Will continues to amaze us with his level of comprehension, and sudden ability to say and remember any word, concept or event. He is like this self possessed little person now who can completely let us know what hes thinking or feeling and can make detailed requests. Its nice actually to be able to communicate with him so thoroughly, and I can tell that he feels calmer and more relieved to have us be able to understand him. He is my little buddy and helper and has actually been very well behaved most of the time lately, which makes me grateful! 
Me: "Ok buddy, its time for bed now!"
Will: "Hey mom! I'm not going to cry anymore! I'm going to relax and go to sleep!"
Me: "Oh that makes me SO happy!"
Will: "It makes me so happy TOO!"
Another thing hes been doing, in lieu of tantrums, is to go stand in a corner, hang his head, and tell us that "I am feeling really sad right now!" Its darling and heartbreaking and a little annoying after hes already done it twenty times in one day. Usually the best solution is to offer him a hug and ask him why he's sad. Either way, its a LOT better than crying and tantrums!
While he has mostly been very well behaved, we definitely still have our 3 year old moments. Today at the park the following scenario played out for 30 mins:Will (crying): I dont want to go to the park!
Me: Do you want to go home?
Will: "No I want to go to the park"
Me: "Buddy we are at the park!"
Will: "But I don't want to go to the park!"
Me: "Well what do you want to do then?"
Will: "I want to go home!"
Me: "You want to go home?"
Will: (more sobbing) "No I want to go to the PARK!"
Me: "Buddy we are at the park RIGHT NOW!"
Will: "Noooooo!" (More sobbing)
We repeated this dialog 10 more times for 30 minutes until I gave up and brought him home. He cried the whole way back. That was a rough day!
Lately we've been requiring that he eat everything from his plate before
he gets down to play after meals. So hes been doing the EXACT same
thing that Michael did at his age: packs it into his cheek like a little
chipmunk, and then go and play. The funny thing is, he forgets to chew
it while its in his cheek, so its very often the case that 1-2 hours
after meals, he will still have a wad of food stuffed into his cheek and
we have to remind him to chew it! The even more amazing thing to me is that he will often eat dessert after dinner, and still somehow manage to keep dinner packed in his cheeks. The other night he stuffed about 20 peas into his cheek and then ate cake and ice cream and as we were putting him to bed, we realized that his cheeks still contained a wad of peas. That is a skill man! 
He went through a terribly annoying phase where any time he was left alone with a book, he would rip it to shreds. After he did this a couple of times, I ended up taking away all of the books in his room for a while. After a few weeks I gave them back and so far he hasn't done it again. But boy did that ever make me mad! He was probably just bored and looking for something to do while in his room, but boy, that is NOT something I will ever be ok with! I truly hope that hes learned his lesson and will not rip any more books, ever!
One really funny language learning moment happened the other right. He regularly confuses his gender specific pronouns and so we were explaining the differences in the sexes to him the other night. We each explained it to him a couple of times, with him repeating various details, trying to make sense of it all. Finally after Michael got done with one of these explanations, Will repeated, "dad has a penis and mom has a container!" We all got a good laugh out of that and then we had to re-explain the "container" concept.
He has been very big into making art lately and loves to paint, and color with markers and crayons. He is really good too, drawing everything from faces and cars and trucks (that are actually pretty recognizable) to letters and words (like mom, dad, and Will). I am regularly impressed with what he is able to draw!
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| Upper left: Car, upper right: name, lower left: faces, lower right: letters |
From the moment Nora started crawling, their relationship deteriorated. He was not thrilled with her getting into his toys and invading his personal space on a regular basis. He started pushing her over, knocking her down purposefully, hitting her and even biting her one time. It was constant strife between them, to the point where I couldn't ever leave the two of them alone in a room together. I tried everything from bribes and explaining to time outs and losing toys. Nothing really worked all that well. But then Nora took her first steps and something happened. Will turned to me and, with a look of wonder, proclaimed, "mom, Nora is a big girl now!" And from then on was a lot nicer to her. There are still occasional moments of conflict (as with any siblings), but he definitely views her as more of a playmate and less of a nuisance now. They actually play games together now and its very cute to see him directing the play and her following along like a little duckling mimic. Now rather than time outs for making her cry, the other strategy that has worked is to make him responsible for making her feel better. So if he makes her cry, I tell him, "Will, Nora is crying! How can we make her feel better?" And he will run off to give her a toy or a hug to stop her from crying. So all in all, things are a LOT more peaceful around here and I couldn't be more glad! Here are two pretty cute examples of them playing together recently:
Me: "Will, do you love Nora?"
Will: " I do wuv Nowa! Shes pretty cute!"
I also overheard this in the next room:
Will: "Nowa lets play! Hey Nowa you like an eskimo kiss?" *gives kiss* "You like another eskimo kiss?" *gives another kiss*
Nora: *giggling*
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