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.

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

Friday Fun

 

Fingers crossed that this works; I've never tried uploading a video before! Hope this brings a few smiles for your Friday--and hope you are having as nice of a Friday as we are here--we're loving all this sun and temperatures in the seventies!

 

Mom Confession

Fact: My son is a better eater than I am. Probably because he doesn't quite have the element of choice that I do--he's pretty much limited to eating the food I put in front of him--but still. I intentionally make an effort to offer him healthy choices and a wide variety of fruits and veggies, but then don't really follow through myself (even though most of the time it would be super easy to). For example: Breakfast. I always have a bowl of cereal. Always. Even on days we have pancakes or something I usually end up sneaking a bowl sometime mid-morning. And while I'm not eating the super sugary stuff like Lucky Charms (although I totally would), it's still cereal. Pretty much just carbohydrates and milk. William, however, has a bowl of yogurt with fresh fruit, sometimes served with crushed cereal on top, sometimes served with an egg, sometimes served with a slice a bread. Just depends on what we have--and how hungry he is. And when he is inevitably hungry again by 9:30, I usually offer him more fresh fruit (and typically something different than what he had for breakfast) or string cheese or raisins and Cheerios if pickings are really slim. I, however, usually don't join him in that "healthy" snack, because I have typically spent most of the morning grazing on whatever goodies we have in the house--Oreos, gummy worms, goldfish crackers, even spoonfuls of Nutella straight out of the jar if I'm really desparate and we have no other snacks left in the house. I know that I'm growing another child and I know that I should probably better regulate what I'm feeding him/her, but at least I do a good job of offering William healthy options (at least most of the time). That counts for something, right?

For Comparison...

20 weeks with WEBS on the left, 20 weeks with BOB (William) on the right. Just a little bit of difference!

And I apologize for the ridiculously poor quality of the image, but if I were to wait for Darrell to do something fancy and stitch the images together all professional-like, it'd probably never get done. So take what you get--it's more than enough to see how much bigger I am this time around (and that's not even a recent picture; I was twenty weeks almost three weeks ago!).

It's a.... Baby!!

I'm sure you are all just dying to see pictures of me in all my pregnant glory, but if there's one thing I've learned with William it's that Baby is always more important than Mommy. And since I have pictures of WEBS (William Edsell's Baby Sibling), I figured I should share those first. But don't worry--eventually I'll get my pregnancy photos up--all ten+ weeks of them. Maybe I'll even pull out some from William's pregnancy to compare!

Kind of hard to tell, but that's both feet side by side. According to the ultrasound technician, though, baby didn't keep his/her feet together for very much of the ultrasound--whenever the technician was in the area (and Darrell and I had our eyes closed), baby had his/her legs spread open wide. Apparently finding out the sex would not have been a difficult task

"Hi Mom!"

Looking just like Big Brother William with a hand up by the face

Memories

I probably don't utilize this blog enough period, but I definitely don't use it enough to jot down and remember some of the cute/ridiculous things William does on a day to day basis. This is by no means a promise to change that behavior, because let's face it, I never have as many hours in the day as I would like, but I can't resist recording what William did last night because it was just too cute.

Just about every night last week Darrell went outside after dinner to do some yard work (before the inevitable first snow falls). Most nights William went out with him because A) William is not content to be in the house if someone is outside and B) I wasn't around because I had soccer so Darrell had no choice but to take William with him. Well, Saturday night Darrell and I were both home, and we were enjoying the opportunity to chat over dinner. William finished before us and was playing in the other room while we continued to chat, when all of the sudden William walks into the kitchen dragging Darrell's jacket. He carries it over to Darrell, puts it on his lap, and then walks to the back door and picks up Darrell's shoes. He then proceeds to bring those to Darrell as well, and even makes an effort to put them on, a la Cinderella-style. Apparently he had decided that we had been chatting long enough and that it was time for us to go outside and do more yard work--despite the fact that we hadn't exactly been planning on going outside because the weather wasn't kind of yucky and we didn't really have anything to get done. But after William was so cute about wanting to go out, we really couldn't tell him no. So outside we went. And what do you know--we enjoyed ourselves plenty despite the cooling temperatures and even found a few projects to work on. I guess William really does know best (just don't ever let him know that!).