The Great Pumpkin

I can't believe my week off went by so fast! I think the week off from school makes the rest of the semester harder than if we just kept going and got out a week earlier. It is hard to get back in the routine.

A couple weekends ago we took Will to the Rowley Farm in Santaquin to visit the Pumpkin Patch. We took a hayride out to the Pumpkin Patch which Will loved. Of course, he loves any time he is in a moving vehicle without being strapped into his carseat. Will had fun rolling a little pumpkin around the field and trying to pick it up. Between the rows and vines in the field Will had trouble standing up for longer than a second at a time. Mollie and Bryce thought I was having more fun than Will though---which is quite possible! They had the cutest little mini-pumpkins for a quarter each so I had fun picking out a bunch for our house.

Will's Halloween costume came in the mail the other day. He is going to be a little monkey...because he already is so it seemed fitting. He hasn't worn the whole thing yet, but I've put the hood on him a couple times which has big monkey ears and it is just too cute. Really what else could a little boy who climbs on everything and whose first word is "banana" be for Halloween?

Will has his 15-month doctor's appointment today. His doctor changed to a different office so he will be seeing a new doctor. I am curious to see how much he weighs...which I don't think has changed much since 12 months and how tall he is. He was playing with a little boy his age at church last weekend and I noticed that he was a good 2 or 3 inches taller than the other boy.

Will's latest tricks:
- saying "bat"....I hung some rubber Halloween bats in the front window and Will is slightly obsessed with them. He points at them and says "BAT!" and wants you to pick him up so he can see them better. Most of the time he reaches out his hand like he wants to touch them, but if you move him closer he gets scared and tries to claw over your shoulder away from them. Last night he seemed to get over his fear and kept hitting the bats and making them swing and then laughing hysterically.
- the other day I left Will downstairs and ran upstairs to use the bathroom. On my way up Will sees me and says "Uh oh! Mama!" and came crawling up the stairs after me.
- Will got a haircut much to my dismay. I left him home with his Dad on Saturday while I went to a training and when I got home all his blonde baby locks were gone! (Well, not all but a substantial amount) It made me sad because now he just looks like a boy and not a baby.
- Will was looking at his truck book the other day and when Dad pointed to the tractor and said "Tractor" Will repeated it right back..."Tractor!" It is funny to hear him say things because they all require so much effort...he purses his little lips and then starts trying to make the sound until it just bursts out all the sudden....."BAT!"

Our quest to get Will to sleep in his own bed has taken a downhill turn. As usual just when we started making progress Will got sick and couldn't breath at night and kept coughing, and coughing, and coughing...so I kept him in bed with us several nights in a row and now he refuses to even start the night in his crib. He clearly thinks that our bed is his bed. He will go right to sleep on our bed, but if I try to get him to fall asleep in his room he screams and screams and screams. In the mornings he wakes up and just grins like he knows he won the battle for another night. He is a loving little guy. His Dad and I were watching a tv show last night and sitting on the couch and Will just had to be up there with us crawling back and forth between us both. He likes to be the center of everything.

Thanks to a very generous donor Will now has a broom of his own. Here he is doing his chores and sweeping up all the food he threw underneath his highchair. Okay, maybe it is more accurate to say here he is having a great time using his broom to push around the food he threw underneath his chair.

I wrote all of the above the other day, but didn't post it until today when I added the picture. Will's check-up was actually last Tuesday. He weighs about 23 pounds. This appointment was the first time that they tried to weigh him on a regular scale, but Will wouldn't stand on it for longer than half a second so the weight is kind of a guesstimate. He had to get 3 shots and will have to go back in a couple weeks for a flu shot because they were all out at the time of his appointment.

I took Will to the law school Halloween party on Thursday. He wore his monkey suit and about 50% of people thought he was a monkey and 49% thought he was a mouse and 1 lady thought he was a buffalo. Go figure. He trick-or-treated and got 4 whole pieces of candy which was all he could carry in his little fists. He loved wandering in and out of all the aisles in the library.

Yesterday night was our ward (Church) Halloween party. Will got to fish a little jar of play-do out of a bucket of water. As soon as Dad put him down he ran right back over to the bucket and tripped and ended up a wet monkey. I think we are going to take him trick-or-treating to a few houses on Tuesday and I will have to take lots of pictures then because I haven't gotten any of him in his costume yet.

