Exploring independence

Ahh, yes...William is exploring his independent capabilities on a minute-by-minute basis. I am rather excited about this as I soon hope to pass off the tasks of preparing his own food and doing his own laundry, we just need to get a taller stool first:) Although, Will does pick out and start eating snacks from fridge, but we have to pry them out of his hand and take the apple out of the bag it's in or peel the orange before he continues to eat.

Will really enjoys dressing himself now, which consists of: setting his socks on the top of his feet, putting on mom's shoes (he has yet to figure out how to get into his own shoes), draping any type of clothing item on his head, putting on one arm of his jacket, pulling shirts over his head, hanging overalls over his neck (this one is closely supervised), and putting on sunglasses. He will work at putting his pants on for about 10 seconds, then he throws them at me in frustration, and replies "yeah" when I ask if he needs help. These are a few of our favorite fashion statements of which I know there will be countless more to come.

Will is also becoming more independent in his play, which you think would be a wonderful change for me, however, this independence usually emerges during outdoor playtime. This creates more work for mom & dad when we are in the front yard (which we do to avoid the potential playing with Maggie's messes) because Will enjoys walking down the street, into the neighbors yards, and running up and down the paved ramp next to the stairs by himself. William has also decided that he prefers not to hold onto mom or dad's hands while he is running across the bridges on the jungle gym at the park (which really freaks out grandma & grandpa). Will also loves to watch all the other kids playing at the park which could turn out to be a good or bad thing-we're starting to be more selective about our park choices. Here are a few pics of our most recent trip to the park.

Spring is here!

Sorry it has been so long since our last post, the weather has been great so we have been outside as much as possible. William absolutely loves it outside and would probably stay outside all day if we let him-we're thinking about putting him out in the back yard with Maggie each morning with a bowl of food. We have taken him to our neighborhood park about 6 times now and to a nearby state park once. We didn't think that Will would be coordinated enough to enjoy the park gyms but he has proved us wrong yet again. As soon as we got out of the car Will made a beeline for the gym and we were running after him to keep up. We are constantly amazed by how perceptive he is and by the powerful effect of visual stimuli on very young children (this has been a disadvantage on several occassions already). Will especially loves the swinging bridges and all types of climbing ladders on the gyms. Here are a couple videos of him at the park for the first time this spring.



Will has been insisting on drinking from whatever I am drinking out of, but I was able to convince him to drink out of one of his cups. As you will see he thoroughly enjoyed himself. I ran out of CD and a few seconds following this video water started to pour out of the bottom of the highchair. I think we'll continue to use the sippy for milk and juice.

We have been in a cold-snap again, which means more creativity with indoor play. Fortunately, Will is pretty innovative when it comes to occupying himself with everyday items as you will see. He has taken a strong liking to metal objects including mixing bowls, a potato ricer, a pulp strainer, and lids to pots & pans (I draw the line at the pots & pans themselves because Will has previously dropped them on his feet). Nearly everyday, sometimes multiple times per day (when I am ambitious & put things back) Will empties out the corner cupboard and composes his masterpieces of both visual and audio display. He particularly enjoys dropping a metal lid over, and over, and over to hear the crashing that it makes (I usually end up leaving the room). He is just beaming with pride in these pics.

Later in the day we were downstairs and I turned around to find Will using his chair as a jungle gym, so I ran to get the camera to get some video. This is the end of his climbing up and jumping off the chair so he is much better at it in the video than he was when he started.

Last, but certainly not least, Will has been spending more time eating. He doesn't just prolong eating, he just keeps eating and eating and eating. After Will finished lunch yesterday I was so astonished by the amount of food he ate that I recreated his plate of food. As you can see he ate 1/2 of a meatball, a helping of pasta, 1/2 cup of steamed broccoli, 2 clementines, an apple, whole milk, and water. Is this what a 17 month-old typically eats, or do we have the next Guinness hot dog eater on our hands?

Domesticating Will

While Steve may not be especially excited about Will's recent experiences I think it's important to form a well-rounded boy, so I educated Will on some everyday tasks that he has seen me do. Every time I get the broom out Will squeals with delight and grabs for it, and I thought he might as well help out mom while he is excited about it. Will took the broom in hand and I guided his sweeping motions as I attempted to keep the dirt in a nice, neat pile...you can see where this is going. Will got annoyed with me limiting his sweeps and began running up and down the hallway just pushing the broom then dragging it behind him as he ran. So much for effective sweeping for now.

