Happy (belated) Birthday Boys, but not you Boy Scout

Alert! Do not attempt to read this entire post unless you have a.) 2 hours of free time with nothing better to do b.) severe insomnia c.) a fetish for long boring blog posts or d.) some kind of craziness like the child pictured below.

The weekend after getting back from Connecticut we headed to southern Utah for Bryce's family reunion at which the boys got to ride a horse. Some of the boys enjoyed it more than others.


Both my boys are one year older...and maybe a little wiser too. Will and Sawyer are 2 years and 2 days apart. We were spared from having back to back birthdays thanks (ha!) to a doctor who gave me enough drugs to delay labor just enough that Sawyer wasn't born until 2 in the morning on the next day. So we get one day off in between birthday celebrations.

We told Will that he could choose where he went to dinner on his birthday and he, of course, chose Chuck E. Cheese. In the morning he helped me make muffins--or "nuffins" as he calls them. Then I had to take Sawyer to BYU for Part II of the study he was in (more on that later). After BYU Will requested to go to the library so we stopped in there and Will proceeded to grab every book within arm's reach. There was absolutely no discrimination in his book snatching. Thus, we ended up with about half of his selections in Spanish and a book about getting ready for baby. The Spanish books might be alright except Bryce makes fun of me for trying to read them with my French pronunciations. Will also ended up with The Potty Book for Boys which is his new favorite. We read The Potty Book for Boys about ten times a day. Number of times Will uses the potty in a day = zero. He completely understands the concept, and knows full well that he is supposed to use the potty, he just doesn't feel like doing it. Instead he prefers to do things like pee on the entertainment center...which I found out about when he told me "Mom, I peed on the entertainment center! Look!" and yes, yes he had. He is also fond of telling me things like "Mom, I went stinky in my underwear. You need to change me." Sorry to gross you out. I write this for posterity's sake...or blackmail...depending on how things turn out. We have tried the whole reward system. He just plain doesn't care. Have you ever seen the show John and Kate Plus Eight? When they were potty training their three boys they gave them a mini-M&M every time they used the potty. One mini-M&M. I can't even explain how not motivated my child would be by a nearly invisible piece of chocolate. I can't understand why not because we definitely do not eat chocolate very often in our house. I mean, I have never found my child hiding under the high chair with a half-consumed king-size chocolate bar that he found who knows where because if I had known where it was it would have been gone a long time before.

Back to Will's birthday. While at the library, the kind library lady informed us that they would be starting a puppet show outside in ten minutes. So we checked out our books and went outside. When the show started they asked if it was anyone's birthday and then they sang Happy Birthday to Will...leading Will to believe that the entire puppet show was staged in honor of his birthday. Which I let him believe, because hey who is it hurting if I take a little credit for the birthday puppet show?

When Bryce got home we went to Chuck E. Cheese with my mom and my cousin Melissa and her daughter Chloe who were staying with us that week. This time Will was really into the games. The last time we were there (after the Bar Exam) he only wanted to play in the playground and go on the rides. This time it was all about the games. He especially liked skee ball. Will fell asleep in the car on the way home, but we woke him up because as luck would have it the ice cream truck was going by our house right as we pulled in the driveway. So Grandma bought him an orange ice cream since orange is his favorite color. We came inside and sang to him and let him blow out his candles and open presents. He had no interest in his cake and no one else really wanted any either so we just put it away and saved it for later. Well actually Sawyer really, really wanted some cake but I made him wait for his birthday.Here is Chloe at Chuck E. Cheese (above, not below, below is a boy contrary to the opinion of the waiter at the restaurant last week).
Should it disturb me that the first thing my child did upon arrival at Chuck E. Cheese was run over and grab a shot gun and cock it? Because it does.

So back to the study at BYU for a moment. I got a phone call from the BYU infant and development lab and they asked me if I would bring Sawyer in for a two part study on infants who have been determined to be exceptionally gifted. Just kidding. It was just a study on 1 year-olds. I had to take him in two days in a row for 15 minutes each. The second day I had Will with me because they had assured me that there would be people to watch him, but as it turned out there weren't people to watch him so they said he had to come in the testing room with us but that he couldn't make any noise. Riiiiggghhhttt. Will doesn't believe in quiet so he made a great deal of noise and Sawyer spent the whole time looking at him instead of the video he was supposed to be watching. After a while they announced that the test was over and let us leave...but I highly suspect those test results were going in the garbage. Oh well.

The following day Bryce had a work party at Boondocks Family Fun Center where Megan and Chad are working for the summer. They got off duty right when we got there so they bought passes and joined us for the evening. Will really wanted to go on the bumper boats so we waited in line and then right when it was our turn someone on one of the boats sprayed us and he refused to go on. So we got out of line and went and stood in the go cart line instead. Once again, when it was our turn he got nervous about the noise and didn't want to go, but Bryce took him anyways and he ended up loving it. He wasn't technically tall enough to ride as a passenger, but he was pretty close so Chad talked to the supervisor and got permission for him to go. Then we played a round of miniature golf and then we went home.