Will has learned to pull the kitchen chairs out from under the table and then climb up on the chairs and then climb up on the table. He does it about a thousand times a day and is very proud of himself every time.

Fall Is In The Air

I am at the beginning of my week off from school and enjoying every second of it. Next Monday it will be back to school without the help of Mom to watch Will, make treats and dinner, and fold laundry. Will will miss having Grandma in town too. She took him on walks and now he knows what you mean if you say "Want to go for a walk?"...he gets all excited and goes to the garage door. Will has a new favorite activity. He walks in tight little circles until he gets dizzy and then falls over. Then he gets right back up and does it over again. He has avoided hitting his head on chairs, tables, pianos, etc. by a fraction of an inch about 800 times so far. Will loves to read. He will pick out a book and bring it over to you and throw it at your head while squealing which means "READ!"...then he will want you to read the story approximately 50 times in a row. Now he will hold your finger and make you point at the things he wants you to read. He is especially into his word books these days. You know the ones, all they are are pictures of various items with the names underneath. Grapes. Cow. Shirt. Tractor. Exceptionally boring. And he loves them. Just look at the pic of him reading one with his Dad. Will also has a new-found love for...the broom. He throws a fit when I won't let him play with it and if he ever has a chance to get through the garage door he grabs it and brings it inside. He carries it around the house and gets frustrated when it gets stuck somewhere. Today he fell asleep on the floor holding his two favorite things...his broom and his bottle. I am seriously debating buying him a smaller broom so that he will be less likely to put the big broom through a window or tv screen. Yesterday we went up the canyon for a picnic with my Grandma, Mom, Dad, Kyle, Mollie, and Megan. Megan was down for the weekend from school in Idaho and Dad had just flown out in preparation for the ride back East with Aunt Karen and Uncle Tom. It was a very pretty day and would have been very relaxing except that Will was very intrigued by the stream running by. We tried to get a good family picture, but Will is the more photogenic member of our family so I prefer pictures of him.






Addendum: Will learned a new skill today...sticking his finger up his nose. He first did it while I was trying to feed him lunch and apparently found it very amusing and interesting as he continued to do it throughout the rest of the day.

Beginning of the End

Well you can tell school has started since I haven't posted since the end of August. I just started my third week of my last year of law school. Barring any unforeseen difficulties I will graduate at the end of April 2007. Woohoo. I'll try to update this occassionally even though I should be doing homework instead.

Will is walking all over now. When he walks he either has to hold his left arm up like he is holding a torch or pull up his shirt and stick his right pointer finger in his belly button. Once in a while he does both at the same time. He reminds me of Dumbo who can only fly when he holds his magic feather.

We took Will to the Utah State Fair on Saturday with my mom. He got to pet a goat (and then he kicked it...which is when we stopped petting the goat), eat fried dough, do farm chores which earned him a fake dollar with which he bought a little box of cereal (okay Grandma mostly did the chores), play "Pick a Duck" in which for only $2 he got to choose a rubber ducky from a tub which he then traded for a small stuffed duck, sit in a tractor, and otherwise have about all the fun a 13 month-old can have in one day. Unfortunately, a storm blew in and it got really windy and cold so we left earlier than we might have otherwise.

Will tried to climb up the stairs backwards today. He backed up to the bottom stair and put his legs up on it one by one. Then he tried to push himself up the stairs with his arms. I guess just climbing up the stairs was getting too boring.

Will has 3 teeth now! Two on bottom and one on the top left. The 2 bottom ones broke through over a period of about a month and a half (same thing with the top one about a month after the bottom ones) so I don't really have an exact date for when he cut his first tooth...or second...or third.

That is about all the news from the land of Will. He is currently watching his Baby Beethoven movie which will hopefully calm him down enough to go to sleep.

Pics:
1. Will with Grandma Dickerson and Great-grandma Hurst. 2. Will's first lollipop . . . he ate the whole thing. 3. Will helping himself to Doritos from the pantry. 4. Gangsta Will sagging his pants. 5. Prince William.

