Monday, November 10, 2014

Breaking Baby 2.0 News to Darrell

So this post is only, oh, four months overdue? Whoops. WEBS might as well get used to that--don't things for the second children frequently get overlooked? And as if this post hasn't been "overlooked" enough, WEBS is being subjected to another common "complaint" of second children: nothing they do receives the same type of fanfare as the oldest because it isn't "new". That was definitely the case for my baby reveal to Darrell this time around. If you remember back to when I told Darrell I was pregnant with William, I spent an entire day creating an elaborate scavenger hunt, complete with Suduku puzzles, an alpha-numeric key, and multiple gift cards. This time, I drove to one store (because obviously I had William with me and wasn't about to schlep him around town on multiple errands), found a card that pretty well got the point across (yay for getting the positive pregnancy test close to Father's Day!), and called it good.




I tried to get William to decorate the envelope, but he clearly knew that this was not news he was excited about because he lost interest in the coloring very quickly. Darrell didn't quite pick up on the "we" right away; he thought it was referring to me and William, not William and a second child. And even when he did make the connection, it was an anti-climatic celebration (in fact, "celebration" is quite a stretch. We hugged, we kissed, and that was about that. Although we did go out to Target later and bought WEBS a blanket, much like we did after we found out we were pregnant with William. So maybe that will be our "thing" for each new baby). Welcome to the family WEBS--we still love you plenty but just don't have the time or energy to get quite as excited about things with you as we did with William. It's the curse of the second child--and if we end up having another kid you'll really be cursing your luck then because you'll have all the plights of the middle child to deal with.

Monday, November 3, 2014

William: Eighteen Months!

Kind of hard to believe that next time I do one of these updates (at two years!) we'll have a second kid. Eek!

William has now decided that he absolutely does not like the doctor (or the hairdresser, for that matter). And that table that we're supposed to lay him on to get his height and weight? No way, not happening, no thank you. So to our best guess, William is now weighing in at 22 pounds, 12 ounces, and just over 31 inches. Definitely still a little peanut--although I seriously can't imagine his being any bigger because even now he is hard to carry at times. He's still wearing size four diapers, and pretty much exclusively in 18-month clothing, although I've found quite a few of his 24-month items that have either been shrunk or are just sized small because they fit him pretty perfectly right now (and in some cases, are actually a little too small. Which I find to be crazy). Two of his bottom molars have poked through, giving him a total of ten teeth, and it's been fun to watch him figure out how to eat with them--can't wait until the top ones come in (although hopefully they make much less of a dramatic entrance than the bottom ones; we spiked a 101* fever and picked up some bad sleeping habits before finally popping the molars through).

Speaking of sleep, things are still going really well in the department. We haven't officially begun transitioning him to his big-boy bed yet, but we have started getting ready by introducing a stuffed animal and blanket into his crib with him. And bless his heart, when we put him down for nap or bedtime, he lays right down and doesn't fuss or move around so when we put the blanket over him it actually stays. Definitely nice now that the temperatures have started dropping.

William continues to try to be as independent as he can be, and some of his boldness in maneuvering around things/climbing up and down things has definitely caught us off guard. Probably one of his favorite "accomplishments" is that he knows how to slide the kitchen chairs around the kitchen and climb up on to them to help Mom and Dad with whatever they are doing (his favorite things to "help" with are the dishes and cooking dinner--don't you dare try to do either without him!). He's also developed a love of puzzles, which this mama loves, and he surprised us both by mastering an alphabet puzzle in a matter of days (and he's now gotten to the point where he can recognize the letters by name because he's done it so many times. But don't ask him to mimic any of the alphabet sounds, though...)

Talking and words are still behind, but (thankfully!) our pediatrician agrees that it isn't really a concern because he still has strong non-verbal communication skills and clearly understands many commands (of course, whether or not he follows those commands depends on his mood at the time). He has finally added "Mama" to his vocabulary, though, which is super fun to hear (just not at 6:00 am....). Aside from "Mama" and "Dada", though, the only other "words" he really knows are animal sounds. But he uses the sound in place of the animal name when he's trying to tell us something (he'll go "woof woof" when he wants us to get him his stuffed puppy), so it's kind of like he uses the sound as a word. So it kind of counts. I'm not even sure anymore how many signs he knows; lately he's been creating signs of his own to communicate things to us (his favorite? Putting his hand to his ear whenever he wants a cell phone to play with. Thankfully he only uses this sign when a phone is actually in his line of sight, so for the most part we just keep our phones put away around him).  

These past few months have been So.Much.Fun, and sometimes Darrell and I think we're crazy for bringing another mini-human into this mix. But we also know William will be a great big brother (he's super sweet about giving baby--aka my belly--kisses and cuddles), so we're excited to see that role unfold (okay, let's be honest, we're mostly excited. We're also a little terrified about going back to some of the newborn stages. But it's a little late for us to change our minds!).

A few random shots from the past few months:

Excited to share the big news!

Playing in the dirt at Uncle Mike's baseball game

Ready for college football season! Go Gophers--and Georgia Tech! (just wait until you see his GT outfit; it's to die for)
 
Oh, you know, just playing in a back hoe. No big deal

Feverish little boy working on cutting his molars

Thankfully we haven't had too many of these bitterly cold days yet, but of course one of them was the day of Dad's last parade. And if he looks like he is sitting awkwardly it's because he can't put his arms all the way down on account of all the layers he has on

Cuddling with one of his puppies in the car