William Wednesday!

William got strep throat last week so his week was somewhat rough. 10 days ago we took him to the urgent care (it was a Sunday night) because in a matter of 2 hours while we were bowling with Oh Gosh he went from a delightfully happy toddler to a cuddly wuddly uncomfortable baby. For the last 4 frames of our second game he was curled in my lap like an infant. I told Brian, “I think he has strep” and he said “oh is this not normal?” Ahh, while I wish he WERE still cuddly wuddly for more than 10 seconds at a time, no…its not normal. I get a few cuddles here and there but generally he’s way too busy! His initial strep test was negative but because he had a high fever and seemed sick, and because Austin had been diagnosed a few days earlier, they went ahead and gave him amoxicillin. Two days later they called back to say the culture came back positive – no shock. Once he had been on antibiotics for 24 hours he was golden, but that first 24 hours was pretty painful. I’m glad we didn’t wait until Monday morning to see the doctor!

He has been struggling with school drop offs ever since he was sick though, and makes it very hard for us to leave him. The teachers have told me once we’re gone he’s very happy but its hard to leave a baby begging you to stay! He’s never really been like this other than when he changed classrooms, so I suspect the reason is because one of his teachers moved and he has a new one. I think he is resistant to change (hello Karma) and I think he just is uneasy when it isn’t his regular teachers there in the mornings to greet him. Hopefully this isn’t an indicator of how our move to California is going to go! If so, I may just need to visit the vineyards a lot!

Saturday the family group from austin’s unit went to Monkey Bizness and paid everyone’s entry, then last night a friend and I wanted to meet and let William and Isaiah play together so he has gotten to go twice in a few days – lucky duck! He walked in last night like he owned the place and he spent the majority of his time climbing up and sliding down the big inflatable slide. When we were there Saturday he thought he needed our help climbing up, but at one point he got impatient waiting on us and went ahead on his own. Ever since then he has realized he needs us for nothing at Monkey Bizness other than buying him some juice and/or yogurt.

He has become VERY obsessed with songs lately and thinks there’s a song for everything. Have I already shared this? Maybe so. Austin doesn’t entertain the song game as much as I do – he just tells William there aren’t songs for everything. Me? No, I am the sucker who actually belts out lyrics like “I love you Melvin, and I love to drive you, you’re so handsome when you’re clean, oh sweet Melvin…my Melvin…” or lyrics like “red light stop, red light stop, green light go, yellow we don’t know!” I should make an album I think. The tunes all somewhat sound the same, but then again isn’t that true for all musicians anyway?

Last night before we went to play at monkey bizness we went to chick fil a. I swear, it was like one of our days of old – when Austin was gone we ate a looooooot of chick fil a, I’ll say that. At the register the lady asked, “can I have your name?” so I said “Amanda”. William then pointed to me and said “manda”. I said “no, mommy” he giggled and repeated “manda”. So, I giggled and repeated “mommy”. He dropped it momentarily, but when I handed him his food he said “thanks miss manda”. I’m sure I should have ignored it or followed other wise parenting advice, but all I did was laugh. So I’m guessing this “manda” thing isn’t going to die soon.

For the first few weeks after we left the house in Galveston William repeatedly asked to go back. “go back a beach house” “go mr tony’s beach house” “play a beach house”. He finally decided that the beach house was broken and Mr Tony would be fixing it. He still says it sometimes, and he even asked a few days ago AGAIN if we could go back. So, I took the opportunity to ask him “William do you want to go get a new house by a new beach?” “YEAH!” “And do you want a new room in your new house by the beach?” “YEAH!” “Ok William, mommy and daddy will find us a NEW beach house. Really soon I promise” No, we won’t live ON the water, but close enough right? We even looked at new bedroom décor for him last weekend and he got excited about it, but then Austin and I decided that maybe it’d be best if we make his new room seem as much like his old room as possible. He’ll have a lot of changes so maybe we should stick with Mickey for awhile longer. Plus, we’ll be in Mickey’s second home state…we kind of owe it to him don’t we?

I’ll end with a few pictures for ya – some from monkey bizness building “boats” with dada, some from his adorable church outfit and crazy smiles. He’s such a goofball! Have I mentioned he’s the light of my life?



















- manda