I'll start with Christmas - what a blast!!! We had friends over for dinner on Christmas Eve and William behaved like a little angel. One couple had a baby that is roughly William's age and it was fun to watch them stare each other down, touch each other, and steal toys from each other. I didn't get to spend much time with them because I was in the kitchen, but William was enjoying himself right up until bedtime. Then he was a MONSTER. He did NOT want to go to sleep! We had to leave him in his room screaming as we went downstairs and tried to ignore the noise. His late night lead to him sleeping in which was just torturous for me. I wanted to see how he'd like opening presents! He finally woke up and had breakfast and we got to the present-opening around 8:30.
He wasn't interested in opening presents, but loved playing with them once they were opened. He pulled tissue out of bags and would rip the paper up once we had torn it off the boxes, but he never pulled any presents out of their packages. So, we did a lot of unwrapping :) He loved all of his toys though! Once we'd open a new one he forgot about the one in hand and moved on. He especially loved daddy's wrench set...oops! :)
Christmas was also fun because it was the beginning of 8 days of the 3 of us being together with nowhere to be and nothing to do. It was AWESOME! For Christmas Austin's unit collected donations for families with young children - I am not sure how the selected the families to donate to, I assumed it was on a need base or a nomination base ,I don't know, but somehow we were selected. I was very touched at what they gave to William. Anyway, one gift he got from them was a toy school bus that has 4 various sized balls, all in different colors. The school bus has a hole in the top that senses which ball has been dropped in it, then it will say "the red ball is in the bus" or something of that nature. For the first few days all William knew how to do was open the door and let all the balls roll out. Then Austin or I would put the balls back in the bus, one by one, before he's release them all again. He really seemed to enjoy the game, so we played it, and in a matter of 3 days he had figured out how to get the balls in on his own. I had read he was getting close to the age of "putting things together or where they belong" so I suppose he's right on track there. He also has started trying to stick his elmo bath clings onto the wall after he pulls them off. It's pretty impressive to just see him one day do something that he's never known how to do before. And equally enjoyable for me is the fact that now his toy bus can occupy him for a good 20 minutes so I can cook or eat or go to the bathroom or do something. He also has a dinosaur toy that has 3 holes for balls to be inserted into, and he's enjoying exploring that as well.
His walking is moving along and now he walks everywhere in our living room. He never crawls at all downstairs, actually. He still crawls when he's in his room, which I find interesting. I'm not sure if its because he's spent less time playing and exploring in there so he's less comfortable or what. But when we're downstairs he's a full time walker. His teachers were so impressed - he left for Christmas a crawler and came back a walkin' fool!
last Tuesday we went to Lil' Monkey Bizness with Janell and Brooklyn (Paul had other obligations), my boss Dana and her son, daughter in law, and grandson. Her grandson is right in between William and Brooklyn's ages. Lil' Monkey Bizness is similar to Gymboree or other play gyms for kids, the difference being that it is all open play. They don't have structured classes or memberships, you just pay each time you go. Tuesday nights they are open later and have cheaper admission for "family night" so it cost us $3 for 2 hours of William's entertainment. (could have been 3 hours but he was exhausted) We started out playing in the "crawlers" area but William's daddy was far too adventurous to stay there. He caught one glimpse of a large blow up slide (kind of like a moon walk) and decided William needed to go down the slide. I would NEVER have thought to take a 10 month old up there, but I'm not a dad. Janell and I laughed at how the dad's are so much more daring with the kids than we would be. She said when they had gone before Paul had been the same way with Brooklyn, but Brooklyn didn't seem interested. She just wanted to play in the little tykes play houses! William, however, loved the slide! After a few trips down the slide he started walking over to it himself and trying to climb up there. luckily he can't get up on his own or it could have been dangerous! (says the mom)
I feel like I have been secretive on the picture-sharing lately, so I'll share some from our wonderful week together. I know there are plenty of stories I'm forgetting to share...like William dumping out a bottle of jet dry, a bag of mini yukon gold potatoes, climbing onto the couch on his own, and other things...but there were just too many events to document. I really should have been blogging nightly! A day in the life of an almost-one-year-old...I could write a whole book! I had such a great time playing with him and he really seemed to enjoy our family time too. We had a wonderfully blessed holiday, and I hope you did too! And now...enjoy the pics!
looking at his daddy doll:
Playing at Monkey Bizness
Dumping the baby potatoes
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