Will at 34 Months

He is talking better and better every day. His words are very clear and its just so much fun to see his personality come out in verbal form. He like to refer to himself in 3rd person a lot. He tells me that he will or did, put "food in Will's mouth!" Or he tells me that he wants "Will a do it myself!"His favorite thing is to tell me all the places he is going to put his boogers (me, Nora, a fire truck, a dump truck, a tree, etc.) and each time I tell him, "Nawww! Boogers only go on tissues!" while he giggles madly. Also, any time we are outside taking a walk, he will pick wild flowers and hand them to me saying, "flower for you mom!" It makes my heart melt! He suddenly likes to sing as well, and has all sorts of song lyrics memorized. Unfortunately he inherited his dad's pitch deafness and when he sings, it just sort of sounds like hes speaking in rhythm. It cracks me up. Its still adorable to hear him try though!

 Lately, everything is a negotiation with him. If you say that he will get x amount of something, he will try and talk you up to the next highest number. Like we've told him that if he goes pee on the potty, he can have 3 jelly beans. His immediate response is "four jellybeans!" If I tell him that he can watch cartoons for 5 more minutes, he says, "ten minutes!" He drives a hard bargain but luckily I am one tough cookie and usually stand my ground ;)

He continues to be motivated to learn about letters and numbers. He can now tell you what sound each of the letters in the alphabet makes, as well as give examples of words that start with those letters. He can also count to 30 and can do basic addition. It just amazes me that all of that was self-motivated learning. He is truly just interested in those subjects and gets really excited every time we read a book or watch a show that talks about spelling or math. I sure hope he takes after his dad in the math department!


He is starting to become more interested in potty training. Every morning I ask him if he wants to sit on the potty and try to go pee pee, and most days he does. If I remember, I have him go one or two times during the day, just for practice. We have tried different forms of motivation (praise, talking it up, reading books, watching phone videos, and finally jelly beans). I was initially really against using food as a motivation tool, especially candy, but he absolutely refused to even try to sit on the potty until I offered him jelly beans, and now he will not only sit, but go too! So I am at the point of using whatever works. Mind you, we are not going full tilt into potty training until this winter (I want to wait until we are settled into the new house first), but right now I am just trying to get him used to the idea. Hes getting better too. He is coming to tell us he has to pee or poop more often, even if it doesn't happen in the potty, and he always tells us after the fact if hes pooped. Its clear he now finds sitting in it uncomfortable and wants to be changed immediately. So those are promising signs. To be honest I am SO not ready for potty training to happen yet. I think Will might be ready before I am. Diapers are just way too easy and things like long car trips and worry free day outings will be a thing of the past for a long time after he out of diapers. I know it has to happen some time . . . but I am content to wait until this winter or maybe even next spring depending on how ready Will is to be out of diapers. For now I am pretty much letting him guide the whole process with some encouragement from us from time to time.

William is SUCH a picky eater. His main foil with food comes from his far too close inspection of it. Even with foods he likes, he will inspect each and every bite, and find most of them wanting and unworthy of eating. So the other we were having pizza and he was refusing to take any bites. So I told him to close his eyes and open his mouth for a bite. And he ate it! And he found that game so amusing that he asked me to do it for every bite and he (for the first time in 6 months), actually cleared his whole plate of food! I was SHOCKED that that worked. It worked again the next day too but hasn't again. Since that time though, hes been slightly more willing to try new foods and tends to like most of them. I feel like the biggest hurdle is getting food into his mouth to begin with. Once its in there he likes way more things than he think hes going to!


On the picky eating theme, another thing we've always repeatedly told him, is a line from his favorite cartoon, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, "you've got to try new foods 'cause they might taste good!" Usually we tell him this and he crinkles up his nose in disgust and declines to try any such new food. Lately however, hes been trotting out this well-worn phrase whenever he finds a 'new food' that he actually WANTS to eat. For example, at dinner the other night we told him he should try new foods (baked red potatoes) and he refused, but later when I was making brownies, he came running over, and told me he was ready to 'try new foods in Will's mouth!' Because as we all know, brownies are exactly the kind of food I want him to try ;)

One of the funniest things about him right now, is that he still loves to sniff the feet of his fleece pajamas for comfort. The following is a daily interaction we have each morning: I go into his room to get him up for the day, and he is curled into a ball in the corner of his crib, sniffing his pj feet. I ask him if he wants to get up and he asks me if he can bring his pjs with him (I used to let him, but then he'd drop them on the floor as soon as he was in the living room, and I'd trip over two pairs of pjs on the floor all day, so now I restrict the pjs to either his crib or bedroom), and I tell him that he needs to leave them in his crib. He says, "one more sniff!" and deeply inhales each of the 4 feet from the two sets of pjs. Then, fortified for the day, he has me lift him out of his crib and we start the morning routine. The whole thing is pretty weird, but also cute and unique and such a kid thing to do.

As he is getting closer to 3, he is becoming more and more of a handful. I can't leave him alone for very long before he is climbing something he shouldn't, or getting into something he shouldn't, or breaking things. He doesn't mean to be bad, hes just curious and full of energy and needs outlets for that energy. He still gets absolutely brokenhearted when he learns that he's broken a rule or that "mommy's mad!" I try to always keep a gentle tone of voice with him and to not to let his natural, little boy behavior, frustrate me too much. Its been hard though, especially with the moving process right now. I haven't been sleeping well and with the extra stress of the house not being finished, and constantly having to run over there to make decisions or make sure things are done correctly, its just a lot all at once and Ive had a harder time not getting frustrated with him. Still though, I know this stuff is all normal and I know he isn't trying to irritate me and I am in turn, trying my best to not let my frustration get the better of me. Each day is a new opportunity to become a better parent and I have a feeling as we get into the storied difficulties of age 3, I am going to have to work harder and harder to be the parent that I want to be, every day. I welcome the challenge!