Thanksgiving lunch

Yesterday was Will's Thanksgiving Lunch at daycare and parents/grandparents were invited to attend. I was scheduled to meet Grandma at the school shortly before noon so we could watch the kids do some last minute dancy-dancing before lunch.

When I got to the classroom, I was accosted by many tiny people wearing the most adorable Indian hats--complete with feathers--and a beautiful spread of Thanksgiving lunch, complete with all the necessary sides. But Tiny was nowhere to be found. The bathroom door was only open a crack, but I could see his little striped arms going nuts, so I figured he was almost done and I could surprise him when he came out. So I waited.

And waited.

People were starting to sit down to eat, so I finally went to check on him. As I approached the door I could hear sobbing. Opening the door, I immediately saw a pair of poop-streaked and completely saturated underpants. Then I saw a sock and a shoe. Sitting precariously on the toilet seat was the sock mate, preparing to say good-bye cruel world and end it all.

Then I turn to see my sweet little Will, going commando with his pants on backwards and soaking wet but his little Indian headress and feathers completely unscathed, sobbing because he had an accident. Which he blamed on his shoes. I got him calmed down and cleaned up, all while reassuring him I wasn't mad, and he proudly told me his socks didn't get wet.

Thank God for that.

We wound up having a wonderful time: the food was really good, the kids were really funny and Will felt pretty special having both Grandma AND Mom show up.

That's Jenny behind Janice--I have the most awesome picture of Jovie being thuggish but don't want to post it unless I get permission.

Policeman-Fireman-Knight

Knights were sort of the original firemen, what with battling fire-breathing dragons, right?

3-year check up

I took Will to the doctor today where he was quite the little gentlman.  The nurse asked him to step on the scale and, when she accidentally knocked something from the cabinet, he ran to pick it up and said "Here you gooo!". 

Will is 39.5" tall and 37 pounds.  Dr. Daniels picked him up, turned to me and said "He's very dense, isn't he?"  That's exactly how I describe him to people:  dense.  Also?  I know, Doc; trust me, my arms and I know.  To be fair, though, Will outweighs his peers anywhere from 5-13 pounds but doesn't look anything like a tubby.  Well, check out the past couple of posts for recent pictures if you don't believe me.

Also very sweet, Will's started talking to my stomach asking for BrotherSister (due in May).  He likes to invite BrotherSister to play his drums and use his pirate ship and generally being the cutest thing ever.

My son, RuPaul

Jason allowed Will to get himself ready for bed.  FYI:  3 is a very, very fun age.

Guess which gift is our favorite?

I'm hoping this isn't the start of Will's career as a Hot Cop.

Happy Birthday Tiny!

EDIT:  I'm not going back and re-formatting this stuff again.  You're adults:  deal with the wonky layout.
First things first:  I haaaate the new version of Blogger--I had a hard enough time with the old template and now they're throwing all these new things at me. 

Anyway, today was Will's birthday party.  Up until Wednesday of this week, I'd been under the assumption that all the children invited were coming (approx 12):  that's a lot for us, folks.  Due to a series of unfortunate illnesses (hope everyone feels better soon!), our crowd was whittled down to about 5 kids.  Not to sound awful, but I'm really glad not everybody made it today.  Because my great idea to have the party at a park came to a crashing halt when the playground at said park was under construction: 

Mom and I were scrambling to get a hold of all the outside toys we could so the kids weren't completely bored.  Luckily, we got a hold of Daddy and Papa and they pretty much saved the day.  The party was allowed to go on as planned.

Will, Kylie and Jovie had a good time with their pirate hats.  Fitting as today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day (thanks Auntie Bethany and University of Texas Football!).

I adore the little boys in these pics.  Regular visitors to this blog recognize Kylie (cousin) and Jo (rock star); the new kids are the Robinsons, Gracie and Bradley (children to Doug & Larissa, cousins to Jovie).  They had just driven in from Houston and were subjected to their first outside play time since 7am in addition to sugar.

Needless to say, Doug and Larissa loved me.

Thanks to everybody who came--Will had a blast!  We missed everyone who couldn't make it up and hope everyone feels better soon.

Finally, I really, really hate Blogger.

Worth the wait?

Will picked out the outfit himself.