I was hemming some curtains the other day and Will began whining and reaching for the sewing machine. After this went on for a few minutes-it was probably more like 30 seconds-it just seemed longer, I put him on my lap and showed him how to run the sewing machine. I think he'll need a review on threading the machine, but he might have the actual sewing down. I'm thinking he should work on some clothes next--everybody get ready for Christmas.

To end the week Mor mor gave Will a doll for Valentines day. Will's first experience with a doll was at Christmas when grandma and grandpa gave him his first cabbage patch doll, named Royal, who he fell in love with. Will gave his new doll a hug and carried him around the rest of the afternoon.

I think Steve was compensating for Will's experiences, as he helped Kim, Luke, & Bud cut logs all day on Saturday. They cut, skidded, and bucked over 15 trees!

Just before I posted this I shared the title of this entry with Steve to which he replied, "You can't domesticate a wild animal," I thought you would enjoy that.

A few firsts...

We are in a heatwave here, so Will and I have been outside everyday lately trying to cure our cabin fever. Every time we go outside Will walks by the shovels and is drawn to go to work. So he began shovelling the driveway again, but the problem was there was no snow left to shovel. As you probably guessed, Will took a tumble on the driveway while he was working and face planted on the concrete, thus resulting in his first work injury.

2009_02_05

I also wanted to include Will's first masterpiece in this entry. We started our ECFE (Early Childhood and Family Education) class last week and there is an art station set up each week with new projects to complete. Will would have nothing to do with the project last week, but we decided to do the project this week as it involved trucks. The truck wheels were sitting in paint with the idea that you pick up the truck and drive it across your paper to create your masterpiece. Needless to say, more paint ended up on Will's hands and smock than on the paper, but we have his first art project proudly displayed on the kitchen fridge.

2009_02_06 ECFE

Food on a bone

Our little William has come to love eating ribs-not just the meat itself, but rather chewing on the bone too. The other night we ordered in ribs for dinner (thanks to Santa for the gift certificate) and Will had his fill. Steve always orders a full rack now because Will eats about 1/3 of them! We thought you might enjoy this video of him chomping on the bone. I chose the title for this entry because as a mom of a toddler who loves to eat off a bone, I wish all food came that way. WARNING-viewer discretion is advised if you do not have the privilege of watching toddlers eat on a regular basis.

From 2-3-2009

Work--A blessing in disguise

Will was down for a nap so I took advantage of the free time and shoveled off the driveway before our bible study group came over. Much to my annoyance & frustration, it snowed again a little later so Will and I went outside together as he was done with naps for the day. I decided to try to clear off the driveway while Will was playing. Within seconds Will was over "helping" me shovel and eventually took the shovel away from me. He pushed the shovel up and down the driveway just laughing and proudly smiling at his independence. He would occasionally drop the shovel and need help grabbing the handle again (his mittens were limiting), but would quickly begin shoveling independently again. Although shoveling the driveway is not usually my cup of tea, God truly blessed me with the perspective of a child. How often do we take the time to view God, let alone life, from that child-like perspective? We went in the house to warm up and Will stood at the door crying to go back out to shovel-I tried to tell him that there are nearly daily opportunities to shovel snow.

Our first entry (16 months late)

Well, we finally got our acts together and started a blog just short of 16 months (after Will was born of course). It has been a very cold week so Will and I (Liz) have been stuck in the house all week, mainly due to my concern for bringing Will out in the below zero weather, so we decided to go out for dinner to break the cabin fever feeling. Will ate his pre-dinner, dinner as he usually does at restaurants (he just can't wait for the food) then he proceeded to eat 4 entire ribs! Steve was really glad he ordered a full rack of ribs so he could enjoy some dinner as well. Regretfully, we did not get a picture of Will's hands & face covered with BBQ sauce-maybe next time. I thought that it would be fun to compare Will's progress so I included a picture of Will from 1 year ago.

William on Jan. 7, 2008

William on Jan. 1, 2009

The weather last week was at least 20 degrees so we did go outside and pull Will in his sled. His cheeks got a little rosy, but he loved it.