The Craving Monster

(written July 9th)

It's officially happened. I've had a craving. A "I must eat those now or I will quite possibly be sick" craving. When I was pregnant with William I never really had any major cravings. I had foods that sounded good (and definitely foods that sounded bad), but nothing insatiable. The closest I think I ever came was wanting a Butterfinger one time--but that was mostly because I saw one, realized I hadn't had one in forever, and decided it sounded good (and when I mentioned that in an email to Darrell, he picked on up for me on his way home). But tonight? Tonight was different. It started the same as the Butterfinger story--I was reading an online article that casually mentioned a particular food item (that I probably haven't eaten for close to ten years), and I thought to myself "That sounds delicious". Then, when I read the article a second time (it was pretty funny so I read it out loud to Darrell), I got to the same reference and immediately had the food item ingrained in my brain. Ingrained in a "I may not be able to go to sleep tonight until I get that food in my belly" kind of way. So, at 9:00 at night, what did Darrell do? Head to the nearest DQ to fulfill my craving. Which--for the record--wasn't for ice cream (although the article DID mention ice cream). No, I sent my husband to Dairy Queen--less than an hour before bedtime--for a chili cheese dog. Yes. A totally unhealthy, probably super terrible for you chili cheese dog. And I can barely wait for him to get home. I may or may not have pulled up a picture from Dairy Queen's website to temporarily stave the monster off.

Update: Chili cheese dog has been consumed. And it was FANTASTIC. I probably could have eaten four more.

Update 2.0: So I've constantly been playing the comparison game between this pregnancy and my pregnancy with William, thinking that somehow I will be able to rationally deduce the sex based on the similarities and/or differences between the pregnancies. I was all set to chalk this craving up to a "difference" (and ergo a tally in the WEBS is a girl column), but then I remembered something. My grandpa died when I was about four months pregnant with William, and after the visitation a lot of the family went to the local bar to get some food and drinks. Since it was fairly late, most everyone just ordered an appetizer or two to share. Me? I ordered myself a Chili Cheese Burger (exactly what it sounds like--a cheese burger topped with chili) and polished the whole thing off. And it was delicious. Which I guess means that this craving is probably more of a similarity than a difference.... Chalk one up for WEBS being a boy. (Oh, by the way: WEBS=William Edsell's Baby Sibling).

Update 3.0: I've officially had more chili cheese dogs in this pregnancy than I've had in the last fifteen years combined. We're only talking like four or five, but considering I never used to eat them it's definitely a change. And I could definitely go for one again. Mmmm......

One More...

I did find one more photo from the beach that I just had to share... It's too important not to :-)

Coming in February!!

A (Fairly Sizeable) Boo-Boo

I headed down to Omaha this past weekend for a bachelorette party for my soon-to-be sister-in-law (woo-hoo!), and left William home with Darrell. It seemed like a pretty safe and reasonable choice... Until I got this picture Saturday night:

Too be fair, it wasn't exactly Darrell's fault. And it probably would have happened even if I had been around. Someone got a little fussy and over-tired at the zoo, and protested Darrell putting him back in the stroller to get ready to leave. In the midst of his tantrum, William threw himself out of the stroller and face planted into the ground. And if you're thinking "He really doesn't look all that upset about the road rash", you're pretty much right. Apparently he cried for all of a minute, and then took the stroller and started pushing it around (which was what he was trying to do before Darrell put him in the stroller and started the tantrum in the first place).

It has started to look a little worse in recent days as it's starting to heal, but it hasn't seemed to bother him in the least, which is good. I'm sure this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to injuries we're going to have to deal with.

Two days post-face plant

Beach Week 2014

I'm sure we have other pictures laying around on our phones, other camera, etc, but if I wait to do this post until I have all my ducks in a row.... Well, then this post would never happen. Besides, some is better than none, right?

And there isn't really much to say to preface these pictures with--it's a week at the beach with Darrell's family, which means no itinerary except sun, sand, and waves. And William was not afraid of any of it in the least.

Enjoying his own seat on the flight from Chicago to Charlotte

Beach baby!

King of the Beach

Splashing in the waves with Daddy

 

Happy Boy!

Loving the waves!

Struttin' his stuff

Playing with cousin John (these two were soooo cute together!)

Big wave!

Priceless

Double rainbow

 

 

William: Fifteen Months!