Everyone's Favorite Party Game

Yesterday I was sitting in the family room reading and Will crawled up in to the kitchen. Nothing new...he goes back and forth between the family room and kitchen all day long. But after he went up to the kitchen I didn't hear anything for a minute so I looked over and Will was sitting on top of the kitchen table. I don't know how he managed to get up there without making any noise. He is a monkey boy.

And now it is time for everyone's favorite party game: Where Has Will Been? Yes, Will spent the day destroying the family room, kitchen, and bathroom. While I folded the laundry, Will emptied out all the cans. While I showered, Will emptied the bathroom cabinets. While I cleaned up the kitchen, Will emptied the entertainment center. Etc. Etc. Etc. So much for getting the house cleaned up before the family gets here!

Starting at the beginning

Will is asleep which is amazing and means I can use the computer without him desperately trying to get at it. Last night I spent a full hour and forty minutes trying to get him to sleep. He wouldn't calm down when I rocked him so I put him in his crib which usually results in him screaming, but last night he was perfectly content to just play with his stuffed animal and pacifier and mobile. That is, he was perfectly content as long as I sat right next to the crib in the rocking chair. Tonight I was watching a movie with my cousin and he just crawled over to me, laid down, and went to sleep- so I guess he is making up for last night. Bryce is on a scout campout which is why I am entertaining myself on a Friday night.

Will is walking more and more. He will stand up and walk from the coffee table to the couch or over to the tv or even across the whole family room, but crawling is still his predominant method of transportation.

His other new trick that he started doing on our car ride to Vegas is singing Old McDonald. If we sing the song he will sing EIEIEI (he doesn't do the O). We thought it was just a fluke at first, but he does it every time.

Since I don't have anything specific to add this time I thought I would go back to the very beginning...

On Friday, July 15, 2005 I was at work at the BYU Bookstore and started having contractions. Everything I'd heard said you'd have contractions for days before you actually went into labor so I didn't really think anything of it . . . especially since we were supposed to be going on a church campout that night (yes, even though I was 9 months pregnant). Will wasn't due until the 27th so we thought we could fit it in. After work we drove up to the campout- but the directions were wrong so we ended up driving on bumpy, curvy mountain roads for about 2 hours. By the time we found the new directions and actually made it to the campsite my contractions were about 5 minutes apart. I thought they might stop when I got out of the car and walked around but they didn't. Bryce ate dinner and then I decided we needed to go. By the time we made it down off the mountain and back into Provo I was very uncomfortable and my contractions were every three minutes. The doctor said to go to the hospital when your contractions were three minutes apart so we stopped at the house quickly (Bryce got the carseat) and then drove up to Timpanogos Regional Hospital in Orem. When we got there the nurses decided to watch me for an hour so they hooked me up to all the monitors and after an hour said that I wasn't progressing and so they were sending me home. They told me to come back when my contractions were 2 minutes apart instead of 3. Before I left (which was at about midnight) they gave me a morphine shot. The morphine knocked me out until about 8 the next morning. When I woke up my contractions were only about every 6 minutes or so ("only"--HA!). We spent the day waiting for them to get closer and even went up to BYU campus and walked around for a distraction. By 10:30 that night (Saturday) they were back at 3 minutes apart and I was very unhappy. My back had started hurting severely by about 5 that evening and was getting worse. Bryce kept trying to talk me into going back to the hospital, but I kept telling him that they said not to come back until my contractions were 2 minutes apart and that they would just send me back home. Meanwhile my mom and little sisters had just arrived in Salt Lake and were getting their rental car to drive down to Orem. They called to tell us they were at the airport and Bryce told them we were just leaving for the hospital. I had finally given in and said we could go back because the pain was definitely outweighing the fear of being embarrassed by being sent home again.

