It's Official

Will is a big boy.

• I put away the last of his "emergency" bottles this afternoon
• He stopped eating baby food about a week and a half ago. He'll still eat the Gerber Graduates stuff, but he's pretty much on to grownup food
• We bought three baby gates today so we can contain him in the living room/entry area
• We also bought another transitional car seat for my car. He's just getting too big for the infant carrier anymore
• His vocabulary is expanding every day. We can't understand all of it just yet, but he has names for most things in the house (and outside)
• We began putting together the plans for his first birthday party this morning

*sigh*

I love watching him grow up and learn new skills, but part of me longs for those early infant days when we could just snuggle him all day and he'd be happy. Now he's a wiggly, giggly near-toddler. No walking yet, just lunging from, say, the coffee table to my legs. If he had the confidence, he'd be there.

I love my little man.

I wanna be like Mike

Will has a new sports center that has a baseball he can hit on a swivel, a football/goalpost spinner, and a basketball goal that counts and cheers.

After getting his confidence up by making a few baskets, Will pulled a Michael Jordan and stuffed one - take a look.




the only difference (besides over 5' in height, pigmentation of the skin, and age)? Jordan drools less. Hey - at least Will has the same hairdo!

Will's First Soccer Game

Tuesday night, I took Will to the girls' playoff game. A couple of my sophomores are on the varsity soccer team at school, and they were in the first round of the playoffs. One of my girls scored two goals and had two assists, leading the team to a 6-0 victory. The Lady Jags scored all six goals in the first half, playing into a pretty rough wind. It was a fun game to watch.

When my student scored the first goal of the game, a beautiful arc from the right wing, I cheered right along with the crowd. Will's face just crumpled, and big crocodile tears rolled down his cheeks. He didn't know what to make of his mommy yelling like that. Unfortunately, keeping my cheering quiet and to a minimum didn't help much. Will cried for three of the goals, and stuck his little lower lip out and whined for the other three.

By the second half, however, Will started to get into the game...or at least the crowd at the game. He enjoyed playing peekaboo with the women behind us, and he even started clapping in delight. I was sure he wouldn't make it the full 80 minutes (high school games are a bit shorter than professional games), but he was a trooper. He held on for the whole game. I think he actually had more fun as the evening went on instead of tiring out.

This is definitely not his last game.

Water Baby

I once read advice to fill the bathtub before bringing the baby into the bathroom, so you don't upset the child with the loud noise. Not so Will. He practically flips out of your arms, fully clothed, so he can get his hands on that water.

ETA: The water isn't brown; Will's no-slip mat from IKEA is a biscuit color, and it is tinting the appearance of the water. ~ Ghost Writer.

An action shot of his hobby - whitewater bathing:

I can has Woodstock?

Will with a mohawk - and a goofy face

A Few Pictures from the Weekend

My brother came in for a visit from Atlanta, so we had a nice family get together on Friday evening. I think a good time was had by all. My Grandad came and spent the day, and my cousin (Will's fifth uncle) got to come in from Denton. This was the first time since Will was five days old that my brother had seen Will. He's changed quite a bit since last May.

Will and Uncle Aaron

"dood-dog"

Ian, Will, and Aidan - the cousins

Will and Mommy in sunglasses

The Sound of...Something

Not quite music, but this is Will's new favorite sound to make.

Even more hilarious is his reaction to watching this video. It's like he's having a conversation with himself in "bah-bwa-bah-bwa" speak.

Stand in the place where you live...

Will's longest attempt to date to defy gravity. It won't be long now!

What a Hambone!

You think this boy knows he's cute? We're in for it when he gets older!

Sing us a song, you're the piano man...

I think we may need to start calling him "Willy Joel."

A Change of Genre

Will apparently decided to renounce the rock star look in favor of...

...Marky Mark. Can you feel the vibration?

Practice Makes Perfect

After Will's escapades with the high chair the other night, we went to Target to get him a car to push now and ride later. We rearranged the living room to give him a nice big play area. Ignore the mess in the video - we were halfway through the move.

We're hoping he'll be ready to mow the lawn by his first birthday. :-)

My Little Rock Star...

...attitude and all.

Record High Temperature

Obviously, I'm not talking about Will's first snow on Friday. On Thursday, Will ran a temperature all day long. It spiked frighteningly high - to a 103.7 - at around 7:30 in the evening. Tylenol wasn't breaking it, sleep wasn't breaking it. It seemed that there was nothing we could do. Will was lethargic and glassy-eyed, like most of us get when we're feverish, but he didn't seem to be in pain. I finally got a cool rag and washed his head down repeatedly. I opened his pajamas and did the same to his chest and stomach. I rubbed lotion into his legs and chest - anything I could do to make him cool down. Eventually, his fever fell below 100 degrees around 9:30. He ran a low-grade fever until around 12:30, and never looked back. Rolf stayed home with him yesterday, but Will was nice and cool and energetic all day - maybe a little clingy and a little fussy, but he hadn't eaten much in the past 24 hours and didn't sleep well at all on Thursday night.

Speaking of Will's first snow, he was enthralled on Friday morning. He looked out of the patio door, pointed, and excitedly cried out, "Do-doo doo do DOO do DO!" I covered his head, and we went outside for about 30 seconds. We reached the grill, which had a nice dusting of slushy snow on it. I touched it, so he leaned over to copy me. As soon as his little fingers hit the icy cold, he pulled his hand back and turned away. Ah, that's my little Texan. Since he seems to have inherited his mommy's cold-sensitive hands, he does NOT like to be cold. He did think the snow was pretty, though.

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'...

Will's latest feat, taken last night...

He is also trying to stand on his own more. He usually only has the confidence or balance to hang in there a couple of seconds, but it won't be long before he's doing all this on his own. Eek!