William at 32 Months

As of this morning, William now weighs 29 lbs, has a head circumference of 19 3/4" and is 37.2" tall.  

He can now open any round door knob, especially all the ones around the house. So far he hasn't tried to escape or do anything naughty, but I feel like its only a matter of time. My friends with toddlers report that most of the baby proofing things they have for door knobs, do not work very well, so we will have to hope that he continues to be a good boy. The other day it was raining and he spent the entire morning going up and down the hallway, opening and closing each and every door. He had never seen the inside of the furnace closet or the linen closet so those were of particular interest to him. I bet he will enjoy doing that at the new house as well!

William has also recently learned how to not only open the house doors, but car doors as well. In fact, he can select the correct key from my key chain and stick it in the lock. Its only a matter of time before he makes a getaway! In fact, he is quite the little independent guy these days which makes getting two kids ready and out the door SO much easier. He can put his own boots on, open the front door, and close it behind him. Then he can open the passenger door to where his car seat is, and climb into it himself. The only thing I have to do is strap him in. I need to teach him to do that himself next! ;)

One area of particular focus this month, was learning to correct his words that were previously said wrong or pronounced wrong. So instead of "a-self!" he will say, "Will do it by myself!" He still doesn't have his possessive pronouns down yet though. When I say, "do you want me to tickle you?" He will respond, "yes! Tickle you!" It cracks me up. But other words like "mel-mo" are now correctly pronounced "oatmeal" and "track-a-dator" is now more often than not, "excavator." So he is sounding more and more like a regular kid in the language department. He is a chatterbox too. From the moment he wakes up until the moment he goes to sleep, the kid is an endless stream of words. If he has a question or request, and I dont respond immediately, he will just keep repeating what he said, endlessly, until I respond. Once I purposely didn't respond, just to see how long he could keep going, and the repetition lasted for five minutes before I got sick of it and finally responded. He is like a dog with a bone! Persistent until he gets his answer! I just love hearing his cute little voice though (most times). When I go to stores I can see strangers smiling when they hear his little voice talking to me. When we go visit the new house, he says, "guys working mom?" And I say, thats right!" And I can see the workers smiling at him. He is just so cute right now (I know I say that every month though haha!).

Some other cute things he has been saying lately include calling a measuring tape, "measure-taper." I had wondered to myslef, at what age he would start making up names for things. So far he tends to only call things what they are. Like a stuffed teddy bear is called 'teddy.' No nickname or anything. But for the first time he made up a name for one of his stuffed dogs. He calls it "sophie-dog," after one of his favorite stories.  He's also taken to calling things or people 'cute.' Hes called his cousin Clara ("Cwara") and Nora ("Nowa") 'cute.' Yesterday he told me that "Nowa eyes cute!" That just about melted my heart!

One interesting thing is that he is starting to pay more attention to relationships, and what the names of those relationships are called. Right now for example he thinks that any older person is 'grandma' or 'grandpa.' Our builder has grey hair and even though hes not that old, Will calls him "grandpa John." I've had to tell him that John isn't grandpa, he is just helping us to build our house. So now Will says, 'grandpa John builds our house!" I find that hilarious and so does our builder so I can't quite bring myself to correct him again.

Its clear that Will's little brain is just making huge leaps right now. He has a memory like a steel trap, and never lets me forget anything, particularly when it involves him getting a treat, or going somewhere fun. I will tell him that we will go to a park after nap time. And 3 hours later, I go into his room to wake him up, and he bolts straight up and says, "park after nap??" He also is good at remembering songs, book titles, lines from his books, lists of things, places we've gone and things we've said. I definitely can NOT say anything off hand anymore and hope that he will forget it! Suddenly he really wants to be a helpful guy lately too, and goes out of his way to help me around the house. Without asking, he will help put away toys, fetch things for Nora, cleans up his dishes, etc. He is in this phase where he wants to toe the line as much as possible and is just heartbroken when he breaks a rule. I am trying to enjoy this time because everyone tells me that by age 3, they can't WAIT to break all the rules. LOL. 


He has been extra clingy lately, maybe because Michael has been working so much lately (its busy Medicare season again). But anytime I go anywhere, even for a very short time, the minute he spots me returning, he yells 'mom' and runs to give me a big hug. Its pretty cute. This medicare season has proven more difficult than any other year, as a result of Will's increased awareness. Michael's absence is really hard on Will and for the first few weeks, he suffered quite a bit of anxiety. I've been trying to help him name his feelings and we've been talking a lot about how daddy is at work and will be back 'soon.' He tells me that he "misses daddy" all the time, and some times he requires a phone call to daddy at work, before he can fall asleep at nap time. Its very sweet and especially heartbreaking all at the same time.

A funny thing happened a couple of weeks ago. I got Will up for the day and I told him that we were going to go to Lowe's that morning (he calls in "nose" because he can't say his 'Ls'). I needed to get some paint and a few other things, and when I told him we were going he got so excited. His special request was that when we went, I take him to go see the drills and the refrigerators. The drills didn't surprise me. He is obsessed with power tools of all kinds. The refrigerator request had me a little baffled though. Number one, I didn't even know he knew how to say that word, let alone as clearly as he did, and number two, I had no clue why he would want to visit something so boring. So once we got there we spent a good 30 minutes browsing the refrigerator section, opening and closing doors and drawers, and turning knobs. He loved it! A heck of a lot more than the drill section too! Funny little guy.

Will has been getting up a lot at night for various reasons, but one night last week took the cake. He started loudly crying at 3am and I went in there and he said, "cow!" And I said, "what?" And again he said, "cow!" So I said, "why dont you lie down and I'll tuck you in?" And he laid down and went right back to sleep. That was one of the stranger night time incidents we've had. In general though he has just been getting up a lot lately at night, for various reasons: he can't find his water cup because he is sitting on it, he wants to be tucked in, he needs a tissue, hes hot or too cold, etc. After he was up 8 times one night I had to start having serious talks with him about how he shouldn't wake up in the night and cry because it makes mommy really tired. He has really taken those conversations to heart and talks about it all the time. Since we've had those talks, he gets up far fewer times now and when he does he asks me in a worried tone if I am tired, but he also goes back to sleep a lot quicker. The last thing I need is both kids keeping me up all night!



This has been a fun month. More and more he is becoming this intelligent, caring, curious little man. He is just the sweetest guy, nice to everyone, even his little sister! I am so proud of the boy that he is and feel so blessed to have him as part of our family!