Thank God

Last night after Will went to bed, Craig & I were watching a new TV show called Hopkins about real-life medical cases at Johns Hopkins Hospital. There was a 2 year old boy who had an enlarged heart causing stress to his body. You'd never know it to look at him - he looked like a healthy, active toddler - and the parents were in shock, as they had only known for a few days when the show was filmed. Doctors weren't sure he would survive a transplant but also knew he would die with the one he had. They weren't sure they were going to go through with the procedure at first but later decided it was his best/only chance. The family waited on the transplant list and finally got one - which means another family somewhere in the world lost their little child in order for this heart to be available. The procedure was successful and the little boy went home 2 weeks later.

Throughout the show Craig & I were tearful and sorrowful and sympathetic for this family. We cannot imagine something so scary happening to our baby. It could happen to anyone. And yet we feel sorry for ourselves and complain when something miniscule goes wrong. We are lucky enough to have no idea what it's like to walk in that (or any other) family's shoes when a life-threatening illness is diagnosed to their child.

When the show ended, Craig & I tip-toed in to Will's darkened room and peaked into the crib where our healthy baby slept and breathed peacefully. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God. I wanted so badly to pick him up and hug him tight, but instead I just prayed. A prayer of thanks for the blessings we have and a prayer of hope for the families dealing with such tragedy.

Another evening at home

Today is Thursday, so it's grocery shopping day. Craig and I take turns during the week handling "baby-duty" and I use one of my two free nights to get to the store so I have more free time on weekends. I got home with the groceries at 5:40 and, after greeting Will & Craig, got busy making dinner. This is what that looks like:



Will: "How much longer? I'm hungry NOW!"

Brutus: "Drop something. Drop something. Drop something."



When tackling ANY task, I'm usually interrupted about every 2-3 minutes to remove Will from some sort of mischevious endeavor. So EVERYTHING takes longer. But finally, dinner is on the table.

In my last post, I explained what feeding Will looks like: fist full after fist full until his mouth and belly nearly burst. My growing boy is a little piggy.

As you know, Will's latest talent is walking! So this is how we play in the evenings after dinner.





Then it's bath/lotion/jammy/teeth-brushing time with daddy. Sometimes we read stories in the rocking chair. Other times we turn on the "Jesus Loves Me" musical lamb and hold him quietly for a few minutes before putting him in bed at 7:30.



Each night of the week, I do a little bit of cleaning (again, so that my weekends are free to spend relaxing and doing FUN things). Thursday night is usually cleaning the shower and toilets and changing the bed sheets. I'm also going to cram in some ironing of the laundry I washed last night since we'll be out at the fair tomorrow night.

Then I pack my lunch for the next work day and TRY to get to bed by 10:00.

I will be honest: I have NO IDEA what I did with all my spare time before I had a child...

Spoon feeding

Up until just recently, the sole purpose of a spoon, in Will's mind, was to serve as a drumstick for noisemaking on the high chair tray. He eats mainly finger foods now anyway so utensils are more of a hassle better left to the "highly refined". Instead of trying to mimic Craig and I, Will shovels food into his mouth by the fistful, with one fist immediately following the other until his lips can no longer close. It's disgusting. You'd think I never feed him by the way he inhales his food. Quite the contrary - he eats 3 meals and 2 snacks daily - it seems he's eating ALL the time.

So, in an effort to improve his table etiquette (and simply because it's developmentally time), we practice with the spoon a little more. Thanks to the genious invention of suction cup bowls that won't slide around and short, fat-handled, rubber-gripper spoons with a deeper scoop to help food stay on the spoon, he's getting the hang of it. Squash works really well for practice, because it's easy to scoop and it's thick and a bit sticky.

Here are some pictures:

Penguins, and Elephants, and Meerkats, Oh My!

First, before I dive into this new post, let me just say that I stand corrected. That "short while" I anticipated Will to need to build up his confidence to initiate walking turned out to be 2 days. On Saturday we practiced some more and I let him begin holding onto a piece of furniture while I stood a few feet away with my arms outstretched. He let go almost immediately and toddled over to me with that beautiful beginner's trot that's so cute at this age. About 8 steps is his max so far, but it's just so awesome to watch!

So today we visited the zoo, hence the title of this post. You may remember this is not Will's first visit to the zoo. But it's definitely the first that he actually noticed his surroundings and most of the creatures he was there to see. It was a beautiful day and we had been enjoying an unusually lazy weekend. So since Craig was going to be gone all day judging the Wood County fair queen contest, Will & I along with Will's Grandma Skees (whom he may have called "Ya Ya" today - potential new nickname!) spent a few hours checking out the zoo.

We learned what an alpaca and a sloth bear are, visited the children's petting zoo, tasted lemon ice, waved at and stared in awe of every animal we passed (Will's waving at everything now), and took LOTS of pictures.