Potty Update

Tomorrow is Will's Big Boy Day at his new school. That's the day where we no longer use pull-ups: everything is underpants. Ms. Dee (his teacher) has told us Will will have accidents; there will be lots of laundry at the end of every day. I'm supposed to bring a crapload of underwear and spare clothes--a second pair of shoes is optional, but a good idea. He will apparently have a Potty Mentor: a little boy from the 4 year-old class that will show him the ropes in the bathroom. Sidenote: none of this is new information. Will knows exactly what to do in a bathroom. We've been keeping him well informed.

Last night Will stayed completely dry for 13 hours. We put him in bed at 8:30, asleep at 9, he wandered into our room somewhere around 7am and we didn't get up until close to 10. That pull-up was as dry as when we first put it on. Also, when I did finally get him to sit on his potty chair, I have never seen (or heard) him produce so much urine.

During the day, if I ask him if he needs to go potty, the answer is always "No!". I've discovered the trick is to race him. Race him into the bathroom, race him to take off our pants, race him to pee first (Will always wins). This has yet to fail me, by the way. He always, always produces during these races.

Today I kept him in underwear after his nap. We went to a playground and shopping for birthday decorations. I remembered to keep a spare set of clothes in the car. We made it home dry and happy (even after drinking a cup of water). I was excited until I remembered that my child has the ability to hold it for thirteen flipping hours. I don't understand how he can ever have accidents at this rate.

Yes, I know it will happen. There will be stumbles and falling off the wagon. I'm just so excited for him. I'm excited for us to no longer have to budget in diapers/pull-ups into our monthly groceries. I feel bad that both sets of grandparents as well as we still have a practically full pack of these pull-ups.

Totally worth it, regardless of how well tomorrow goes.

Saturday

It was God-awful hot today, so The Abs & Pops and I took Will to Baskin Robbins for some ice cream after nap. Short Stack has been dry all day today and I've been super-proud of him. While we were in the "ice cream house", he told me he needed to go potty.

Guess what?

It was an excuse to go into an accoustically-sound room and scream his mother-loving head off. Apparently people standing in line to order were looking at each other wondering what the hell I was doing to my child in the public bathroom. While Will was running around the bathroom enjoying the sound of his own voice (very much his father's son), he literally ran into the sink. You'd think the thing was made of rubber with the way Will bounced off of it.

Easily the funniest part of my day. Not so much for Will, who's now sporting the makings of a black eye.

Wipeout: Thanks Rob

I got home from work a little late tonight and Jason was a busy little rock star and had dinner ready for us and Will had already eaten. We settled in as a family to watch a little Wipeout (recommended by Unca Rob) and... well, Will's already started his daredevil-ness:

Yes, he did jump off the recliner. Repeatedly.

And yes, Jason did recline the recliner and make Will fall. And we did laugh.

Moving right along...

This might possibly be my favorite picture ever.

Happy Birthday Papa!

Will wanted to build you a train. Of trucks.

Few more touches....

Done!
See you in a few!

This goes beyond polite

Today we went over to visit the Greats: it was just us and them, which we so rarely get the opportunity to do so it was...well, great. Will misses them like crazy and doesn't get the one-on-one time like he used to. Plus, they're really cool. I love listening to Dora talk about her past and how she grew up; and Willie throws out some of the best one-liners. For example: "Our washing machine caught fire the other day; why do you think that could have happened?" Willie's answer: "Something's wrong with it".

Anyway, while we were there, Will got to watch a Backyardigans episode where the tiny animals pretend to be knights on a mission to deliver a (very important) message. They deliver it to a king who then presents them with some big honor. The penguin, moose and 'girl whose species is as unique as her name [Uniqua]' then bow to the king kangaroo and they all go have a snack together.

As we're leaving and saying good-bye to the Greats, I ask Will to tell Grandma thank you for dinner. Will places one foot forward w/ knee slightly bent, one arm behind his back and bows at the waist while saying "Thank you for dinner, Grandma".

I was pretty psyched when Will started saying please and thank you with regularity, but bowing? Is awesome. I want to teach him to say Your Grace as well.

Potty Training II: Pee Harder

He did it AGAIN!

I got home from work today and Will ran up to me, gave me a hug, a kiss and asked to go to the bathroom. Just what every parent wants. And then Jason said Will peed twice today at school. You know, on the potty chairs there; if it had just been in his diaper, it wouldn't be worth mentioning here.

I really haven't worried about the potty training too much up to this point. I figured that no child ever goes to college while still wearing diapers and that Will would let me know when he was ready. I'm not going into this with blinders on: we're still a long way away from big boy pants, but I'm just so damn proud of this kid. Seeing his little face light up when he's sitting on that tiny little toilet and he tells me it's coming is like no other feeling in the world.