At the hospital they checked me in (again), hooked me up to all the monitors (again) and said that I wasn't close to delivering (again). After an hour they called my doctor who (mercifully) told them I could stay this time (even though I wasn't any closer to delivering than when I went in the night before). Being officially admitted to the hospital meant I could have an epidural though. First, however, I had to have antibiotics because I had tested positive for Strep B at a prior checkup. I don't really know why, but I couldn't have an epidural until the antibiotics were in. The nurse couldn't find a vein to start an IV so after about 15 minutes of poking (which I don't remember feeling at all) she called in the head nurse who spent another 10 minutes trying to get the IV in. Once it was in they started the antibiotic drip. Once the antibiotics were finally in I had to wait for the anesthesiologist who was busy somewhere else in the hospital. All told, I finally got the epidural at about 1:30 in the morning. Shortly after that my water broke and the nurses assured me that would probably speed up the labor process (since I still wasn't anywhere close to actually having a baby---however, with the epidural in I really didn't care--I was ready to get some sleep anyways). About 10 minutes later the monitors all started beeping and the nurses came in to figure out why the baby's heartrate was dropping. They thought the monitor had just slipped off so they kept trying to adjust it and put me on oxygen just in case. The monitor was still beeping though so the nurse said she would just check me to be sure and when she did she said "OH MY GOSH PROLAPSED CORD" and then everyone started moving. She said "Call the doctor STAT STAT STAT" and nurses were running in and out of the room. Then the nurse (who was maybe a year or two older than me) looked at me and said "You're gonna have a c-section, ok." <--It wasn't a question. [Note: a prolapsed cord is when the umbilical cord slips out before the baby and each contraction squeezes it shut blocking off the baby's bloodflow...it's a lot like stepping on the garden hose. Most prolapsed cords happen with breech babies (meaning they are feet first instead of head first), but Will was head first which is very unusual] My doctor was, of course, home in bed so they had to get him to the hospital ASAP. The nurse had to try to push the baby's head up to relieve some of the pressure on the cord and they lowered the head of my bed so that gravity could help too. Even so, the baby's heartrate just kept dropping lower and lower. When the heartrate started to drop into the 50s the nurse said "I'm sorry guys, this isn't looking good" which was the first time I actually thought something bad might happen. Everything was happening so fast that I had just kind of thought "we're in the hospital, they'll take care of things." The anesthesiologist ran back in and started more meds in the epidural to get ready for the c-section. This is about the moment when my mom walked into the room with no clue of what was going on. Apparently she had decided to come to the hospital and see how things were going and walked in right after they found the prolapsed cord. I saw her and thought "they contacted my next of kin?!" because when I checked in they made me right a next of kin and said it couldn't be Bryce so I had written my mom. Doctor Gordon and Doctor Judd arrived and wheeled me into the operating room. Two nurses held up a sheet so I couldn't see anything, the doctors splashed some betadine on me, and they did a very fast c-section and pulled out Will. He was born at 2:14 am on Sunday, July 17th. I could hear the nurses thumping on him and then he started screaming. After a while a nurse showed him to me for about 1/2 second - he had gone to sleep and looked like a miniature old man - and then they whisked him off to the nursery to get an IV and some fluids in him. The nurses cleaned me up and wheeled me to a recovery room and after a while Dr. Gordon came in and said that he had set a new record tonight: from when his phone rang until when Will was born was 18 minutes! All I can say is that it was a very quick ending after being in labor for 2 days!! My doctors and nurses were excellent and we owe them for our healthy baby. Since Will was being worked on in the nursery I didn't get to see him until a little before 6 in the morning. (I'd been up all night, but it was sort of an eventful night so I didn't really notice). The same nurse who had discovered the prolapsed cord came in to check on me and asked if I had seen the baby yet. I said no so she called the nursery and they told her they would bring him in when they were done with him--which they said would be soon. About 15 minutes later they still hadn't brought him in so my nurse loaded me in a wheelchair and took me down the hall to the nursery to meet Will. (She was a very good nurse.) The nursery nurses were annoyed to see me and said "We told you we'd bring him down," but my nurse just said "Yeah, we just felt like going for a stroll so we came to see him instead." Finally by about 8 am I had been moved to a regular room and they finished with Will and brought him in to us. Bryce made some calls to tell people I wouldn't be at church and they would have to find subs for my Primary class and then we finally got some sleep! We were very thankful: - that we went back to the hospital even though my contractions still weren't 2 minutes apart (a prolapsed cord at home would have been fatal for the baby) - that I got an epidural as soon as they would give it to me (the extra time it would have taken to numb me for a c-section if I hadn't already had the epidural could have lost us our baby = it is good to be a wimp!) - for the labor and delivery nurse who found the prolapsed cord and remembered exactly what to do even though she had never seen one before...and later took me to meet Will - for Dr. Gordon and Dr. Judd --> the fastest c-sectioners in all the land and very nice too!
- for my anesthesiologist - I tell Bryce that I would have married him if I hadn't already been married...after all, he made all the pain go away instantly which was very endearing! and he was the only one I could see when they were doing the c-section and he gave me a play-by-play and described Will for me
- for the cooks at the hospital -- they had good food there! :-)

