Old Blog Posts: October 2009

It’s Halloween, and it’s one of our favorite holidays.  Mainly because Will loves pumpkins SO MUCH and costumes SO MUCH and we all love Papa Murphey’s jack-o-lantern pizza SO MUCH.

Last year Will said “Happy Ween!” and “Trick Treat” and “Pums” and this year it’s all “Happy Halloween” “Trick or Treat!” and “Pumpkins” (or usually “plumply dumply pumpkins” like in his favorite story).  We’ve been playing spooky ghost and scary witch games all morning.  We’ll be going to the pumpkin patch this afternoon and Will still loves pumpkins as much as last year…but this year he hasn’t insisted on taking any to bed with him every night.

We don’t expect many trick-or-treaters at our house, and trick-or-treating here would be all walk and no treats, so we’ll be heading over to our old street early this evening for our trick-or-treating and then coming back to watch movies and eat our papa murphey’s pumpkin pizza and hopefully hand out candy to a trick-or-treater or two!

Will thinks the words to “yo ho yo ho a pirate’s life for me” are ‘yo ho yo ho the pirates of the sea” which actually makes a lot of sense so I haven’t corrected him.

Disney had a commercial on hulu the other day that started with that song and Will came sprinting over.  “Do you remember when we went on the Pirates ride at Disneyland?” I asked Will.  “Yeah–we rode in a boat.  And we had to go flying in a BIIIIGGGG jet.”

He does remember!

I was disappointed tonight to discover that the bat pajamas I’d been waiting to go on sale for Will were all sold out.  He is a big lover of bats and batman (the whole thing is all mixed up to him since he’s never actually seen a batman show or movie, so it’s all just stuff he hears at school) and I knew the batman pajamas would have been a big hit.  But then I thought about it and realized it wouldn’t be so hard to make him a little batman “costume”–after we use his grey sweats for his wall-e costume tomorrow I can just sew a yellow circle and a bat to the sweatshirt and make him a little cape.  I’m sure I already have everything for it here, and the thing about Will is that it doesn’t have to be perfect–he loves anything that’s remotely close to what it’s supposed to look like!

So tonight I told Will that on Sunday I’m going to make him a batman costume.  His whole face lit up and he said “you WILL?”  And in promising that yes, we’ll make him a batman costume on Sunday it was like he understood just how much I love him.  All because I’m going to stick a bat silhouette to a yellow circle of fabric and sew them both to a gray sweatshirt.

As I left Will’s room tonight I heard Willie say “good night, babies” to his two baby dolls.  Soooo cute!

In the new house we’ve upgraded Will from his crappy crib-to-toddler/mattress-is-waterproof-and-makes-him-overheat-and-get-sweaty bed to our bed.  (And we’ve upgraded to a tempurpedic mattress…on the floor.  But the new bed is coming.  Or so Costco says.)  We got his room all set up this weekend, including pictures on the wall, glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and the Disney princess nightlight he picked out at Lowes. He’s got his playroom downstairs, so really the only thing in that room is his bookshelf, a box of stuffed animals (still need to get a basket for them) and his clothes.

Having a queen sized bed for him is pretty awesome–not only does he seem much happier to sleep in it (and therefore to leave us just fighting amongst ourselves for space in a spacious queen instead of fighting for the millimeters of room he leaves in his wake), it’s also awesome at storytime to pile the whole family into the bed with a stack of books.  Much nicer than sitting on the floor!

Tonight he used the particularly manipulative “one more story” stalling technique, but I’ve been working super hard with him on “what I say I mean–no matter how cute or manipulative you are the answer is not going to change” and I didn’t want to risk my progress, so I told him that I would read the trucks book to him first thing in the morning.  No dice.  So I told him he could read the book after I left, but it was still hugs/kisses time.  Usually he gives up at this point because it’s not about the book, it’s about extra mom/dad time.  But he actually held onto the book!  So he got his hugs and kisses and I told him I’d leave the light on and come back and turn it off later.

Later came, I checked on him…and he was sitting in bed with a now bigger pile of books reading quietly to himself.  (And while it’s snowing here in Black Forest, I did check and hell hadn’t actually frozen over.)  I gave him a kiss, told him how proud I was, and that I’d be back in a little while to turn off the light.

When I came back ten minutes later he was still happily reading away.  Quietly reading away.  All tucked in under the blankets–he was clearly grabbing a few books, putting himself back under the covers, reading those books, and then going out for more.  It was more than my heart could take!

So I gave him more kisses, told him what a good reader he was, and left.  When I checked on him next, he was sound asleep under the covers, hugging his two baby dolls, surrounded by a sea of books.

If he wants to stay up at night quietly reading until he passes out with his baby dolls, he’ll find no objections from me.

