Summer 08

Time to wrap up the summer!
Will is now taking Tae Kwon Do lessons twice a week. He argues with me about getting ready every single time but he does enjoy the class itself. He has good instructors, he is the youngest in the class right now, and he is paying attention pretty well.
His mouth and face continue to grow and now his baby teeth look like just that. Baby teeth! It seems we'll be entering the land of gaps & tooth fairy visits within the year!
He and AJ share a room, which works sometimes. He comes to wake me up if AJ is crying and I don't come soon enough. Since the baby monitor broke recently, that is about every morning! Will loves to finish his morning sleep in our bed, snuggled up with Daddy.
I think Will's hearing is a bit more sensitive than normal. He doesn't like loud TV shows, loud songs, AJ crying or even loud talking. He often covers his ears when a "loud" part comes on during a movie. I say loud in quotations because it's not really loud at all. I don't like the TV volume to be very high, I like it in a low but comfortable range. And still he complains about parts being too loud. He did have a hearing test at his last well-child appointment and it was normal, but I don't think he understood the directions.
Will LOVES our new church! I haven't heard of any new friends but he is definitely comfortable with the small class size and the teachers. They sing as a group each week and perform for the congregation every few months. He remembers the tunes very well!
We have started homeschooling the last few weeks. We've been easing in so as not to burn out Teacher or Student. :) So far we have been doing handwriting, reading/phonics, story time, and core almost daily. Art/craft time has been once a week. Sometime next week we will add math & then science. Core is the main part of our curriculum: it involves history, language and the world around us (weather, days of the week, etc).
Just around the corner is the The Fair, and settling into a more secure schedule! Will has done so well at riding his bicycle most of the summer and he has grown enough that he will need a bigger one next spring.

Will is 5!

Oh my goodness, where did my little boy go???
He is riding his bicycle without training wheels! He did the monkey bars once!
He had a Spiderman birthday party with a few friends.
He prefers to only wear shorts and shortsleeved shirts. If he must wear long sleeves, he usually asks us to "sleeve them up" (roll them up.) :) Sometimes he also does this to his long jeans or pajama bottoms!
He is so sweet and loving to AJ and Nina. He is really helpful! He does a great job setting the table and is working on clearing the table too. He writes his name and understands that he has a middle name. Nina gets that part mixed up and has asked to go to Sander Robbs' house! I tried to explain it was William Aleksandr Robbs - all one person. That didn't work. Will got very adamant that HE was William Aleksandr R... But you know her, you can't argue with her. They both are right! Oh yeah, Will can count to - I think 70 or so with just a prompt here & there. We start homeschooling soon. I can't wait to see how he approaches reading. My dad (a reading specialist) has helped me look for curriculum but we just won't know until we start.
Will got his first big finger injury. It involved a shopping cart wheel. The nail wasn't torn completely off so it has to stay covered until it does. He does a great job protecting it. It isn't tender or painful at all, even though he complains and hollers about me wanting to clean it. He never winces! As long as he can't see it, he's pretty good with it! We soaked it in the tub a few nights ago. He complained that it hurt, but once a washcloth was around the finger he didn't complain at all!
I hate that this isn't getting updated more often. He still is growing and changing so much. I'll try to get better at this!

time to catch up

Alright so now it's September and I haven't updated Will's blog since May (obviously). Here's what has happened in a nutshell.
0) (because I forgot it) We all went to Ocean Shores for a family vacation in late May. Will loved swimming in the hotel pool with his scuba gear (a snorkel & mask) and water wings
1) We had Baby Aaron & Will found out he loves his little brother
2) Will & Nina continue to be best friends and also pretty good enemies
3) we played outside as often as possible & now they're burnt out & don't want to go outside much
4) Will went camping w/ my parents in Idaho. It was all of the aunts & uncles & cousins on that side (Nina went too). They had a great time, even if it was about 100 degrees every day.
5) Will (and Nina) spent several days with my parents, just playing, while David & I painted several rooms at home.
6)We took another family vacation to Birch Bay, WA with my parents. It was just two days but it was more pool time and Will really got the hang of breathing through the snorkel.
7) Now that school is in and Mama is finally used to getting out of the house with 3 kids, there's not many kids to play with! Our old neighbors are visiting for a few days and Will is really enjoying that.
8) Will has spent the night or the day with David's parents a few times. On the most recent occasion, Grandpa took Will to Northwest Trek - a kind of outdoor zoo. Will LOVED that & talks about all the animals he saw.
9) David took Will & Nina fishing with Grandpa one very early morning. They both loved it and want to go again.
10) Will was exposed to the chicken pox and it looks like he picked it up. He's been vaccinated so this certainly doesn't look like the same disease I had as a kid. Just a few spots, no fever, no itching. I would've sworn it was bug bites...

