Old Blog Posts: March 2008

Will had a nightmare last night.

I woke up to screaming at 11:30 and ran into his room, disoriented and a little freaked, and found him perched on top of the rocking chair in his room (not on top of the seat part, but on top of the highest back part) and still scrambling to get to higher ground.

I grabbed him and tried to put him back into his bed, but he was really freaking out.  After a few minutes he settled down and seemed to be falling asleep, so I left to go back to my own cozy bed.

And then he started freaking out again.  Talking about monkeys.  And then covering his face with his hands and whimpering.

I brought him into bed with us and tried to get him to calm down.  But he wouldn’t stop talking about the monkeys and running and being scared and hippos being yuck and a few other things that Nic and I couldn’t translate (by this time Nic was awake, too).  I tried reading him a few stories, even his favorite Hug book about all the animals he loves hugging, but he wasn’t having it.

Nic suggested that I take Will downstairs and watch a movie (the same tactic Nic uses on me when I have nightmares).  We went downstairs and watched Cars…and Will didn’t fall asleep.  The movie ended, and Willie still didn’t fall asleep.  I took him back upstairs, and finally finally finally after some belly rubs and losts of tossing and turning on his part (why don’t we have a king sized bed?!) he fell back asleep to the world of the scary monkeys.

I felt so badly for him because I didn’t know how to help him. The words you use for nightmares “it was just a dream, it’s not real, you’re safe” aren’t words we use very often and I doubt he understood me.  And the words he wanted to use with us weren’t words WE understood.  It was like playing charades with a two year old in the middle of the night.  “First word–monkeys.”  “Second word–scared.”  “Third word–huh?  what are you doing?!  I don’t get it!”

Willie and I were awake for three hours in the middle of the night, so I’m pretty tired today.  Of course, Will shows no signs of it…

It’s a bummer because nights have been going so well lately.  Our bedtime struggles with Will seem to be behind us.  For the last couple of nights, when we say “good night” and turn off his light, that is the end of it.  We don’t even have to use the gate and he doesn’t get out of his bed anymore.  Halleluja!  It’s not a moment too soon, either–this week we start our six week string of engagement sessions, and so the new nanny we just hired (she seems fantastic–super pricey, but fantastic) will be covering Sunday night bedtimes.  It’s nice to have someone fantastic to watch him while we’re shooting, and it’s also nice to know that we have upheld our end and hopefully bedtime will go smoothly for her!

For some months, when Will is thirsty he uses a cup and the fridge water to help himself.  Tonight, though, he didn’t have a cup.

He was playing on the sofa with Nic and got up and ran to the bathroom.

“Good job, buddy!”  We praised.  “Good peeing!”

Until we heard the sound of the toilet lid close and the faucet running.  I peeked around the corner and Willie was using the toilet as a step stool, and had his head underneath the running faucet to drink water.

He’s nothing if not a problem solver.

Nic reported that while I was at my photo shoot this morning, Will showed Nic the ferret’s food and said “deet crack” which of course translates to “ferret crackers.”  Because giraffes eat crackers, so ferrets must, too.

I posted a ton of pictures of Will coloring easter eggs just now.  So many of them perfectly capture the various faces of will.

As we drove away from the zoo this afternoon, Will waved and shouted “Giraffe bye!  MWAHH!” (the mwah of course, being shorthand for a kiss.)

He also now has Tori’s name down perfectly!

“ut-oh.  poor mom-mom.” when I discovered that the oatmeal had exploaded in the microwave.

Will had his follow-up appointment with the specialist today, and it will be his last doctor’s appointment that is finger related. 

The specialist was just as amazed as we are will how quickly it is healing/regrew.  No one would ever guess that less than a month ago, it was missing!  Of course, the missing nail is a little weird now, but that will just take a couple of months to come back and THEN no one will ever notice. 

I wanted daughters because I wanted little people who would share my love of pretty things and family history and making cookies and photos and most of all fabric.

It turns out I didn’t need a girl, I just needed a Will.

He loves his fabric scraps so much that last night when I needed an activity for him I thought “hey!  I should get out one of my giant tubs of fabric!”