*Will turned out to be just perfect with no lasting effects from the oxygen deprivation caused by the prolapsed cord. He does not, however, have a uvula (hangy thing in the back of your throat)--but that is unrelated!! :-)
Oops- Will woke up!

R&R

So I think I have finally recovered from our vacation enough to write an update here. Not that our vacation wasn't enjoyable...it just always takes a few days to unpack and get things back in order at home. Bryce had to go to Vegas for work (BlackHat) so Will and I went with him. The conference was Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and then we headed to California and returned this past Sunday evening. Some highlights: (pic 1: Will and me in front of window in our room at the Flamingo)

-Bryce's work put us up at the Flamingo (not Caesar's Palace as we originally believed). Let's just say you know it's going to be outdated when the website touts the hotel as "an anchor of the strip since we first started rolling dice in 1947." Now it did appear to have been updated however...in approximately 1965. Orange carpet is never a good idea. Orange carpet with yellow bamboo on it is an even worse idea.

- The first morning in the Flamingo I pulled back the curtains and found dirty clothes. A little disturbed by the presence of dirty clothes in my supposedly cleaned room I called and asked for housekeeping to come. (I was on my way out and wanted them to turn over the room while I was gone since I wasn't planning on being gone for very long...also I wanted them to remove the clothes.) Here is my conversation with the annoyed-sounding housekeeping lady after being on hold for over 15 minutes just waiting to talk to someone:
Me: Hi, I was just calling to request housekeeping.
Them: For what?....like to turn over your room?
Me: Yes..and also there were some dirty clothes on the floor of our room when we arrived
Them: Well are they your clothes? (sounding very annoyed)
Me: Nooo...they are NOT my clothes...they were here when we arrived. (Thinking: Yes, clearly I put my dirty clothes on the floor and would now like housekeeping to come pick them up for me)
Them: Can you hold?
holding approximately 7 minutes
Them: Hello? (I think they were hoping I'd hang up)
Me: Yes
Them: Security is going to have to come get the clothes
Me: Well I was on my way out. They are on the bed with a note.
Them: Maam you have to be in the room for security to come.
Me: Can I just put them in the hall or something? I was just leaving.
Them: Can you hold?
holding approximately another 7 minutes
Them: Hello
Me: Yes. (unfortunately for you I'm still here)
Them: Maam security can not come in the room without you being present and you CAN NOT put them in the hall.
(* Now please explain to me why every housekeeping person under the sun has full access to my room, but security absolutely can not enter?)
Me: (more than a little annoyed--mostly because the woman is saying everything so disgustedly like I'm really bothering her) Well maybe I will just put them in the garbage and forget I called. I am on my way out. They are not my clothes. I do not care about them. They were in the room when I arrived which frankly is kind of gross.
Them: Maam I understand that they are not your clothes. They must have been left by a previous guest. Security will have to come get them.
(*No maam I don't think you understand...they were OBVIOUSLY left by a previous guest and your cleaning of the room apparently did not entail removing them...THAT is the problem)
Me: Well I don't have time to bother with this now.
Them: (all sugary sweet all the sudden) Oh of course not maam...just call security whenever it is convenient for you.

- So I went out shopping with Will and when I returned in 2 hours the clothes were gone and the room was cleaned....which is clearly a miracle since security HAD to get them and COULD NOT come in my room without me.

- Will found every disgusting little bit of stuff in the hotel room - including dead bugs, a cheeto, several "made in china" stickers...all of which I pulled from his mouth

- The pirate show in front of Treasure Island has been changed. It now features "a pirate ship seduced by a boatload of sexy sirens" = terrible dance numbers performed by women in bikinis who must have been too old to be strippers or something. Definitely glad we dragged Will out and stayed up late to catch that.

