel like it, though.





And then Will went to bed and Matt and I drank wine, ate cake, and hung some curtains in the living room. They didn't look good, even after wine, so we're going to take them down and try them in a different room. It's disappointing.

But here's Will's big news: he has three teeth! One of his top teeth finally broke through late last week, and he's been eating table food ever since. I wouldn't really let him eat steak tonight, though. That is just too tough. Also, Will took his first independent steps today! Matt dangled some socks in front of him, which he went after for a couple of steps before falling down. I don't think he even knew what he did. We have to keep working on his self confidence, I think.