I love being Will's mommy.

Another note: he learned to peddle his tricycle today. Eee!

SUCCESS!

Since I don't want to be featured on STFU, Parents I'm posting this here rather than on Facebook.

Will peed in the toilet today. Three times. After taking a bath.

I know several adults who still pee in the shower.

Uptown Park

It's been God-awful hot this weekend (well into the 100's) so we cooled off at a make-shift splash park up in Cedar Hill.

Will demonstrating his modeling pose:

I can't take pictures worth a crap, so any good ones are courtesy of Jason.

Wait, that's not true. I took this shot in hopes of showing Will sitting on one of these fountains to give himself a baby enema; I got this instead:

Paint the fence, indeed.

A day in the life...

I started my day bright and early by listening to Will yell "MAMA!" Beat. "MAMAAAAAAA!" As I'm walking to his room (without my glasses) I glance briefly at the clock and see that it's 7:15--perfect as we're supposed to be at Jason's grandparents in an hour for a wonderful breakfast spread. I change the diaper and we walk into the kitchen to get him a snack and realize I should put my glasses on in the morning: it's 6:30. Waaaaay too early. So I do what I swear I'd never do and pull up an episode of Will's favorite show and go back to bed for a blissful 30 minutes.

Eventually we're all up and ready to go and have a wonderful morning w/ Jason's grandparents, Dunbar's and Cousin Dustin and his girlfriend. Good breakfast, stress-free morning.

We meet up with Rebecca and Courtney Dark for a lunch break on their drive to New Jersey. The illustrious Cracker Barrel was about all that was available in the area we were meeting, and Courtney proceeded to confuse our waitress with strange lunch requests: things like "Water for me, please" and "Can I get this salad without the chicken?" and finally, "No, I don't need a to-go box". Seriously, Courtney, can you reign it in a bit? Always a good time with the Darks.

After nap (for Will and me, since we'd been up so early) I decided to take Tiny swimming. Our child is a rock star in the pool: he has no fear. He dives right in, holds his breath and opens his eyes underwater and looks for Jason. Will's got a pretty mean dog paddle right now and loves when Jason throws him across the pool. I, of course, wanted to get in on this action but revert immediately to baby playing, where I hold him and bounce up and down in the water.

My thanks for this?

Will blows chunks in the (crowded) neighborhood pool. We were towards the edge of the pool but instead of lifting him out and letting him finish up on the concrete where it could have easily been washed away, I hold him tighter to me (I guess to squeeze out any more of the vomit, as though Will was some sort of vomit-sponge) and try to catch it in my open hand.

Note to self: don't do that anymore.

I get Will out of the pool and over to the showers and try to rinse us both off as best I can. That's when Jason comes up and takes over and severely stresses that I go into the ladies room and take off my swim top and rinse it out in the sink. That was quite possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever done. The vomit had indeed gone down my top and collected in the elastic waistband underneath the bra cups. Just when I thought I'd gotten it all, I'd find more gathered in the shoulder straps and clasps. How the hell did it get behind me?!

When I felt comfortable enough to go back out I was surprised to find people still in the pool. Apparently nobody noticed my tiny little fish discharging a days' worth of food out of his nose and mouth into my bathing suit. I didn't feel comfortable getting back in before I managed to completely disinfect the suit, so I sat in a lounge chair in the sun until I realized just how ripe I smelled. I hoofed it back home to make dinner and wait for my boys to join me.

When they did, Will went immediately into the tub and felt much better.

There's a Flashdance joke in here somewhere but I'll leave that for you to make.

March 14, 2009

So yesterday was a bit of an exciting day.

I had gotten word on Friday night that Will's first soccer practice will be Monday evening at 6pm (first game is Saturday, March 28th). His coach mentioned that shin guards are required for all games, so yesterday morning we ventured into the world of sporting equipment and bought the boy some guards. I was worried that he'd hate wearing them, but apparently Will's got no issues.

Yesterday was also my SIL's birthday. As a joint birthday gift for herself and daughter, she purchased a bounce house. Yes, she did:

She swears it's the best $400 (!) she ever spent. The initial purchase was intended for Kylie's birthday party so all attendant kids could be in there at once. Still not sure how that's going to work out: the weight limit on it is supposedly 75 lbs, which means Will and Kylie combined just make it.