Now for the real highlights:

- I think Will out-ate both me and Bryce at the hotel buffet. He was still eating pieces of cantaloupe and watermelon and rolls after Bryce and I were finished. Kids under 3 eat free--- Ha! They didn't see Will coming!

- Will's trick of the week was waving. He suddenly learned how to rotate his wrist and developed this perfect little parade wave. Sometimes he waves with one hand and sometimes with both. We'd push him down the strip in his stroller and whenever we passed someone he'd give a big grin and wave.

- We took Will to the hotel pool which he loooved. The first day I took him he played for about 45 minutes and then fell asleep while we were still in the water. Bryce took him the last night we were there. Bryce put his sunglasses on Will and Will actually left them there. Will was wearing his little swim trunks and no shirt and these big sunglasses and waving at everyone he saw. He had a fan club of his own by the time we left. There were no other babies around so he got lots of attention. I wish I had a picture, but we didn't bring the camera down to the pool. You will just have to picture it. He is a little flirt.

- Lauren and I went to the Ethel M chocolate factory. The best part is the free sample of your choosing at the end. Will did even better though, he got three free samples because all of the different ladies working gave him one. Unfortunately, I stuck them in the side pocket of the diaper bag, forgot about them, and they melted and got on Lauren's shorts.

After Vegas we headed for California. We took a ferry to Catalina Island which turned out to be a very expensive form of transportation to a few touristy shops. Bryce did go snorkeling twice though and said there were lots of fish. Luckily it doesn't appear that Will got his mom's aversion to all forms of travel. He loved the boat- unlike his mom who was seriously in danger of throwing up. (pic 2: Will trying to grab the camera as I try to take his picture on the "beach" (aka rocks) on Catalina)


We took Will to Huntington Beach. He like playing in and eating the sand. He also liked crawling along the edge of the water until a rogue wave came and knocked him over. He crawled over to another baby and was doing his excited "hello" screech, but the other baby wasn't so interested. I doused Will in sunscreen and kept a close eye on him and thought he was well protected, but when I changed him into pajamas hours later his little back was totally red. Bad parents. (pic 3: Will and Dad at Huntington Beach)

On Saturday we drove back to Utah and stayed with Stacy and Angie and family in St. George. Will loved having other kids and new toys to play with and explored the whole house. I think he was a little too excited though because he would not sleep at all that night. I got up with him four separate times and couldn't get him to calm down.

On Sunday we went to church, said happy birthday to Cameron (Bryce's cousin-- now 13) and drove back home. Will did very well in the car on the way home. He seems to like the car better now that he faces forward and can see out.

Unfortunately we didn't take many pictures...it seemed like we could either enjoy ourselves or add a camera bag to the stuff we were already carting around (diaper bag, purse, stroller, Will) and then worry about taking pictures.

This week has mostly involved trying to get things unpacked and catching up on sleep. Will came down with a cold right after we got back and then Bryce got it and then I got it so no one has felt like doing much. Will is beginning to take more and more steps. Yesterday he took 6 steps over to Bryce. He usually only walks when diving for something though. He wants to get somewhere so he takes a few steps while diving forward at me or Bryce or whatever he was trying to get to. I don't think he realizes that he could just keep walking.

Drum Roll Please

Today Will crawled into the kitchen, stood up without holding on to anything, took 3 steps as if he's been walking for years and then apparently decided it was much too slow and went back to crawling. Won't be long now folks!
{Picture is from last weekend's camping trip}

Sugar Fiend

Today Will got into the candy jar. This is not unusual. In fact he does it multiple time every day. Usually he is mostly interested in the lid to the jar which he carries off somewhere whenever he gets the chance. Sometimes he empties out the contents of stale candy and throws them around the living room. Today, however, he discovered that the contents of the candy jar are (at least to some degree) edible. I was loading the dishwasher when I heard him pull the lid off of the jar in the other room. Then all was quiet for a minute or two. I went to see what he was up to and discovered him happily chewing on the end of a sour gummy worm. When I tried to take it away he turned into devil child - screaming with huge eyes and his mouth wide open and both arms thrown up in the air. So I let him have it for a while longer while I got the camera. (Yes, I know I'm setting an excellent precedent here.) Thus, today's pics are of Will emptying the candy jar...and even standing up by himself in one. {PS: He's not wearing clothes because I had just finished giving him a bath....ok he doesn't wear clothes all the time anyways, but that was the reason for this particular moment} I was rather impressed with the progress he made on the gummy worm-- I wouldn't have thought it was possible to eat one just by sucking on it.

