Will's Big Day Out

Will saw an ad in the paper the other day for the Big Day out with Thomas on the Heber Valley Railroad and suddenly he was the world's biggest Thomas fan. He has seen the show on tv a few times and he likes trains in general, but he suddenly decided that he LOVES Thomas the Tank Engine. Sooo we gave in and paid the exorbitant prices for Will to go ride Thomas. Actually we didn't have to pay for Will at all since he is still under 2, but Mom and Day had to pay $20 each for the pleasure of taking him. Even though Mom and Dad felt it was kind of a rip off I think that Will had about as much fun as an almost-2-year-old can have.

We prepared for the excitement by taking some Thomas books out of the library...which Mom is wishing she hadn't done because she has read them each about 50 times and is afraid Will is going to be traumatized when they have to go back to the library.

We spent the morning shopping at the outlets in Park City and Will got a bunch of new clothes thanks to the sales at the Children's Place Outlet. The new baby also benefitted from a few new things to enjoy in addition to Will's hand-me-downs.

Will fell asleep in the car when we drove down to Heber and we woke him up in time to see Thomas pulling back into the station. He was pretty excited when the train got closer and he realized that it was "Thomas!"...he says this in a high-pitched voice that gets even higher on the last syllable. The other activities proved to be on the lame side, but Will still had fun looking at a few animals, playing with a train set (when the bigger kids weren't pushing him out of the way), getting a balloon monkey, and getting temporary tattoos of Harold the Helicopter and Thomas on his arms. He had to sleep with his pajama sleeves rolled up last night so that he could see Thomas and the helicopter...which for some reason he calls "Chuck".

Finally it was time for the big Thomas ride. Will had a pretty serious look on his face the whole time. I think he was having a hard time taking everything in. Thus, the pictures aren't very smiley, but I think he really was having fun because every once in a while he'd laugh and let out a squeal.

After the train ride we drove home and went over to a neighbors for a barbeque and Will had fun playing with the other kids. By the time we got home it was late and I tried to get Will to sleep, but he was way too excited. He wouldn't stop talking about "Thomas--helicopter--monkey--train--conductor--ride." It is funny because he doesn't talk in sentences yet so he just lists off words related to whatever he is thinking about. Thomas combined with the fact that he was wearing new pajamas from the outlets with race cars on them and he had a lot to say! He kept talking for about 45 minutes before finally dozing off . . . only to wake up about an hour later with more to say. Then he woke up about 5 more times during the night talking about Thomas until about 4 a.m. when he woke up screaming for "Milk!!!!" Usually I don't give in to feeding at night, but it occurred to me that with all the excitement he really hadn't eaten much during the day so Dad finally went and got him some milk and then he fell back asleep until 11:30 in the morning. He woke up talking about Thomas and we had to read all of his Thomas books multiple times today and I let him skip his bath because he is so interested in his tattoos and shows them to everyone he sees. So I guess his Big Day Out was a success!

The other pictures are from Will's trip to southern Utah right after my graduation. It just so happened that Bryce's younger sister and her husband and some friends were visiting from London that same weekend so Bryce took Will down to visit family while I stayed up north and visited with my family before they had to go back home to Connecticut. The longest I have ever been away from Will before was 8 hours when I went to an all-day mediation training so 3 days was quite the trip! Will got to ride a pony. The band-aids are because of some nasty mosquito bites he got and kept scratching. In one of the pics Will is clearly hamming it up for someone else's picture.

Freedom!

All I can say is that if I had known how nice it would be to just have to worry about taking care of Will and not having to deal with school at the same time-- I would have stopped going to school a long time ago! Of course, I'm sure after a few months I will be wishing I had a reason to get out of the house on a regular basis, but for now it is summer and the livin' is easy.

Our camera battery is dead and I can't find the charger so I haven't gotten any new pics in a while. I discovered it was dead the other day when Will stole the box of Q-tips from my bathroom and ran off into his room and behind the rocking chair (his never-fail hiding place). I ignored him and after a minute he walked back into my bedroom with a Q-tip sticking out of each ear. He had to check himself out in the mirror for about 10 minutes. He is always up to something.

