William 3.4

As of this morning, William now weighs 31 lbs, has a head circumference of 19 3/4" and is 39.5" tall.

For the last several months he has eaten the same thing for lunch nearly every single day: a peanut butter sandwich (with no jam or jelly) with crusts removed, and cut into cubes, with a mandarin orange and a pear. Its healthy enough I suppose but it sure is boring. Breakfast is also usually the same: "oatmeal" (cream of wheat). The kid knows what he likes! Luckily dinner is whatever I am making that night so at least he gets some variety there; of course that is the meal he eats the least amount of typically ;)

He walks around singing all the time and while previously it was all real songs, now the songs he sings are a combination of totally made up lyrics to real tunes, or amalgamations of several songs put together with a sort of nonsensical tune. Its pretty funny and cute!

Potty training is going VERY well and we are down to one diaper per day now. He has just in the past month, finally figured out how to poop on the potty. He just does it like its no big deal when its been a struggle for MONTHS. He also usually stays dry during nap time, which is awesome! So its really overnight that he will wet his diaper, which is normal. I'm not really expecting him to stay dry over night for a few more years. He is a stinker and first thing in the morning he will proclaim, "Mom I kept my diaper dry!" And then when I go to check it, it is of course filled with pee. When I point to it and ask him whats in there, he will get a stinkery smile and say, "pee!" That always cracks me up! But to be down to only one diaper a day is a huge win in my book. I feel like the hardest part of potty training is behind us!


He is very self sufficient now. I have an activity cabinet filled with crayons, markers, watercolors, play dough, coloring books, paper, kinetic sand, and other quiet activities. Most days he will go into that cabinet, get out whichever activity he wishes to do and will spend up to an hour, engrossed in that activity. When he is done, he puts it away back into the cabinet, and gets something else out now, all with very minimal intervention from me. I love it!!

Will is also a very effective watch dog over Nora. He will either let me know when she is getting into mischief, or prevent her from doing so himself. And she listens to him better than she does to me! We haven't even had to put baby gates around the Christmas tree, as Will has so far prevented nearly every ornament theft she has perpetrated. He keeps her out of the kitchen cabinets for the most part as well, and will even clean up some of the messes she makes. I think I'll keep this kid around!

Speaking of Christmas, Will was VERY excited to meet Santa this year. Last year he was standoffish and aloof. This year he ran to give Santa a hug, told him what he wanted for Christmas (a tow truck), and then hugged him two more times. He was even a little sad to get off Santa's lap in the end. What a turnaround from last year!

One thing he has really struggled with lately is taking toys out of other kid's hands. Hes done it for a while now with Nora, and for the most part, unless he is unusually aggressive or mean about it, I just let it slide and encourage them to work it out for themselves. But up until recently, he would ONLY take toys from Nora, never anyone else. Lately however everyone has become fair game, from friends at play dates or even from complete strangers at parks or community centers. Its kind of shocking to me to see him suddenly be so aggressive after all of his years of passivity. Obviously in these more public situations, I can't just let the kids "work it out" most times. So I've resorted to telling him that he needs to wait until a toy is available. He can ask the kid to play with it, but if the other kid says 'no', he will have to wait. That has not gone over so well with Will, but he is slowly learning and getting better at following that rule. Before we go anywhere now, we have little pep talks about how we need to play nicely with friends. He'll get it eventually! The funniest time was when he took a toy from a two year old girl, and her 4 year old brother came up and whapped him on the head in retaliation. I hope that taught him a lesson!

For a 3 year old, he is remarkably well behaved. He listens and follows instructions to the letter. He is well mannered and polite and just rarely misbehaves. I keep expecting him to turn into this monster child because he is 3, and so far that hasn't happened (fingers crossed!). Granted he has his moments but they are brief and not too frequent thank goodness. Maybe his worst year really was between 1 and 2. I guess time will tell but for now I feel incredibly lucky!

In closing I will relate a funny story that happened the other day. Will was up in his room, taking a nap, and I went up there at 3:30, which is when both kids usually wake up. I opened his door, and Will was still very sound asleep. I backed out slowly to give him a few more minutes, while I got Nora up from her nap. Ten minutes later I came back and he was still sleeping. This NEVER happens. So I decided to give him 30 more minutes, and eventually came back up at a little after 4pm. He was STILL asleep. At this point I decided to let Nora help me wake him up. She promptly beat down the door, climbed into his bed, climbed ALL over him and threw all of his toys onto the floor. Throughout the entire onslaught, he remained motionless. Eventually Nora got bored and left. Finally I got my camera and took a picture to capture the moment and that was when he finally stirred. It was the camera and not his wild monkey sister that woke him up. Insane! I wish I could sleep like that. He must have gotten that from his father!