I turned on some music this morning and Will did his little dance routine where he sits on his knees and then kind of bops up and down with his arms up. He only does it to the first song on my mix CD which is odd because it is "Angels Among Us"...not exactly a get up and move kind of song. He sometimes does it to the music on commercials too. I tried to get some video of it, but by the time I got the camcorder out he had moved on to ripping pages out of a Reader's Digest.

Today all Will would eat was graham crackers. Apple sauce? No. Bread with cheese melted on it? No. Drink of water? No. Everything else I tried? No. Only graham crackers. He acted so disgusted everytime I tried to give him something else. He would stick out his tongue, clench his mouth shut, close his eyes, and shake his head violently back and forth while hitting at me with both arms. He acts like I'm trying to poison him with apple sauce...which he usually loves.

I've been trying to get him to drink out of a sippy cup, but he shows no interest. I have purchased 2 different kinds of sippy cups and they are the only things I have ever come across that he won't put in his mouth. Bryce's cousin's stepbrother's wife (got that?) recommended taking off the no-spill valve until Will figures out that the liquid comes out and then learns to suck on it so I've tried that the last 2 days. He still has no interest in drinking out of the cup, but does highly enjoy dumping out all the water on his highchair tray.

Yesterday night we took Will to an Orem Owlz baseball game with the neighbors. I don't think he noticed there was a baseball game going on. We sat on the grass hill by third base and he spent the whole evening crawling up and down the hill. Dad let him have some popcorn which he enjoyed. All in all it was much better than the last (and only other) Owlz game we went to when we had free "premium seat" tickets from Bryce's work and spent the whole game trying to keep a hold of Will.

Camping and other firsts

We took Will on his first camping trip this weekend. I enjoyed actually being able to sit in the passenger seat instead of in the back now that Will can face forward. Will enjoyed wearing my sunglasses (see pic). We drove up into the Uintas and finally found a place off in the woods because all of the "improved" camping facilities were full. It was a nice spot except for the mosquitoes and drunkards who pulled in next to us and blasted their music all night while becoming progressively more drunk and more loud and obnoxious. Will didn't seem to mind, however, he went right to sleep and was the last one up in the morning (I'm not sure that has ever happened before). He seemed to particularly enjoy staring at the campfire, but was frustrated that I wouldn't let him get down and crawl around in the dirt. He liked playing in the tent (see pic)...until he realized I wasn't in there with him (see other pic!). I think he will turn out to be a little outdoorsman because he was fascinated by everything he saw and didn't even mind the cold weather at night.

On Saturday we took Will to the city pool for his first swimming trip. We didn't bring the camera since we wouldn't have anywhere to put it, but I wish I had some pictures because he loved it. They had a kids' area which gradually sloped downward to a maximum depth of about 2 feet and had fountains and slides and things. Will kept crawling straight into the deeper water until it was over his mouth at which point I would pluck him out and he would scream in frustration because he wanted down. The whole not being able to breath part didn't seem to bother him. He was also busy making friends and would head straight for the nearest kid or grown-up and give his usual greeting: an ear-piercing shriek that scares other small children. After a while in the kid pool we took him over to the big pool. We would pass him back and forth between us so that he could "swim" and he loved it. As soon as one of us grabbed him he would turn around and stretch out the other direction ready to go again. If we tried to just hold him he would kick and push to get away. When I held him up by his belly he would move his arms and legs like he was trying to crawl and seemed frustrated that he wasn't going anywhere. He seemed to think we were spoiling all the fun by not letting go of him. He is definitely not a shy child!

At church today he was wild as always. Bryce brought him to me in the nursery for the last hour where he terrorized the three year-olds by snatching their snacks whenever I put him down and stuffing them in his mouth until one little boy screamed "Get that baby away from me!"