Waving to passers-by.


Posing with one of many statues.


Waving to the penguins.


Baby Louie the elephant and his mother.



Watching the zookeeper feed the elephants.


Rhinoceros.


Posing on a turtle. I thought it was nice how the zoo had a squishy foam ground beneath all the statues knowing children would be climbing them for pictures.


This thing is real. We stared at it for several minutes before it finally blinked and it just sat there with it's mouth wide open not moving - creepy!


This handsome devil is an alpaca. Wouldn't he make a cute pet?


Will wasn't so excited about TOUCHING the animals.


Pure cute. Enough said.


Watching the hippos with "Ya Ya".


And he just has this fettish with sunglasses. Whenever we put them on, he gets a big cheesy grin on his face.


Enjoying some lemon ice and water in the shade.


I have a photo in one of my baby books of me sitting on this same statue when I was little. I'll have to dig that up and post it.


Our final stop was the Arctic Encounter. We saw the polar bears, walked into a pretend polar bear den, and posed with this scary guy:


It was a fun, exhausting day. And we can't wait to go back to see The Lights Before Christmas!

First Steps!

I'm not sure if it counts since he didn't initiate it... but on Thursday night, Will took his first fairly-balanced steps! I was kneeling on the ground with him standing in front of me holding just one of my fingers in each hand. Then I let go and backed up a few feet with my arms outstretched and he walked to me! We did this several times and he walked between 4 and 8 steps each.

Another time, he was holding on to the end table in the living room and I tried to get him to walk to me. He looked like he wanted to - he was reaching - but wouldn't let go of the table. So I think it will be a short while yet before he builds up his confidence to initiate walking himself. But this is definitely an improvement and we're getting closer!

On a side note, Will has pulled the lamp off that end table twice now and broke the shade off. We use the lamp quite a bit so I don't want to not have one there. And it's not the cord that's the problem. He pulls the whole thing. If I'm in the kitchen and I see him standing beside the table, I'll say "Will" in the 'what are you doing?' tone of voice. He'll look at me with wide eyes and shake his head 'no'. It's hilarious ... but of course I can't laugh or he thinks I'm not serious.

And here are just a few recent pictures:


Bath Time!


Nice mohawk, baby.



Daddy bought Will his first Buckeyes hat.

13 Months!

Will is 13 months today!

Happy 4th of July!

We've had an eventful 4th of July weekend!

On Wednesday last week, we went to my dad's country club for a buffet dinner outside on the lawn and fireworks show at dark. They do a really nice job with entertainment and activities for the kids - hopefully next year Will will be old enough to enjoy them. The food was good, but unfortunately it started storming heavily around 8 p.m. and they postponed the fireworks show for the following night. It was already a late evening for Will and we didn't want to do that to him 2 nights in a row, so we never got to see a big show this year. I was a little bummed because Will slept through the whole thing last year and I would have liked to see his reaction this year.

Friday (July 4th) would have been my Grandpa Skees's 78th birthday. He passed away on April 25th this year and we miss him very much. Both my Grandpa & Grandma were fun-loving entertainers - the life of the party - and neither would have wanted a sorrowful mourning. So in lieu of something more traditional, the family hosted a Celebration of Life party for friends and family to honor grandpa on his birthday. It's a little different than the norm, but we did the same for grandma almost 6 years ago and everyone agreed it was the perfect memorial for them.

So we spent most of the afternoon and evening at my aunt and uncle's house for the party and popped over to Craig's sister's for an hour or so to visit with Craig's family too.

On Saturday, I got to take part in my cousin Molly's daughter Cora's baptism. Molly asked me to be a Godmother for Cora and I told her I'd be honored. So the ceremony took place at 2 p.m. and then we went back to Molly's home for an amazing meal catered by her dad.

Here's a few pictures:






Sunday was a perfect weather day. So we spent the afternoon outside by my parent's pool. Will napped when we arrived so I got to lay out and relax. And when he awoke, we played in the pool and floated along on rafts.

Here's a BUNCH of pictures from Sunday:





















Will updates:

While we were in Traverse City, my father in-law taught Will the "How big is baby?" game. So we say: "How big is Will?" He raises one arm up and we say: "Soooo BIG!" It's very entertaining... for us.

Will understands/associates a lot more words lately. He waves at everything now and especially when we say "bye bye". He's starting to "find baby" in one of our favorite picture books and will occasionally pat his belly when you ask him where his belly is. Uncle Wes taught him "Where's your tongue?" - he sticks it out. It's too cute.

He's started signing "all done" at meal times, but hasn't caught on to "more" yet.

And, randomly, he's started cross crawling instead of commando crawling over the weekend. Still no walking on his own yet.

I swear he's had a growth spurt this month. He's eating soooo much food! Between meals and snacks, I feel like I'm cleaning up the high chair ALL the time!