William Wednesday Tminus1

I've been sitting here thinking of what else to write about today besides William because it isn' t Wednesday. Then I realized how pathetic it is that even when I'M THE ONE IN CHARGE of this thing I still feel like I can't break the rules. I write William Wednesdays. It isn't Wednesday. Can't write today. What kind of lame rule is that? So I'm breaking it.

Only because William turned 6 months old yesterday. YIPPEE happy 1/2 birthday to our baby! We hadn't had a birthday party for him since his 1 week birthday, but we couldn't pass up on 6 months. :) Sunday night I made a spice cake and topped it with 6 candles and some sweet potatoes. Don't worry, the sweet potatoes were in his baby jar so they didn't contaminate the cake for me and Austin! I wanted to get a picture with William and his cake, so I inched it dangerously close to him - and he did what you'd expect, he reached for it. So the first picture Austin got was William grabbing onto the sweet potatoes as I pushed the plate away :) A little distance helped though.

William was MESMERIZED when we lit the candles. It took Austin jumping up and down and waving toys in the air to get him to look up for the camera. Good thing we had already moved the cake away because I'm pretty sure he would have grabbed the flame in half a second. Little did we know, Austin didn't need to jump up and down - we just needed to start singing happy birthday. We sing to him every night, whatever random songs we can think of, but we don't sing much during the day. I'm thinking maybe we should! He thought it was the funniest thing. After we sang to him we gave him his birthday presents. I'll admit, he did get boring things like diapers and wipes but he also got a new outfit and a bath toy. On my birthday he loved playing with the tissue and the bags, so I figured he'd just like to open presents. Austin is more protective with the tissue paper than I am - I guess he's worried that he'll choke himself or something. I just think he's cute when he's stuffing the paper in his face...oops. So, Austin interfered at times while I just looked on and smiled. Then, once the presents were opened, candles blown out (I'd like you to think he blew them out himself because he's a genius), and he powered through his sweet potatoes it was bath time...where he got to play with his new toy!



Other than his 6 month birthday, William had another great week. I have a digital picture frame on my desk and a picture of him when he was a few days old just popped up. He was swaddled in his blanket from Miss Beth with a pacifier in his mouth - the thing was as big as his face! It is so incredible how tiny and helpless he was and a quick 6 months later I have to fight him off of a cake!

He never was one for the pacifier, speaking of - we tried it for the first few days, then grandparents (especially Yaya and Pop) gave it a try periodically to see if it would help but he was never enthralled. The way I see it - that's one less thing to have to worry about later. If it had served its purpose and pacified him, I wouldn't have denied him the comfort - but he'd much rather have a blanket in his fists to stuff in his mouth than a paci, so that's fine by me.

In an effort to make William's diet healthier, make the food taste more appealing, and be a little cost conscious we have decided to make William's baby food. It's actually lots of fun! So far we've made him sweet potatoes, bananas, apples, and butternut squash - but he hasn't tasted the squash yet. That comes tonight! He didn't love the apples at first taste, but now he's a pretty big fan. We bought a cute little baby food maker that steams and then purees the food, so I'm not sure we're actually saving any money all together...but it's still worth it for the other reasons. Have you ever tasted jarred baby food? I used to eat it when I babysat and it all tasted like the same bland cardboard. This homemade stuff rocks - tastes, well, like sweet potatoes! And bananas! And applesauce! Who'da thought? We have some trays of little jars that we use to freeze the food in serving sizes, then just pull a few out and let them sit in the fridge to thaw out...good to go! I'm a pretty big advocate :)

Friday night Kaila and I went to a place called Canvas and Cocktails while Austin got some daddy-baby time with William. He said they had a blast. He picked him up from Goddard which is rare, so I think it was equally special for both of them. Then they went home, played with Layla (who William is growing more and more fond of), played with his favorite balls, jumped in his jumparoo, took a bath, and then daddy got to play some video games. He says his time with William was the best part of the night, but I know he was thrilled to play video games too. He does that about as often as I scrapbook these days, so I'm sure he enjoyed his time.

And one more example of how time flies: when we first took William to Goddard he was one week older than the youngest baby in his class. So basically he and Ethan were the babies. Well, now there are only 3 babies older than him and one of them is out for a few weeks. So he's one of the big dogs! There are 3 new baby girls in the room, so Ethan, William and Diego are now outnumbered 5 to 3. Poor guys :) Miss Kim told me that Helen, Diego and William are all scooting and turning around on the ground - all eager to finally figure out how to move forward but none are there yet. Helen is 9 months and Diego is 8 so I'm guessing one of them will figure it out first, but the way Miss Kim said it generally works when there's a group of them working on the same milestone is that one of them finally gets it and the next day they've all got it. Nothin' like a little competition to spur growth :) It's fun to watch them all trying SO hard to move - I can't wait until the day that I walk in at 5:00 and see them all chasing each other on all 4's :) Little friends are so fun!