Happy Halloween!

We had a really fun Halloween, and I hope you did too. Will decided earlier this month that he would never, ever wear the lion costume that we bought for him (see below), so instead of despairing, I dressed him in the Tom Brady jersey that my sister gave him for his birthday and added some smudged makeup beneath his eyes to complete the look. Will seemed to actually enjoy this costume, and he looked adorable.



We got our first trick-or-treaters sometime around 6:30 and they trickled steadily from then on until about 8:00. We ended up giving out somewhat more than half of the enormous amount of candy that I bought. I was involved last year in an incident that may have included running out of Halloween candy while kids were still knocking at the door, and I never want to live through that again. So I went a little crazy, but candy will never go to waste in our household. But anyway, Will had a good time helping me answer the door and lots of people told us how cute the baby was, and Will didn't even bother to get upset that people were calling him a baby. But the best part of all was when I refilled the bowl of candy and Will took a bunch of different types to play with. He sat on the floor for several minutes sorting them into various piles. Matt and I always wonder what sorting criteria he uses when he does stuff like this. It is fascinating. But then he wanted to put his Snickers bars back in the bowl with the other candy, but I just didn't think that was a good idea since they bore his handmarks by that point. So Matt got him a little bowl of his own, which was a huge hit. He then sorted the candy into various piles and placed them in the correct order into the bowl and then removed them. Over and over again. Then, not to toot my own horn too much, I got him a second bowl and that's when the party really started. He sorted and filled bowls and transferred piles between bowls until he got tired and it was bath time. I really, really had a good time watching him enjoy himself so much.



In other news, Will had his appointment with the ENT this morning. It went quite well, and the doctor basically said that although four ear infections in six months is a standard that they use for putting tubes in kids' ears, Will's ears today looked really good and clear of fluid, so he thought we should wait a while and see how bad this winter ends up being. He said that kids generally tend to outgrow their susceptibility toward ear infections, so that would probably happen for Will without tubal intervention. (I made up that last phrase--it not medically endorsed.) So that is good, and I agreed wholeheartedly with his assessment. If he had said, "Oh yes, this kid obviously needs tubes to live a happy childhood," I would have agreed too--I'm not a real doctor, after all--but this is certainly the less worrisome option, at least for now.

Toddlerhood

Oh, man. It's hitting us hard. Will is so much more fun than he used to be, and I love how much he talks and gives hugs and kisses and plays with books and wants us to read to him, but the pleasantry lasts only as far as he wants it to. If you say no to him for any reason, or try to get him to do something that he doesn't want (for example, wear pants in the late afternoon), he hurls himself to the floor, screaming and crying, in genuine temper-tantrum form. At first I found it unbearable because he appeared to be in such agony and I felt so mean. But now I'm getting more used to it and realize that it's something that he just has to get over. He can't always get what he wants, and for the time being he lacks the words, patience, and reason to explain his frustration. But he's gone on like this for forty-five minutes at a time, and that is tough to take. I think he has noticed our reaction to his outcries, so now he'll just start to scream at the slightest hint of something he doesn't like, and that I have little patience for. We're slowly finding ways to distract him and comfort him, but for the most part we just let him carry on and I think that's the most effective thing. He seems to give up a little bit more quickly than he used to, and then he's back to being a nice little boy.

Weekend in Pittsburgh

This past weekend we went to Pittsburgh to meet young Henry and to visit with Megan and Robbie and Jess. Unfortunately, Will did indeed have a cold and was therefore unable to meet Henry. Our pediatrician basically scared the crap out of us by saying that if Henry got any sort of fever it would be an automatic hospitalization and spinal tap, and we really didn't want that to happen, and if it did happen, we really didn't want to be blamed for it. So we shuffled childcare and Henry duties on Friday and Saturday. Also, we brought the camera with us, but I accidently and foolishly left it in the car when Matt dropped me and Megan off, so we have no pictures. But in any case, Henry is really, really cute and made nary a peep other than during a diaper change the whole time I was with him. It was a lot of fun meeting him, and we'll get to see him again at the beginning of November during Megan and Paul's wedding extravaganza. At his current growth rate, he should probably be around Will's size by then.

We spent Friday and Saturday nights at Megan and Paul's apartment, which is a great place for a family with a kid because they have enough rooms that the portable crib doesn't have to be in the guest room with the parents. As much as we love Will, we find that all three of us sleep better if he is not in the same room with us, and this is a luxury that we are not used to as travelers. Plus, Megan collected a bunch of toys for visiting kids to play with, which made Will pretty happy. Paul was away for the weekend, but we had a nice time with Megan and she cooked us an awesome dinner Saturday night.

A bubble!

Baby, in this case. Congratulations to Jess and Robbie, and welcome to Henry Roval, who was born yesterday afternoon. If Will manages not to get a cold in the next week, we will meet him next weekend.

Penguins and Bubbles

Recently Will has been obsessed with penguins. It started a couple of weeks ago when we went to Ikea with my parents and all of their fake TVs were showing penguins. Will took a strong interest in the penguins, and we had to work hard to get him into an area that didn't have any. So my mom bought him a Happy Feet DVD, which we now watch every single day. I've never actually seen the whole movie from start to finish because he has a short attention span and usually watches it in five-minute segments, but as long as there are penguins on the television, he's pretty happy. Then the other day I was checking my email with Will in my lap and I figured I'd see if I could find any penguins online. So I happened upon the March of the Penguins website, and put the movie trailer on for him. He was transfixed. We watched it five times before I cut him off. Now every time I go near the computer he wants to watch the penguins. I think we've watched it six or seven times today.

He also recently learned the word "bubble." He uses it correctly (we were outside blowing bubbles when I taught it to him), but I believe it has also come to mean "purple," "apple," "baby," "Mumble" (the penguin in Happy Feet), and "Babar." I believe he uses it for any two-syllable word whose second syllable starts with a p or a b.

The picture above is to remind myself of how small Will used to be in his crib. This morning when I got him up I was struck by how big he looked. He prefers to sleep perpendicular to the intended direction, but he's now too tall so he ends up either with his feet sticking out between the bars, or oriented diagonally.

Not to brag, but

I taught Will to say "gobble gobble" whenever I call him a turkey.

weekend in Florida

This weekend we flew to Ft. Lauderdale, home of Will's Aunt Kate, Uncle One-T (I've also seen it spelled "Wunty" or "Mat"), and Cousin Bosco, all pictured above. It was a big family reunion, complete with my parents, sisters Emily and Meagan, and Chris. We had a fun time. It was like a resort weekend, including an ocean, beach, pool, tennis courts, and a Wii. We all went out to breakfast on Saturday, which was fantastic. It takes a long time to get that many people together and ready to go, so it was lunchtime by the time we had breakfast, and I was starving. But not to worry, there was plenty of food. Will probably gained a pound over the weekend with all of his aunts around to feed him.