The last few weeks Will has developed an intense phobia of bugs--which he pronounces more like "boogs". I think the bug fear has led to his obsession with q-tips because he knows that q-tips are for ears and for some reason he thinks there are bugs in his ears. I think he had a cold which made his ears hurt and he determined it was caused by bugs because he kept pulling at his ears and saying "boogs, boogs" and trying to get the q-tips. The cold has mostly gone away, but he is still paranoid about bugs. The other day he walked into the family room and started screaming "Boogs!!" so I went to check on him and sure enough he was keeping track of a spider walking across the carpet. He was convinced that the brown specks on his Doritos were bugs too. (Heh- maybe he was right- we all just like to tell ourselves they are spices.) He saw a freckle on my arm the other day and was very concerned...he kept pointing at it and saying "Bug!" "Bite!".

It is funny to see him figuring out how the world works and seeing his little brain in action. He has also determined lately that certain things are "scary". For instance, in his Richard Scarry word book there is a drawing of a fox driving a truck and he loves to look at the book, but for some reason he always announces that the fox is "scary"--and I have to admit it has kind of a creepy fox grin on its face. We went to a barbeque for a friend's birthday on Sunday and Bryce and the birthday boy got in a water fight which also freaked Will out. He just started bawling and we couldn't figure out what was the matter until he calmed down enough to sob "Daddy. Scary!" I think he thought they were actually fighting and it worried him.

Not only is the world more scary these days, it is a lot more dangerous. This is my own fault because I tell him constantly that most of his favorite activities are dangerous. "No Will! Licking the end of that electrical cord and then trying to stick it in an outlet is DANGEROUS!" or "No Will! Opening the oven while mommy is baking something is DANGEROUS!" or "No Will! Running away from mommy and into the street is DANGEROUS!" or "No Will! Climbing on top of the stool and then trying to stand up and reach for something 3 feet away is DANGEROUS!"-- and those were all just from yesterday. Of course, knowing that something is dangerous doesn't actually prevent him from doing it. For example, everytime he tries to climb on our kitchen stools he says to himself the whole time "No, no, no, dangerous, hurt!" I did have a rather proud moment the other day, however, when he was playing in the driveway and his ball rolled into the street and instead of chasing it he started yelling "Street! Dangerous!!" and then ran over to me. Maybe he will survive toddlerhood after all. I think he invents 8 new possible ways of killing himself every day.

The other day I was in the bathroom and I could hear some muffled screaming so I went looking for Will and quickly discovered that he was in his closet with the door closed. I opened the door to rescue him, but he just stopped crying, looked at me for a second, stood up and said "Close this!" and then pulled the door closed again...and started screaming again. We repeated this strange game about 10 times in a row before I went and got the video camera which then proved much more interesting than his weird game. I guess he was just having fun pretending to be terrified, but he had real tears rolling down his face!

Speaking of bathrooms--Will has gone on his potty 6 times! Wowsers. He is so proud of himself everytime. He is motivated by toilet paper. I tell him he can only use toilet paper if he goes potty--so he does and then is so pleased when I give him a square of toilet paper. You're living the high life now kid! The potty usage is only about once a day, but it has gone smoothly so far except for an incident the other night that involved a huge mess of bodily fluids and waste products all over the bathroom. Eeeewwww. If only my law school peers could see me now. I filled out a survey on Westlaw today about my post-graduation plans...only problem was that there was no option that really applied. My choices were: I have a law-related job; I have a non-law related job; I don't have a job yet, but am looking for a law-related job; or I don't have a job yet, but am looking for a non-law-related job. I thought to myself "Hmm....where is the option for "I don't have a job, I'm not looking for a job, but I would like to know the best method for convincing my child that it is not funny to run away from the potty and then pee in mommy's shoe." (Part of what occurred during the above mentioned incident).

Since I don't have any pictures that actually relate to this post I will try to find something to put on here anyways just to add some visual interest. Pics: #1 Will wearing Easter bunny ears--he wasn't into posing for a picture. #2 Will's birth announcement. He used to be so small...and uncrazy!