As of this morning, William now weighs 24.6lbs, has a head circumference of 19" and is 34.5" tall.
To begin with, this has just been an awful, awful month. At the very end of February, William caught his first case of croup, and was as ill as I have ever seen him. For a week straight he had fevers, trouble breathing, refused to eat and cried pathetically constantly. My heart wept for the poor little guy. We barely got him to drink. It was extremely stressful and I worried about him every time I laid him down to sleep. Then I caught the illness, and Michael right after me. We were both taken down like tranquilized rhinos and just absolutely suffered for a week straight. At this point we had been dealing with illness for two weeks. Finally at the end of the second week, we were both starting to feel like we were on the mend (Will recovered very quickly compared to the two of us). We made a few trips out of the house, after being cooped up like invalid hermits for so long, and wouldn't you know it, Will caught another bug. Fortunately this wasn't quite as bad. Just your run of the mill cold. So he coughed and sneezed a lot and seemed out of sorts temperamentally. Then of course, I caught it too. Before having kids I swore I would be a hand washing nazi, and would never pick up their germs. Umm, yeah right! Getting sick again for me was as much of a blow mentally as it was physically. My immune system was already battered and my recovery seemed to take ages. In fact, as I write this, I STILL have a lingering cough and am not sleeping well (though part of this is from pregnancy alone). It has been 35 days since the first illness. I am sick of being sick! All of this is to say that I didn't have time to do as much reflection on the joys of motherhood as I normally do. I was sick and irritated much of the time and so was poor William. Hopefully now that spring is here, we can have a nice run of good health and get back to the business of growing and enjoying life!
In the last couple of weeks, William has decidedly become right handed. For the longest time he was completely ambidextrous, but recently had started to do more with the right. But then all of a sudden he just completely switched and is now predominantly right handed. Not too surprising since most of the population is, and Michael and I are both righties, but its still neat to see that finally develop. Now if only he would learn to use utensils!
Another fun trick is Will bugging me a million times a day, by leading me to the counter tops and pointing while saying, 'see! see!' He wants me to lift him up so that he can see whats up there and grab stuff that he isn't supposed to! He has also become an even more adept climber of late (taking after the old man it seems) and I've found him perched on top of chairs that were previously beyond his reach, and he was even sitting on the kitchen table the other day! Yikes! Its only a matter of time before he realizes that he can push the chairs to wherever he'd like to go, and then use them as step stools to facilitate mischief on a more massive scale.
Sadly, the charming period of Will being super cooperative and obedient, has ended I'm afraid. He hasn't stopped listening completely, but now his general first response when I tell him "no," is to throw himself violently on the ground and have a little tantrum, instead of simply stopping whatever he was doing and going elsewhere. Each of these tantrums end with me wiping his nose and eyes, and giving him a reassuring hug, meanwhile my ears are still bleeding and now we are 10 minutes late to our next outing. Some days are worse than others. Yesterday for example, he had one of these tantrums, every 15 minutes, all day long! The WORST is when you tell him 'no' when he happens to have food in his hand or in his mouth. If its in his hand, it is instantly thrown onto the floor. Even if I am holding my hand out and telling him to give it to me. If it is in his mouth, he removes all the masticated bits, and then chucks that to the floor. I can handle toy throwing, but food throwing, especially food that has been chewed, just drives me crazy. After trying several different methods to try and prevent him from doing this, I finally decided that we were going to try time outs.
We completed our very first time out, successfully a week ago in fact. Will had
been terribly out of control all day. I knew he had been sick, so I
had been giving him a lot of leeway. But that night he began throwing food
violently on the floor. Usually when he does that, its because he is
upset about something. I can then usually gently remind him that we don't
throw food, and he will stop. This time however (and it was like that
all day), he looked at me when I told him to stop, and then continued
throwing it like a mad man. So I decided with some trepidation, that it
was time to try a time out since he wasn't listening to anything else.
Amazingly enough, he did sit in the corner without trying to escape
(mostly), and did seem to get the lesson pretty quick. He didn't throw
food the rest of the night. I am hoping we don't have to do that too
often, but its good to know that if he is starting to get out of
control, it can be an effective tactic. Since then I have only done it two other times. I am trying to reserve it for only especially egregious behavior.
After all of that illness, his sleeping skills have taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Before this month, he would sleep until 8 or 9am, go down for his nap at 1pm, sleep until 4pm and then go to bed without a peep, between 7:30 and 8pm. Now suddenly its like he doesn't need as much sleep or something. Now he is up closer to 7am, will only sleep from 1pm until 3 if I am lucky, but many days only until 2:30. Its killing me to not get as long of a break during the day. Bed time has become a fiasco as well. He now will scream and fuss for an hour or more, requiring me to go in there and rock him several times between 7 and 10pm. I think we will have to revisit sleep training once I am sure that he is completely over his illness. Every time I think I am done with sleep training, we have to go back and do it again. And it never gets any easier.
All in all this month has brought with it some challenges. All of our illness certainly didn't help. William is more and more becoming his own little person with his own ideas. I try to facilitate his learning without him getting hurt and destroying the house, as much as I can. His energy is boundless most days and I struggle to keep up with him in my current state. I am looking forward to when the weather starts to get nicer and we can spend more time outdoors! His current favorite activity is walking up our long, steep driveway with me to get the mail. We need more outdoor exercise like that to tire this little tyke out!
To begin with, this has just been an awful, awful month. At the very end of February, William caught his first case of croup, and was as ill as I have ever seen him. For a week straight he had fevers, trouble breathing, refused to eat and cried pathetically constantly. My heart wept for the poor little guy. We barely got him to drink. It was extremely stressful and I worried about him every time I laid him down to sleep. Then I caught the illness, and Michael right after me. We were both taken down like tranquilized rhinos and just absolutely suffered for a week straight. At this point we had been dealing with illness for two weeks. Finally at the end of the second week, we were both starting to feel like we were on the mend (Will recovered very quickly compared to the two of us). We made a few trips out of the house, after being cooped up like invalid hermits for so long, and wouldn't you know it, Will caught another bug. Fortunately this wasn't quite as bad. Just your run of the mill cold. So he coughed and sneezed a lot and seemed out of sorts temperamentally. Then of course, I caught it too. Before having kids I swore I would be a hand washing nazi, and would never pick up their germs. Umm, yeah right! Getting sick again for me was as much of a blow mentally as it was physically. My immune system was already battered and my recovery seemed to take ages. In fact, as I write this, I STILL have a lingering cough and am not sleeping well (though part of this is from pregnancy alone). It has been 35 days since the first illness. I am sick of being sick! All of this is to say that I didn't have time to do as much reflection on the joys of motherhood as I normally do. I was sick and irritated much of the time and so was poor William. Hopefully now that spring is here, we can have a nice run of good health and get back to the business of growing and enjoying life! In the last couple of weeks, William has decidedly become right handed. For the longest time he was completely ambidextrous, but recently had started to do more with the right. But then all of a sudden he just completely switched and is now predominantly right handed. Not too surprising since most of the population is, and Michael and I are both righties, but its still neat to see that finally develop. Now if only he would learn to use utensils!
Another fun trick is Will bugging me a million times a day, by leading me to the counter tops and pointing while saying, 'see! see!' He wants me to lift him up so that he can see whats up there and grab stuff that he isn't supposed to! He has also become an even more adept climber of late (taking after the old man it seems) and I've found him perched on top of chairs that were previously beyond his reach, and he was even sitting on the kitchen table the other day! Yikes! Its only a matter of time before he realizes that he can push the chairs to wherever he'd like to go, and then use them as step stools to facilitate mischief on a more massive scale.
Sadly, the charming period of Will being super cooperative and obedient, has ended I'm afraid. He hasn't stopped listening completely, but now his general first response when I tell him "no," is to throw himself violently on the ground and have a little tantrum, instead of simply stopping whatever he was doing and going elsewhere. Each of these tantrums end with me wiping his nose and eyes, and giving him a reassuring hug, meanwhile my ears are still bleeding and now we are 10 minutes late to our next outing. Some days are worse than others. Yesterday for example, he had one of these tantrums, every 15 minutes, all day long! The WORST is when you tell him 'no' when he happens to have food in his hand or in his mouth. If its in his hand, it is instantly thrown onto the floor. Even if I am holding my hand out and telling him to give it to me. If it is in his mouth, he removes all the masticated bits, and then chucks that to the floor. I can handle toy throwing, but food throwing, especially food that has been chewed, just drives me crazy. After trying several different methods to try and prevent him from doing this, I finally decided that we were going to try time outs. We completed our very first time out, successfully a week ago in fact. Will had
been terribly out of control all day. I knew he had been sick, so I
had been giving him a lot of leeway. But that night he began throwing food
violently on the floor. Usually when he does that, its because he is
upset about something. I can then usually gently remind him that we don't
throw food, and he will stop. This time however (and it was like that
all day), he looked at me when I told him to stop, and then continued
throwing it like a mad man. So I decided with some trepidation, that it
was time to try a time out since he wasn't listening to anything else.
Amazingly enough, he did sit in the corner without trying to escape
(mostly), and did seem to get the lesson pretty quick. He didn't throw
food the rest of the night. I am hoping we don't have to do that too
often, but its good to know that if he is starting to get out of
control, it can be an effective tactic. Since then I have only done it two other times. I am trying to reserve it for only especially egregious behavior. After all of that illness, his sleeping skills have taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Before this month, he would sleep until 8 or 9am, go down for his nap at 1pm, sleep until 4pm and then go to bed without a peep, between 7:30 and 8pm. Now suddenly its like he doesn't need as much sleep or something. Now he is up closer to 7am, will only sleep from 1pm until 3 if I am lucky, but many days only until 2:30. Its killing me to not get as long of a break during the day. Bed time has become a fiasco as well. He now will scream and fuss for an hour or more, requiring me to go in there and rock him several times between 7 and 10pm. I think we will have to revisit sleep training once I am sure that he is completely over his illness. Every time I think I am done with sleep training, we have to go back and do it again. And it never gets any easier.
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