We have been telling Will for the last couple of months that “we’ll tell Santa about that” whenever he’s at a store and there’s something he wants that we don’t intend to buy.  Or when he’s being a good boy.  (Or sometimes when he’s not.)   Anyway, it’s adorable to hear what he thinks we should tell Santa about.  Like today we saw a deer on the way to preschool and he pointed and said “Mommy?  We tell Santa bout dat?”

I think he thinks that maybe we’re just storing things up for some massive conversation we’re going to have with Santa this Christmas!

This morning Will invented a game.  He shouts “BOOO!!” at my belly and then looks at me mischievously and brags “I cried him.”  (Which translates to “I made her cry.”)  “How about you make her LAUGH?” I suggested.  To which he replied “NO!  I *cried* him!”  and gleefully shouted “BOOO!” into my belly a few more times.

Not awesome.

Will is often “William Francis” when things get serious.  So it greatly amused us when Will wanted Nic to do something today and upon getting no response the first time, he broke out “Daddy Francis.”

The new teacher in Will’s class started calling him William.  All of his schoolwork says William, his coat tag says William, when I drop him off they say “good morning, William.”

The other kids have started calling him William.  Sometimes at home he says “My name’s William!” (if we should dare to call him something else, like a little bear or something like that.)

It’s making me crazy.

HIS NAME IS WILL.

I’ve tried everything.  I say loudly every morning “Bye Will!” and loudly every afternoon “Hi Will!”  On his family tree homework project I wrote WILL underneath his picture.  When I talk to the teacher about him, I say WILL.

I told Nic that it was really pissing me off that they are calling him the wrong name at school and I’m about three minutes away from talking to the front desk and asking that they call him Will, as I requested on the registration form a year ago.

He laughed at me. He said the child’s name IS William.  And I said only on his birth certificate, driver’s license, wedding invitation and when he’s sworn in as president.  Will is his name.  Or Willie.  NOT WILLIAM.

We were driving by the elementary school the other day and a football team was practicing.  “GO THIS WAY, MOMMY!” Will shouted from the back seat, pointing to the street that led to the school.  We were going that way anyway.

“Soccer!” Will said as we got closer.

“No buddy–that’s football.”  I explained.

“I go play football?” he asked.

“Sorry, honey.  You’re too little.  But when you’re a big boy, you can play.”

“I will?”

“Yep.”

“Can I play football first?”  (“First” he uses instead of “now” probably because he’s constantly hearing sentences like “first we have to go to the store, then we’ll go to the park.”)

He was so earnest in his desire to join the team.  It broke my heart.  And then I realized something very important.

You can marry a man with no interest in sports, but that doesn’t keep you safe.  You can still find yourself getting dragged into a world of weekday practices and Saturday games in the name of love.

hardwood floors all through the downstairs = bike riding indoors.  Round and around he goes in little circles in the kitchen.

Will adds a “v” to the end of a lot of words.  Like “die” is “dive.”  And instead of the word kill he uses “die” as a verb–like “I dived the yucky bug, mommy.”

The “v” pops up most often in “score” which becomes “scorve.”  He is always inventing new games–one of our favorites is “scorve ball.”

I was terrified to weigh myself this morning after three weeks of solid fast food and absolutely no work-outs since we decided to move.  Was thrilled that I am still right on track to gain 25lbs.  14 weeks to go, and I’ve gained 11lbs so far.  I weigh as much now, entering the third trimester with ellie, as I did entering the second trimester with Will!!  Thank God for three year old physical trainers!   The thought of coming home from the hospital and only having 15 lbs to lose instead of 40 is pretty amazing! In fact, I’m gonna go celebrate with a cookie. 

Will is always on the look-out for new ways to say “no.”  Except they frequently don’t mean no.  Like the long period where he would say “no problem” meaning “no, that’s a problem.”

The latest is “nothing special.”  Or (from Monsters vs Aliens) “never ever ever ever ever again.”

This pregnancy is just FLYING by.  I can’t believe I am one week shy of the last trimester.  Of course, we have a lot more going on than I did the last time, but it still seems like my first pregnancy could be measured in dog years compared to this one!

I picked up my latest Zofran refill today (I’m down to only needing it about once a week) and realized that I hit the $1k mark with this refill.  120 pills, 6 months of pregnancy, $1k worth of nausea.  And that’s the generic–if I was going with REAL Zofran we’d be looking at something around $5k!  Thank goodness for insurance–I’ve paid $80….they picked up the rest.

I watched a friend’s three month old and three year old earlier this week.  Wow.  I can’t believe we’re about to go back to that world.  It’s a little terrifying.  Will is at such a good age I’m not sure I’m really prepared for the giant time sink the baby will be.   I didn’t even really realize what a difference there is between 4 and 3.  Will was so independent compared to the three year old, that I was happy about our kids’ 4 year gap for the first time!