The next day was Saturday and Sawyer's birthday. We had a cookout up the canyon with my mom, Megan, Chad, Kyle, Melissa, Chloe, my cousin Liz, and my Aunt Karen and Aunt Joyce (who were in town for my grandma's funeral). We brought a little cake for Sawyer and we also brought Will's cake with us since no one had taken even a bite yet. Will was unimpressed with the idea that it was anyone's birthday besides his own. When we got Sawyer's cake out Will started singing "Happy Birthday to Will" over and over. Unfortunately, as soon as Sawyer saw Will's cake he became obsessed with getting his hands on it and had no interest in his own puny cake and much crying ensued. Sawyer reached out and touched his cake and got frosting on his fingers and then totally flipped out. I tried to put a piece in his mouth to show him that he would like it, but he threw a total tantrum and never even had a taste of his own birthday cake. I think the week had been a little too festive for his taste. Will, of course, "helped" Sawyer open his presents and then "showed him how to do it" i.e. Sawyer saw only a fleeting glimpse of all of his toys before Will absconded with them. Will got Hot Wheel Crashers, the Penguin Race, a Lightning McQueen towel and ball, and a kiddy swimming pool for his birthday. My mom gave him Mary Poppins and The Wizard of Oz on dvd because he watched them at her house over the summer. The Wizard of Oz came in a collector's set with Goonies and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I told Will that those two movies might be a little scary for him now so he keeps telling people that "when he gets a little older he can watch Goonies and Chocolate Factory." Sawyer got a car garage (he always wants to play with Will's and Will won't let him touch it), some clothes, and a giant dump truck.

Will wearing the "party clothes" Megan made him. It is kind of a long story. Just check out Maisy's Amazing Book of Words the next time you are at the library and you will be mostly in the know.

Will had his friends birthday party a week later. He had four kids from the neighborhood over which was just the right number. It was incredibly hot and we do not have a speck of shade in our yard. We set up some kiddy pools and a sprinkler and bubbles and called it Lightning McQueen's car wash because Will requested a Lightning McQueen party and I am not very creative and couldn't think of things for 3 year olds to do. Even with the water the poor kids were boiling!

Sawyer was sick all of last week. He had a fever for 4 days so I took him to the doctor's office and waited an hour before asking how much longer it would be and discovering that there was some miscommunication and they had never marked down my arrival and the doctor had gone home. Frustration. Luckily they had another doctor there who was able to see us and looked Sawyer over, swabbed his throat for strep, determined that he did not have strep, and told us it was most likely just a virus and to wait for it to go away. I knew that was what they would tell me and I would have skipped the trip to the doctor's and saved myself $20 and 2 hours of time if I hadn't been nagged by guilt for three days that he might actually have something wrong with him and I was just letting him suffer. The next day the fever was gone, but he had a lovely rash all over him that just went away today. I have to take him back to the doctor's tomorrow for his 1 year check-up. Will also has his 3 year check-up tomorrow. So that should make for a fun time since they'll both be getting shots.

I think that pretty much brings us up to date. Some random extras...
- Yesterday we drove by the local high school and Will declared "That is England. Aunt Mollie is in England. There are scary guys in England. Aunt Mollie likes scary guys." Aunt Mollie is in fact in England...the second part is possibly true too.
- The other day Will went upstairs to my bedroom. I asked him "What are you doing Will?" He said, "I needed to show the Roomba something, but he didn't follow me."
- I got the movie The Red Balloon for my birthday and Will and I watched it for the first time a couple days ago. Surprisingly, Will watched the whole thing and he burst out in tears when the boy popped the balloon at the end.
- Will told me that he needed to use the computer to "pay his bills and e-mail his friend." I asked who his friend was and he said "Aunt Mollie" (he really misses Aunt Mollie). I was letting him type a comment on Aunt Mollie's blog and all of the sudden he says "Uh oh. Um. I've got some bad news here guys!" I said "What happened?" and looked over and saw that he was now on the Firefox home page. He said "Um. I was typing and I clicked on something and it transformed."
- I heard Will telling Sawyer the other day that something was "NOT appropriate." It went something like this, "Sawyer, don't throw toys...that is NOT appropriate Sawyer!"
- Bryce put Will in time out for something and Will kept screaming "This is really not fun!"...then I put him to bed later and he was whining and told me "This is really not fun Mom. I'm miserable." He has a tendency to be a little dramatic.
- Will has started saying "actually" about 2 times per sentence. He tells me things like "Actually Mom, I actually do like chicken nuggets."
- Will says "amn't" as a contraction of "am not"...like "Will you are being awfully bossy." "NO I AMN'T!"
- Sawyer says "Ah!" So Sawyer doesn't really say much. I'm sure he's gifted in other ways.
- Like standing for instance. He now stands up for long periods of time and he broke his own record today by taking 4 steps in a row.
- Sawyer fell asleep in a sad little heap against the bathroom door while I was showering.

The pictures are with my new fancy-dancy camera that I finally bought after not buying it in NYC. I have no clue how to use it, but it is fun anyways. Oh yes, speaking of NYC...if you recall reading about how Bryce had to go to the emergency room in Connecticut and spoil all of our night-without-kids fun...he got an e-mail a couple days after we got home informing him that it had been determined that the water supply at Scout Camp had been contaminated during the time he was there (2 days before going to Connecticut) and that anyone who had become ill should be tested for e.coli and giardia. Thank you Boy Scouts of America!



While out to lunch the other day, some random people told me that my son (this one) "looks exactly like" me. I wasn't sure what to say...."thank you"?