Leaves, temperatures, Will, and other things that fall

Pictures as promised: When I originally posted this blog entry I said I would try to add some pictures so I am finally doing it. Both are of Will being silly (not a rare event). For two days Will insisted upon wearing my sweatshirt at all times- including to bed.

It appears from each member's respective blog entry that my family is enamored with fall. I suppose it is impossible to grow up in New England and not pine for pumpkins and crunchy leaves and brightly colored foliage at this time of year. Have you ever noticed that even before the actual daily temperatures start to plunge you can feel something different in the air marking the end of summer? It is the same way in the spring. The high temperature will be 50 degrees for 5 days in a row, but WHAM on one of those days all of the sudden you can just feel that the undercurrent in the air has changed from wintery cold to spring-time warmth (or from summer heat to autumn cool). All without the actual temperature changing at all. Why is that? Maybe it is the way the air smells as much as anything else. The fall always smells like wood smoke and the spring smells like things growing.

We took Will to a puppet show at the library last night. The group has supposedly been performing for 10 years...but I'm quite confident that if handed a puppet I could have ad-libbed a more entertaining show. It was..well...boring. And not just to parents. Will was bored after 30 seconds. I do appreciate the performers' willingness to come put on a show most likely for free on a Monday night after spending all day at what I imagine are probably boring run-of-the-mill jobs...but...well...it was boring. There was a group of mentally challenged adults there and we should have given them our seats because they were seated off to the side and we (thanks to arriving 40 minutes early and waiting in line) were front and center. They found the show HI-larious. Which just makes you wonder about what in our brains tells us what is funny and what isn't and why would something like Downs Syndrome have such a profound effect on that?

Yesterday Will was looking through the junk mail with me. First he saw an ad with a photograph of a house on it. He pointed at it and said "That's TLC." (I have a weakness for the design and home improvement shows on that channel). Then he saw an ad with a photograph of a woman on it. She was a realtor, but Will decided she was a doctor and kept pointing at her and saying "Doctor" followed by something longer over and over. Finally he said it clear enough for me to understand and here is what he was saying: "Ask your doctor if it is right for you!" Hmmm...I didn't think he really paid attention when I had the tv on in the afternoons...but apparently he picks up on more than I thought! Besides his "Cars" movie, Will really doesn't watch a ton of tv, but I will admit that I frequently have it on in the afternoon for something to listen to while I pick up all of the junk that Will spent the morning getting out.

Will has a new technique for trying to get out of trouble. Every time I reprimand him he gives me a huge grin and says "Smile! Smile Mommy!" over and over.

Will is currently playing under his Thomas the Tank Engine tent. He has it folded over into a little pup tent shape and is playing with cars. Whenever he wants something from a different part of the family room he crawls over to it bringing the tent with him. It looks like a giant Thomas colored hermit crab or something.

A few days ago it was kind of stormy out and at about 2 in the afternoon Will came over to me and put his arms around my neck and said "Kind of dark out Mommy." I said "Yep, it's kind of cloudy" and he responded "Night-night..time for a nap!" This was surprising since Will usually tries to get out of naps so I asked "Are you ready for a nap?" Will yelled "No! Mommy take a nap!" He was trying to put me down for a nap. I would have gladly taken one too, but I didn't think it was a good idea to leave Will in charge of Sawyer! :-)

I asked Will if he wanted to go for a walk yesterday morning and he said "No. Too many mosquitoes!" I blame the mosquitoes (which really are terrible) whenever I don't want him to go outside and now he is using it on me to.

Will calls the electric can-opener the "can-open-it" which seems accurate enough.

Here is a catalog of Will's current injuries:
- series of bruises on his lower back: He was trying to climb up the shelves in the closet to get something I didn't want him to have and fell off and landed on a metal popcorn tin that I keep toys in
- scratch across his stomach: unknown origin
- huge goose-egg on the side of his head: Will was running around one of the classrooms after church and stepped on the picture he had drawn in nursery that was on the floor. He fell and conked his head really hard. He started crying, but it was a weird noise that didn't really sound like him. Bryce picked him up and all of the sudden he stopped making noise and his eyes rolled back into his head. After about 5 seconds he started crying again. I ran into the hall and was lucky enough to immediately come across the nurse practitioner in our ward who told us to test his pupils with a flashlight, not let him fall asleep for a long time, and keep a good eye on him--he appears to be fine.
- bruise under his left eye: fell and hit the arm of the couch
- bruise on his right cheek: Sawyer was asleep in the swing this morning and Will couldn't handle the fact that he was sleeping and went over to try to wake him up. He was yelling "Wake up, wake up!" and grabbed the side of the swing knocking it over onto himself and throwing baby Sawyer face first on the floor.

Will also fell off a kitchen chair this morning and landed in Sawyer's car seat (after I told him that he needed to get down before he got hurt a million times), but I don't think that one left any marks.

I will have to find a picture to add to this, but Sawyer woke up so I will just post this sans photos for now.