He sat in my lap for 45 minutes going through each and every piece of fabric.  Unfolding, talking about it, and then laying it in our lap (“blan” he would say, for “blanket”).  Yard after yard, fat quarter after fat quarter (it got very warm under there) and it held his interest.  *I* got bored before he did and called off the game to go make dinner.

I’m sure this fabric love won’t last for many years, but it sure is nice for now.  A boy of my own who loves fabric as much as I do.

The house down the street–our exact model only with a larger corner lot and with a large unfinished basement is on the market for $12k less than we paid for our house.  And that is the LISTED price.  I’m sure they’ll still pay closing costs and maybe even drop the price down more.

And that, my friends, is why I just handed Will a crayon and told him to go to town.  ;P

I have an artist on my hands.  We are working on the whole “ONLY ON PAPER!!!!” thing, but in the mean time I have found crayon on our walls, doors, dining room chairs, carpet, Will’s bed rails, the rocking chair, and the futon.  The futon was my favorite, because next to the orange streaks was a whole mess of baby wipes.  He had tried to clean it up.

The other thing he loves are post-its.  He will take a big stack of post-its and slowly work on unsticking every.single.one. of those sheets.  I hate losing good post-its.  But I love quiet activities.

(I feel the need to add a disclaimer to this story, since I know it is very bad form to leave the tv on during dinner…but it was a special occassion because both Will and I have been exceptionally needy/clingy today.)

Will in the last week has discovered “scary.”  Nic didn’t understand why Will kept trying to turn off the tv just as they were starting to watch Monster’s Inc this weekend…and then Will hid under the quilt on the sofa.  It was the beginning scary scene.

Today at dinner we were happily eating pizza and talking, and turned on Monsters Inc.  Even though Will had a few bites of pizza left, he started shouting “DONE!  DONE!”  Nic and I, not watching what was going on with the tv, were like “hey crazyhead, you still have a couple of bites left.”

Will’s mean parents weren’t even going to get in down from his booster seat to hide from the scary part!  So the next thing we knew, Will had ducked his head under the table.

Nic figured it out and started laughing, and I turned off the tv until the scary part was over.

We wonder why it never occured to Will to just close his eyes!

Will’s entire fingernail fell off today. From the amount of blood you would have thought I would have heard at least an “ouchie,” but no…all he did was walk over to me, hand me his fingernail, and say “bro.”

Broken, indeed.

I saved the fingernail to show Nic when he gets home.  Sick, right?  But I can’t bring myself to just throw away an entire fingernail.  (Which is the same reason we left Will’s fingertip in a bag on the counter in the ER.)

First we had “houch” then we had “ouch” and now we have “ouchie.”

After saying the last week or so I have come to realize that Will is totally right–”ouchie” IS more rewarding to say. The second syllable makes all the difference

Squatting on all fours.  Feet on the back of the seat, hands on the front, head down, watching the proceedings.

This is a special position saved by Will for the true peeing emergencies.  My guess is that he doesn’t think he has time to mess around with sitting down.  Just get up, and get going.

This week we have been working hard on bedtime.  We’ve been struggling in the last couple of weeks (and then totally spoiled him right after his finger accident) and so this week we’re trying to get back on track.

It involves putting him to bed as usual, and then turning off all the lights in the house and pretending that nighttime is really boring (which it actually is when you turn off all the lights and tv and computer and just lay on the couch waiting for Will to go to bed).  Things have been going well and he is vastly improving.  Tonight, though, he suckered Nic into a very cute goodnight.

We put him to bed, and left as usual.  Went downstairs.  For a while he was quiet…then he went to the gate and began chattering and fussing and calling for us.  Unusual for him, he didn’t turn on his bedroom ligh and run around playing.  After about ten minutes, Nic went up for a visit (it was Nic’s night–we take turns to hold on to our sanity).  But unusual, he didn’t come down for a good ten or fifteen minutes.  It was completely quiet, completely dark.  But Nic hadn’t come down.  When he came down, all was quiet.  Will was asleep.

“What the heck happened up there?” I asked.