While it's too much work to try to keep up with monthly updates (considering I'm still running over two weeks late on this one), I figure I can still post updates whenever we have a well-visit at the doctor's office (since that's the only way I know William's height and weight anyway).

William weighed in two ounces shy of 22 lbs at fifteen months and measured 30 inches, although there is probably a little leeway in those measurements because someone was not feeling very cooperative at the doctor's office (I'm pretty sure he remembered getting his twelve-month shots because he started screaming as soon as we got back to the exam room). He's wearing size four diapers and primarily twelve-month clothing, although there's always some discrepancy among the varied brands. He's also (finally!) up to eight teeth; after cutting all four top ones a month or so before his first birthday, he went on a three-month hiatus and didn't start cutting numbers seven and eight (both on the bottom, opposite sides of his middle two) until just after fifteen months. We're pretty sure he's working on some molars right now, but nothing has broken through yet. Sleep has also been pretty fantastic lately. He sleeps from 8:00 pm to 7:00 am and goes down for his nap at 12:30 pm for anywhere from two to three hours. He still fusses a little when we first put him down, but usually only long enough for us to leave the room and close the door. It took some battles to get where we are now, but I'm definitely loving this sleeping stage.

While we might have expected William to put on more weight between his twelve and fifteen month visits because he eats All.The.Time, he is also ALWAYS on the move. He pretty much wore through his first pair of shoes in a matter of three months, partially because he always wants to go outside and knows no limits once he is there (rocks, mud, puddles--everything is fair game for this kid). He even started climbing the ladder up to the slide on our play set, which caught both Darrell and I by surprise. Stairs are also no problem for our little guy; I think we used the baby gate at our new house for two weeks before realizing was futile. William learned pretty quickly how to crawl down the stairs, although he is now trying to master walking down them (which makes Mom and Dad a little bit more nervous--but he's always really good about holding on to the railing and going slowly, so we let him do it).

Talking is still, well, a little behind. He does a fantastic job of communicating, but only through sign language, pointing, and grunting. We've more-or-less agreed that William's first word was "dada", pretty much because that's the only word that he'll (occasionally) repeat on command. And he definitely seems to understand who it refers to. I'd pretend to be jealous, but he's such a daddy's boy that it doesn't surprise me in the least.

A few favorites worth noting: He LOVES his bat and ball. Or really, balls and anything that resembles a bat. He will spend at least ten minutes a day hitting/pushing his balls around the house using everything from a Swiffer dust wand to a wooden spoon. Another favorite "game" is pouring stuff into and out of bowls, cups, buckets, etc. He will spend pretty much an entire bath pouring water back and forth between cups. He also really enjoys books and a lot of times will just pull them off the shelf and page through them on his own. And once he finds a favorite book, he typically insists on having that one read before naps and bedtimes for multiple days in a row (we actually went out and bought a book because he fell so in love with a library book that he refused to fold his hands for bedtime prayers until we had read that book). While he will pretty much eat anything we put in front of him, blueberries are easily his favorite food (there may or may not have been an incident on the 4th of July where he ate an entire pint before 9:00 am. I swear we tried cutting him off multiple times, but he wasn't having it).

I don't have any "staged" photos of him at fifteen months, but I did find plenty of random pictures from the past few months that haven't made it on the blog.... Enjoy!

Go Twins!

The aftermath of a (rare) picky meal where all he wanted do was spit the food out of his mouth

Playing before bedtime!

Isn't that shirt awesome? Mini-nerd alert :-)

Mom wouldn't let him eat any of the candy at the parade, so he decided that he would load up on stickers instead

A rare morning nap in the stroller--he's so innocent looking!

At Last!

We have furniture!!

While the waiting period was crazy long (we ordered custom fabrics that the store did not have in stock), I totally wouldn't change anything about our purchase. Especially once we finally figured out how to arrange it (I may or may not have been the difficult one in that venture... Whoops). And now that the furniture is set, I can finally start accessorizing and decorating! We'll need an end table to go between the two chairs (as well as window treatments--but we have to replace the window first),

plus another end table at the end of the couch and a (fake!) tree for the corner (the storage trunks will be relocated to the basement.... Eventually... Whenever that gets re-finished).

I'm also thinking that the wall above the couch needs a nice big panoramic picture (I'm in love with the idea of spreading one image out over three canvases--how cool would that be?!?), or we could do some sort of gallery wall. Of course, the gallery wall would probably be cheaper since we could incorporate artwork we already have... But where's the fun in that?