The two of them did have a blast and I'm thrilled that I don't have to shell out the money for it. Will was exhausted by the end of the evening, but he still had time for some ham:

Yes, that is his motorcycle and yes, it is on my furniture.

Like I mentioned, by the end of the night Will was pooped and ready to drop anywhere:
Also, this afternoon I got word that my new Varsity Cheerleader and soon-to-be-16-year-old niece, Alexis, and her daddy might make it up for a visit at some point this week. As Six Flags will undoubtedly be on the agenda, we'll have to remind Matt not to bring his keys.

You take the good, you take the bad...

You take them both and there you have The Facts of Life.

So today was fun.

Started out with a trip to the Ft. Worth Zoo with our friends the Harpers. We did the primate house fairly early on because I wanted to see how the other gorillas were reacting to their fallen comrade (answer to that being not well). We swung over to see the chimps where Jenny and I had ourselves giggling with our running commentary while watching a big chimp (who we were calling Mama Chimp) trying to discipline the smaller chimp (Junior). Mama was chasing Junior all around their area and we figured he was in trouble for hiding the bananas and bratty chimp sister must have told on him again; Mama kept seemingly reprimanding Junior and actually pointing at him to come down from his tree branch to where she was. Junior of course did—because how do you argue with an angry Mama Chimp?—and we assumed he would go directly into timeout.

That’s when Jenny and I realized we had the sexes backwards. And I hope to God that it really wasn’t any kind of familial relationship at all because Big Chimp slammed Little Chimp into the ground and started having literal hot monkey sex right there. In front of the big window where we were standing. With our children. Jovie, in her sweetest little 3 year old voice, turns to Jenny and asks why the big one was hurting the little one.

We finally began to wonder if we were attending the zoo during mating season. We have seen with our own eyes that female zebras are kept very happy physically (Jenny noted that since zebras have a black member they must actually be black with white stripes, thereby ending that age-old debate) and elephants have penises that are bigger than Will. We got to see four lion cubs feeding at their mother (Jovie: “Mommy, that’s how Julia’s going to eat”) and several kudus going at it. When we made it to the penguin exhibit I figured finally we would see some nice, wholesome penguin frolicking, but they just kept shitting in front of us.

Circle of life, indeed.

Here we go

We've been tossing the idea back and forth for a while now: moving Will to a Big Boy Bed. I've wanted to hold off for as long as possible in an effort to maintain that one last shred of infancy (bottles are gone, as are the jokes about his lack of teeth); also because I kind of liked having him caged and not able to get out of bed once we stuck him in there. Kind of my own sort of security blanket.

We were able to postpone the inevitable for a while for several reasons, number one of which is Will never attempted to get out of his crib on his own. Surprising, I know, given his penchance for running away. The second of which is we didn't (think we) have access to a nice twin size mattress--we didn't want to buy one because the crib we bought way back when converts to a nice full size bed and I didn't want to have buy a twin now and then a full size later and then be stuck with a twin mattress that I would then have nothing to do with. (Damn, that's a LONG sentence). Because, if you've ever been to my house, you'd understand that the last thing we need is more large furniture.

Anyway, my MIL swept in and saved the day as she often does and volunteered a mattress my sister used to have. So Jason carted it home with him after Grampa Day today and we put it together during the evening. I've gotta say Will's room has never looked better. It's so clean. I mean I washed baseboards.

So finally, we started bedtime ritual as normal. Took a bath, drank some milk, crawled onto the countertops to steal M&Ms from the bowl I keep up there for rewards (NOTE: that's been changed) and whacked the ping pong ball around the kitchen a while.

7:50 Reading with Daddy

8:05 Reading with Mommy (please notice it's after 7pm so I become Mommy)

8:20 Mommy puts Will in bed. Will stands up and cries. We sing ABCs one more time with him doing his little sit-dancing in my arms.

8:25 Mommy puts Will back in bed while he cries and whines for blanket on. I'm really not sure what he means when he says this as he's completely covered from literal head to toe. Continuously rub his back to try to get him to sleep.

8:30 Try to leave with Will yelling at me to put his damn blanket on.

8:40 Glorious Daddy goes in to get him calm.

8:45 Glorious Daddy walks back out after having successfully gotten the crown prince to sleep.

So in summation, while Will has shunned Glorious Daddy all week long, he apparently loves him enough to feel comfortable and loved in return to drift off into sleepyland. Or GD bored him.

Now it's 9:20pm and we've yet to hear a peep. Wish us luck.