WonderWill

Poor little neglected blog. These boys just keep me so darn busy--its hard to keep up lately.

Will just turned 15 months. He is into--well, really, on top of--everything. He walks, runs, tries to jump, but mostly, just climbs. His physical skills amaze me. He is on the go every waking minute of the day.  True to his namesake--he is very strong willed. If he is being made to do something against his will, for example, leaving the grocery store today, he will fling himself to the ground. The flinging is usually a backward move and I aim to protect the head. Occasionally, the back bend is so severe, he gets his legs, bent at the knee, stuck behind him. Thanks to his strong will and mobility he is no stranger to injury--generally, head injury.

Check out these shiners:

This picture doesn't do it justice because the protruding goose egg was really impressive and this picture just didn't catch it well.

 And here he has a shiner on the other side and is missing a bit of skin on his nose and lip.

Our collection of places-he's-not-supposed-to-be pictures, as debuted in Mommy's Little Overachiever, continues to grow.

"Talking" on the phone amidst the trains. Will loves Thomas the train. He has his own sign (as in sign language) for Thomas and his own dance for the Thomas theme song. Everything with buttons gets tried out as a phone. Remote control? It's a phone. iPod? It's a phone? Cereal box toy with buttons? It's a phone. You get it.

 He's been working up to this one for a while. It first started by climbing up in the lap of anyone who might be sitting in this chair.  Then he would try to stand up on the arm. We just stopped sitting in that chair. Recently he learned how to get up into the chairs on his own. I think he had fallen once before I got this picture because while I was in the other room, I heard some piano keys plink followed by a whine. When I went to investigate, this is what I found.

 I moved the chair away so that he wouldn't be tempted again. Sweet little Luke, a man after my own OCD heart, couldn't tolerate the way I had left the chair all askew in the playroom. He drug it back into its appropriate position later that afternoon. The next day, Will was at it again--this mountain to conquer.

 He really does have good balance. I decided to wait this one out to see what exactly it was he was after. Did he want to fling the pictures around? Was he after middle c?  Nope, I guess he had just spied a good "sittin' place."

And, for the grand finale, he will attempt a feat of amazing skill, balance, and coordination for you. Once again, the whining gets you caught every time.

With all this work on physical strength, he has fallen behind on verbal skills. Luke was behind at this point, too, so we are not terribly worried.  He is being followed by ECI (Early Childhood Intervention). It most likely is related to all the ear infections he had during his first year of life. He basically had constant fluid built up behind his eardrums for the whole first year. Someone told me once that it is basically like hearing underwater. They removed his adenoids and placed tubes in January, and he has not been sick once since then! (keeping our fingers crossed on that one!) He is making leaps and bounds now. He first started mimicking the sounds for "Thank-you." Word-wise it didn't sound like thank-you, but he had the timing and intonation down. It has progressed to "Da-doo" and he uses it appropriately--when he wants something or wants to give you something. He uses baby signs and has the signs for "more," "please," "all-done," "bye-bye," and we have been working on "cup" and "milk." He knows the hand motions to this song Luke has been singing called "Gimmie Ice Cream" and when we had ice cream tonight, I handed him his cone and he started doing the gimmie, gimmie sign in the song. And, as I mentioned before, he has his own special Thomas sign.

We were outside on the patio one night and I was doing something on my phone. I was holding it up, looking at something, and I heard this sweet little angel voice. So I had to switch to video and catch it.

It's basically his first real, understandable, sounds-like-what-it-is word. CHEESE! And it has so many uses for him as cheese is one of his favorite foods! (Sorry for the crazy lighting--I had to convince him I was really taking his picture by making the camera flash.)

And, lastly, on to my favorite game--Luke vs. Will!

In corner one, we have Will in an honestly unstaged photo moment:

 And in corner two, we have Luke, pulling the same shenanigans years ago!

What is it about the crunchie can that makes them want to put their cup in it? When I saw Will doing it I had to get a picture!

Just around the corner--Luke's 4th birthday! Stay tuned. . .