Caught up now? I hope so! Pictures are on the xanga blog: http://www.xanga.com/nickieroo

I'm 4 years old!

(Have to mention- Blogger changed a lot of things so now I will be writing only from Mom's perspective, I can no longer sign in to write from Will's perspective.)

Will was so excited by Christmas it took 3 months to get him to stop talking about it. But the request for presents & "when will it come?" we began telling him about his birthday, while trying to keep his expectations low. We told him he could expect little cakes, balloons and one present. Ha! We knew there would be more, but not the 2 week cycle of presents that Christmas was. :)

He LOVED his birthday. We started a day early and gave him a bicycle on Friday. Wow! Red and blue with cars all over it. He got a matching helmet from one set of grandparents. As you can see from the picture at the top, he was very excited. Friday was the perfect day, a little cool but no rain. He got lots of time to ride & wear himself out. Saturday it rained (of course) so no riding that day. Late in the afternoon the relatives came over. We had a small dinner and then opened presents. He got a nice selection of clothes, a nice big Superman backpack and a basketball net & ball. After the presents we moved on to cake. We ordered little chocolate cupcakes from the local grocery store, and they came with blue frosting and little soccer balls on top. He LOVED it. He still talks about his soccer ball cakes! Nina loved his birthday too and was right beside him at every moment. We did give her a little present to open so she would stay out of his presents a little. It kind of worked. But she was smiling just as big as William when we sang Happy Birthday. They're such good friends!

Last year it took a long time for Will to learn to say that he was 3 years old. He was finally getting the hang of it after Christmas. So for about a week before his birthday we started counting to 4 for everything. He was getting 4 carrots, 4 grapes, 4 blueberries, 4 chicken nuggets, whatever it may be he got 4 at a time! Pretty soon he was saying that he needed "4 years old carrots!" What? I don't think he really means he wants carrots that are aged 4 years, it's just how it works out - counting to 4, he's 4... You get it....

Right after his birthday we took the kids to Spokane for a week. He enjoyed staying with the grandparents over there & seeing his cousins Carson & Lucas and Baby Havana. Soon after that trip, Auntie Ty and Baby Havana came over here to stay with us for a week. He really loved being the big boy in the house & was always yelling at Nina to be "gentle, gentle, gentle!" He can't say Havana yet so he called her "Baby Va-Anna."

We're getting ready for a new addition to the family - Baby Aaron will be joining us sometime in June. The boys will share a room after a few months so we're getting the room ready slowly. So far the closet has been redone to be more useable and a lot of Will's toys were moved out to make room for a second dresser & eventually a crib. He hates having lots of changes sprung on him. :) I think we're all caught up for now! I'll go find out how to change the ticker above & start counting down to his 5th birthday!