Instant Replay

So I somehow managed to NOT take any pictures of Will eating his birthday cake. I'd been taking pictures all day and at cake time Bryce had the video camera out and for some reason it didn't occur to me that he wasn't taking pictures with the video camera. So we had no other option than to let him re-do the whole birthday cake thing yesterday night (he didn't seem to mind). The second time looked pretty much identical to the first, although he seemed sort of overwhelmed with the idea of stuffing his face with cake two nights in a row (see pic). Cleanup required TWO tubs of water because there was chocolate everywhere, including up his nose and in his ears. Yum.

--> Will: lover of the written word....it's delicious.


--> Who could resist that?! Will at the submarine base wrapped up in Mollie's sweatshirt because it was freezing.



Will is currently passed out on the carpet with a bottle in the family room. This is his version of a nap- we take what we can get with him. Napping is not his strong point. Too much to do!

I had Will upstairs today while I talked on the phone and he discovered that there was air coming up out of the floor vents. He kept opening his mouth wide and then lowering his head over the vent and smacking his lips like he was eating the cold air. He also spent quite a bit of time today trying to eat my toes. I was barefoot and he kept trying to suck on my toes and when I moved them away he would laugh hysterically and come crawling over and do it again. Repeated about 500 times. He certainly has a weird sense of humor.

One Year New!

Yesterday was Will's first birthday! Since I never got around to writing down all the adventures of his first year in an actual baby book I've decided to keep track of things here. Maybe I'll catch up on the last year at some point, but for now I better just start with today.

Will's first birthday was a momentous occasion for several reasons...one being that we finally turned his carseat around from rear-facing to front-facing. Will seemed to enjoy the new view on the way to Wal-Mart. Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Mollie and Aunt Meg sent him a card which he highly enjoyed...he spent the ride to Wal-Mart picking off pieces of the card and eating them. At the store we picked up some stuff for Will's birthday cake and then headed over to the toy aisle to pick out something with the money Grandma sent him. We eventually decided upon a metal dump truck and a little keyboard. {I almost tripped some annoying kids that were riding the display bicycles up and down the aisle while screaming "move it" to me, but refrained mostly because I was afraid druggy mom might come around the corner and see me.} When we got up to the register I discovered a plastic dinosaur in the cart under Will which apparently he wanted so he got that too. (It was only 88 cents and it was his birthday after all!)

Some of the neighbors, Uncle Kyle, and Doug, Jo, and Sophia came over for cake and ice cream in the evening. Will wasn't sure what to do with his cupcake at first and tentatively picked off a piece of frosting to test things out. He must have decided he liked it though because his next move was to stuff the whole thing in his mouth. We opened presents after Will got a bath. Grandma said to buy Will a truck or something "meant to be pushed around on the floor" which is what he does with everything so I complied and bought him the aforementioned metal dump truck. Will did indeed push it around the floor...however, he didn't see any need for it to be taken out of the box first. Once I took it out of the box he was thrilled to find that it made a loud noise every time he rammed it into the glass sliding doors in the family room. Will ended the evening conked out on the family room floor with a bottle.

Today Will had his one year check-up at the doctor's office. His usual doctor didn't have any available appointments this month so he was seen by a physician's assistant. I was standing up and holding Will and trying to keep Will calm while the P.A. talked to me and asked me questions to make sure Will was normal. Will was playing with a plastic straw that he's been carrying around for days. Somehow while the P.A. was talking to me Will managed to poke himself in the eye with the straw and make his eyeball bleed (didn't know this was possible). Will screamed bloody murder for the next 15 minutes and the P.A. had to come over and check out his eye with his little light. I was rather embarrassed. Will had to get 3 shots so he didn't particularly enjoy his visit either.

Here are Will's stats from today's visit:
Weight: 21 lb 2 oz
Height: 31.1 inch
Head circumference: 47.2 cm

Will isn't walking yet, but he stands on his own whenever he wants to see something. Sometimes if there is music on he stands up and stretches his arms up and closes his eyes and bends his knees and does this funny dance kind of thing. He looks like a tv evangelist. Will is desperate to get at the keyboard so here is a message from him:
[p TYVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV T