William at 23 Months

As of this morning, William now weighs 25.5 lbs, has a head circumference of 19 1/8" and is 35 1/4" tall.   

William is learning new words every day, and is starting to be able to repeat some words that we tell him. For example, if I say "sure!" he will repeat me enthusiastically. He also says, "sure!" if we ask him if he wants to go somewhere or do something. Its pretty cute. He has also learned the word, "car" and points them out everywhere we go. He loves to throw stuff in the trash and will eagerly exclaim, "trash!" as he is running to throw things away. Tonight he requested milk by shouting, "uck! uck!" and pointing at the refrigerator. More and more his gibber jabber is starting to sound like actual words and phrases. I cant wait until it is all a bit more clear! Ultimately he is still not talking a ton and even though he has said many words and phrases, he just does not use them on a daily basis. Soon though I hope!


About 3 weeks ago, I bought him his very first potty. He is very interested in sitting on his little potty and runs and does it every time I go to the bathroom now (which I find very cute). My goal is to just encourage his interest in the potty, without forcing anything. I am hoping with time he will start to understand what exactly he is supposed to do on the potty, and more importantly, want to do it. I have a loose goal of having him at least understand what he needs to do on the potty by next summer, even if he is not fully potty trained by then. We are in no rush. Frankly diapers are a lot more convenient and less messy in many cases so taking this whole process slowly is fine by me.

He is starting to get better at learning and following the rules of the house, without any reminders. For example, today we went to the park and it had been raining, so he had his boots on. When we got home, I really had to pee, so I rushed to the bathroom and allowed Will to enter the front door on his own. When I came out of the bathroom, he had not only taken his boots off by the front door, but he had picked up my shoes and placed them on the shoe rack. I was amazed! What a smart little guy!

He is starting to enjoy showing off, and will run and come get you, to show you something he did that he is proud of (for example, a tower that he built). I love how he will grab my hand, drag me over and point excitedly at his work of art! He also loves to show off his toys to anyone who comes over. He will hand people all kinds of things with an extremely proud look on his face. Its adorable!

He can also be mischievous and destructive at times, just like any other toddler. A few nights ago, Will was playing quietly in the play room and I sat down at my computer for about 5 minutes. Just as I was starting to wonder what he was up to in there, he comes walking in with a giant armful of toilet paper. He had unraveled an entire roll, collected it up, and presented it to me like a gift. He had such a look of innocence and beneficence on his face, I couldn't be mad at all. I tried to hide my laughter and proceeded to roll it back up and remind Michael that we need to keep the bathroom door closed from now on!

Another negative development this month, is a new-found propensity for rage. When he is tired, or hungry, or just doesn't get his way, instead of just flopping to the ground and having a tantrum, now he will often start by screaming, throwing food or anything he can get his hands on, or hitting objects or people (especially the person who has set the limit). I try to dissuade him from hitting or throwing by physically preventing him from doing these things, while keeping my voice calm and neutral (not always easy to do!). I am pretty sure this is just a stage, and likely is directly related to the fact that he still does not have the best language skills, and this often frustrates him. I hope that this frustration spurs him to learn to speak better, and this phase can pass quickly! It is not the most fun stage I have yet encountered. Though as we get closer to 3, I imagine this kind of behavior is going to be more common for a while. The joys of parenting!

On the positive side, naps and night time have FINALLY returned to normal. He sleeps at night from 8pm to 8-9am (with maybe one night waking per week or less), and during the day from 1-4pm. I hope we can keep this schedule up when his sister arrives. I know I will likely need that nap period to get some rest myself (assuming I can get the baby to sleep for a little bit then as well).

And finally, one of the biggest transitions this month happened when we removed all of our office furniture out of the 3rd bedroom, and set up a new dresser and crib in there for William. I decorated the room in a nautical theme and the plan was to wait until the baby was born before transitioning Will into his new room. However, that first night when we told him it was bed time, instead of running into his old room, he ran straight into the new room with no prompting, and starting motioning to get into the new crib. We were surprised and thought, "what the hell? Lets do it now!" So that night we did the usual bed time routine in his new room. I did have to go in an comfort him once, but he slept fine the rest of the night. Hes been in there ever since and there have never been any problems. I was fearing this transition to be a rough one so I was so glad that it was so easy! Also it was probably for the best that we did it before the baby came. That way there is less chance that Will might feel like he was being pushed out of his old room by the new baby. So everything worked out great in the end!

We are in for some big changes next month, as Will's little sister is due to arrive any day now. My goal in keeping this blog was to document all of our lives, but to especially focus on our children's lives for the first two years, as that is a period of so much change and development. Now that Will is going to be two next month, I plan on focusing less on every single change that is going on with him each month, and looking more at the bigger picture as he grows and changes. I will continue to do the monthly updates for the new baby, and will undoubtedly include anecdotes about Will as well. I just imagine that it will be too much work to keep track of every new thing for both kids. So the focus will change to the new baby a bit more for a little while, while not totally excluding Will. We welcome your positive thoughts and prayers as we prepare to embark on our next great challenge in adding a new family member!