729

William is 729 days old today!!! That means tomorrow is his second birthday – and I am so excited! We don’t have any big plans, I’m just excited to celebrate the blessing that he has been and the best 2 years of my life. I was hoping to make cake batter pancakes for breakfast but Austin has to leave at 6:00am so I will take William on a breakfast date, Austin is going to try to meet him for lunch, then we will have cake batter pancakes for dinner. Nothing wrong with a plate of sugar for dinner right? Calories net to zero on your son's birthday I think. But that's tomorrow - this is supposed to be about his week!

He is a busy, busy boy. When does one transition from being called a “toddler” to a “little boy”? I think he might be there. He doesn’t do much toddling…he runs and LOVES to jump and climbs and plays like a boy. He even zones out when playing with his hot wheels and is unaware of anything around him. It’s unreal!

He’s so silly. Are all kids silly? I imagine they are in their own way. I imagine they all just do random weird silly stuff all the time, and I don’t understand how parents aren’t just cracking up all the time. Last night I was cooking and I heard him say “William upside down” then Austin started laughing. I went in the living room and saw William with his head on the floor and his butt sticking up in the air. So naturally, like any normal person would, I turned upside down so that we were looking at each other through our legs. He thought it was the most awesome thing and started asking mommy and daddy to be “upside down”. AH, the things people do for kids. I’m sure any onlookers may have gotten a good kick out of the sight through our window!

He also still likes to talk about “all the buddies” in his bed. One night he wanted to lay in our bed and watch cars after his bath. Usually we go straight to his room for bedtime, but one of his parents was feeling especially nice and cuddly, and it might have been the parent who missed the last year. Not pointing fingers. Anyway, we were hoping we could all lay there calmly and watch cars, then he’d fall asleep at some point. But really all that happened was his excitement grew and he only got more and more hyper. At one point he climbed off our bed, ran into his room, and the next thing I saw was a little bitty boy carrying a pillow pet bigger than himself, a miniature Thomas pillow pet, doggie, dada, and blanket. He threw them all on the bed and yelled “ALLL THE BUDDDDIEESSSS”. We – again – cracked up.

His speech is improving – and I can’t decide if I’m proud or sad. I’m always proud when his vocabulary grows, but I like all of his little pronunciations of words. And we officially have no more “wawee”. We have “wata”. No R at the end, but closer than wawee, and I’m a bit saddened by this. He also pronounces Reagan perfectly, as opposed to rere or reban (the previous 2 names) and his last name has changed from WaWus to Wallis. Yes, sad day.

This morning we made a few phone calls on our way to school. First, Yaya called while I was waking him up so we called her back and he entertained her for a bit. Then we called uncle Brandon for his birthday but he was being shy. When asked to say “hi uncle Brandon” and “happy birthday” and “see ya” he didn’t speak a word. But when I said “can you say anything?” he said “anything”. Ah, the stubbornness. After we talked to Brandon we talked to Papa and he at first got the silent treatment too, then all of a sudden William was talking up a storm. Talking about playing with ice in the water (a game Papa invented where William throws ice into Papa’s pool) and talking about Reagan going to Papa’s house. Then he saw 2 balloons and said “2 balloons. One two three four five six seven eight nine TEN”.

William is getting a little pickier in his eating. I know it is normal for his age, but its pretty frustrating! He used to eat anything and now he is finicky about textures, has preferences at different times…can’t keep up. Last night he was enjoying our gourmet dinner of homemade tostadas and halfway through he said “no tada peanut butter lelly sanich”. I think he’s decided that if he doesn’t want what we’ve made for dinner he should have a pbj sandwich. On occasions when I’m trying to get him to eat something bizarre or that I think he truly may not like, I’m ok with that. But when he has just gobbled up half of his dinner, and I KNOW he loved refried beans and cheese, I don’t think he needs to switch meals. I think this may be a source of tension in the coming months/years…

I’m stunned every day at the words/phrases he picks up on and I’m sure I’m leaving some out. But when you’re raising a baby genius, it’s kind of hard to keep up with all of the updates. I’m so thankful for the beautiful, healthy, happy, smart baby I was given – though with the amount of love I have for him, I’m guessing I’d be equally thankful regardless of his traits. Guess that’s what mommy-hood is all about.


- manda