It turns out that Nic had matter of factly led Will back to his bed (as usual) and pulled the covers up over him. Then Will asked for a hug, so Nic gave him one.  All usual.  But Will didn’t let go.  Instead, he held on tightly to Nic’s neck with one arm (resting his face against Nic’s as he loves to do) and began petting his face with the other.  Every so often, he would put one hand on each of Nic’s cheeks and bring his face up for a kiss, then he would go back to hugging Nic and petting his face, drifting off to sleep.  This went on for ten minutes.  After a final kiss, he held tight to Nic’s finger and fell asleep.

It’s cuteness like that that will knock a hard core betime training session right on its butt.

He found Nic’s music stand under the bed and is completely entranced by it. He can’t get enough of trying to figure it out.

We are looking for childcare right now.  No easy task when you have the kind of kid you’ve left at childcare twice and half the time he’s lost a fingertip.

I emailed a couple of people that were listed on craigslist, and got an email back from a woman inviting me to call her today.  So I did.

She picked up the phone, but continued having a conversation with someone else.  At first I thought it must have been accidental, but her voice was so loud I knew she must be holding the phone to her face.  She spoke to the other person for about 15 seconds (about enjoying her pedicure, girl you so deserve it, etc) then said (I presume to me) “hang on” and then spoke for another 30 seconds before saying again “hang on” at which I point I said “that’s okay–I’ll call back another time” (yeah right) only to have her finally turn her attention to me.

We spoke for a while (because at this point I felt socially obliged) but the whole time I wanted to scream “are you KIDDING ME?!  Do you really think I’m going to entrust my child to someone who doesn’t even know how to ANSWER A PHONE PROPERLY?!”

sigh.  the search continues.

Holy crap I love having a two year old!!!

Tonight Nic and I were snuggling on the sofa complaining about our lack of blankets.  Our usual sofa blanket was upstairs in Will’s room.

Nic said “Will, can you go get us the blanket from upstairs?”

And you know what?!

He DID!

It was like the heavens opened and the beams of light shone down and the choirs of angels began to sing.  Dude.  Two ROCKS.

…your husband doesn’t think that a couple of drops of urine (on his side of the bed no less) are no reason to change the sheets.

Will was jumping on our bed naked this morning and a couple of drops came out (as happens to the best of us [you know who you are Miss “I can’t jump on a trampoline”]).

I said “great.  I just changed these.”  And Nic very seriously waived it off as “just being a couple of drops.”  I looked at him with giant eyes and he looked back as if to say “look–the house is covered in urine particles at this point.  what the hell does a couple of drops even matter.”

It’s hard to say who was potty trained more–Will or Nic.

One of the most common sounds around here is that of a train engine in distress.  The whirling of wheels going nowhere.

Will doesn’t believe that makeup should be kept for girls, and he doesn’t believe that trains should be kept for tracks.  He turns them on, sets them free, and then walks away.

It is my job to find them (which I do by hunting down that annoying sound), turn them off, and return them to their roundhouse.

I found a way to get ready in the morning that doesn’t involve crying or head butting or tantrums in general.  All Will asks is that HE get to participate in the morning routine.

We start with a shower. Then we “spritz” our hair with spray conditioner (Will’s word for it is exactly the sound the spray makes “spppz” “sppz” “sppz”) and brush it. Then we get out the face lotion and I dip my finger in it, and Will dips his finger in it.  I put it on my face, Will wipes it in a dab on his cheek.

Next comes the make-up. A student of the Bare Minerals philosophy, Will is skilled in the act of “swirling,” “tapping,” and “brushing.”  I grab my favorite brush, and Will grabs his.  I put some makeup in the lid, swirl, tap, and brush my way to beauty, and then hand the (now empty) lid to Will for swirling and tapping.  We do foundation first, and then move on to the eyes.

Nic observed this ritual yesterday, and instead of saying “jesus christ–why do you insist on turning him gay?” he said “aaaahh–he watches you so closely” and  “we can really make fun of him for this when he’s older.”

Some day Will will be too old to put on makeup with me.  It’s hard to say who will be sadder about that–me or Willie B.