Potty Success and funny things

Over the last 6 weeks we have achieved big boy status! William now goes both #1 & #2 on the toilet fairly consistently. He has maybe 1 accident a week, usually #2 in the underwear. He still wears a diaper at night, but he can take it off to go potty & put it back on again, and usually does! We finally found the right combination of his readiness + reasonable reward + his level of patience! Man, that was hard! I really thought he could work all week toward a big reward but it turns out he needed a medium reward every day to get the ball rolling. After about 2 weeks we lengthened the amount of time between rewards & the length of time has slowly gotten longer & longer. I can't tell you what relief both David & I feel about having him make this step. Our garbage cans are not as full and the stress of running to the potty in stores is not as bad as I thought. With only Nina in diapers it has made our outings, and even our days at home, very nice.
Will loves to tell strangers EVERYWHERE about his potty training & rewards. He recites it like chatechism: "I want DJ, Wingo, Dinoco McQueen, I go potty & poops on the pot!" Most adult looks at him & smile & say wow, some give me a look that clearly indicates they have no idea what he just said. Unless they have also seen "Cars" enough times to know each character (and minor character!)'s names, I'm sure that they are lost! Will has learned there's a baby in Mommy's tummy. He includes the baby in his nightly prayers and sometimes tells strangers about the baby. Another funny thing he tells strangers (or someone on the phone) is "Hi, it's me, Weemum!" Or "I'm white Weemum!" I don't know what he's thinking, other than maybe his hair color is lighter than the rest of us. He loves to talk on the phone & begs to talk to anybody that Mommy is talking to. If I can't give him the phone, he'll put a hand on his ear & pretend to talk into it. Often, Nina will pick it up too & pretty soon they're cracking each other up with their pretend conversations. They are really very good friends most of the time. Nina often gets up before him & asks about him. When Will finally makes his appearance downstairs, she runs to hug him & he is happy to hug her back.
Will's 4th birthday is coming up & he will be getting a bicycle! We're still planning which day to give it to him because we are taking the kids to my parents right after his birthday. I'll try to update right before or right after his birthday, he's really excited about it this year!

Potty Training

Whoopee, we have finally made progress! William is now going potty in the toilet almost all day. He's wearing underwear most of the day and happy about it! His reward for going all day in underwear is a new car. The cool ones, the die-cast metal "Cars" character cars. He's pretty psyched about it & talks about it all the time. :)

New Year and Potty Training

Oh man it was quite a Christmas for Will! We had so many different Christmas celebrations (and our tree is still up) that he seriously expects Santa to show up any day with more presents. He got a lot of things he wanted, mostly things with cartoon characters on them. His current favorites are Incredibles and the various cars from the movie "Cars." He already liked the color red, after these two movies it's his trademark color! What I (his mom) loved is that he was truly excited and thankful for anything that was wrapped in Christmas paper. He opened every pair of socks, sweat pants and boring things and was happy to open them. The toys were simply the icing on the cake. Okay, he wasn't thrilled with the socks but he's young enough that anything wrapped up is a mystery and discovering what's inside is most of the excitement.
Potty Training Continues.....
While at Grandma & Grandpa's house in Spokane, he often yelled out that he needed a new diaper. When we checked, he was dry. What in the world was he asking for? We even tried taking him to the bathroom but often he fought that idea. On the drive home his diaper was dry at two rest stops and then began crying in the car and yelling that he needed a new diaper. Daddy & Mommy's brains finally clicked and we stopped at a gas station for him to use the restroom. Success! The rest of the way, he used the restroom with Daddy every stop. After more than a year of trying everything in the books, it seemed he just made up his mind to do it himself. Since we've been home we have not had as much luck. He makes up his mind at different times to use the toilet and other times it is not a priority. He's nearly 4, so I guess we really do have to just be ready for him to decide this is what he wants.
It has snowed 3 times this winter, which is highly unusual. He got to play in it again today and he does so well. He loves to pull things in a sled and at G&G's house he even went down their hill in a sled, alone. Nina will let him pull her in the sled but she often gets out before he wants her to. We have a new baby coming to our house in late May or early June and now that we know it's another boy, we are talking up the new baby and trying names out. We like to hear William say our name ideas, sometimes it's funny. It's been nearly 2 years now since he quit taking real naps, so every afternoon Will watches a movie. His overall favorites are Cinderella, Cars, Incredibles, A Bug's Life and Toy Story 1 & 2. The Cinderella thing really works better when Nina is watching with him, but most of what Will likes is the silly animals, especially the cat.