Cold Spaghetti

Last night, we hosted the doctoral students for a “dinner’n’dish” evening. We doctoral students decided we needed time outside of the school to talk about the program, get ideas from those ahead of us on how to get through the program, plan for comps, strategize about selecting a committee, talk about our research, etc. So, our house got selected for location and I cooked! I made 2 huge dishes of Grandma DiMarzio’s Ziti (a huge hit), salad, and sliced peppers and cucumbers. Feeding 14 didn’t take as long as I thought it would and was a heck of a lot easier than I would have believed. (Having Paul as my official salad-prep man was definitely key!) Will was great. Some of the ways he entertained us:

– Escaping to the bathroom when our eyes were turned for a second and being found a few seconds later, both hands in the toliet, covered in toliet water
– Showing off his moves from “Riverdance” in the middle of our talking circle in the living room
– Walking around person to person, saying “HI!”
– Getting into a peek-a-boo contest with Jennifer Wheeler (fellow student)
– Chasing after “gato” and making everyone dive for their drink glasses before he crashed through

Stats: Turned 15 months on Monday the 21st. Has wellness exam next Tuesday… my guess on his height and weight? I’m going to say he’s 25 pounds… no idea on height.

Teeth? Oh yeah… He’s working on his molars and is doing great chopping away with the 10 he’s cut.

Words: Becoming more and more clear. His favorites change day to day… he likes to pick a word and use it all day long. It is not uncommon for him to say the day’s favorite word, non-stop, for several hours at a stretch. (This may sound like something that gets old, but for right now, we actually can’t get enough of his talking.) Lately, “ah-pull” is his number one word. El-mo is also popular. He’s getting better about saying “Da-Da”, much to Paul’s delight. Other fun words… “Peek-A-Boo!”, “WOW!”, “Ah-cha!” (which means “good” in Hindi), and “Doh!”

Energy level: Think Energizer Bunny. To make him stop, we literally have to run him around until he falls down asleep. He walked my parents several MILES through our zoo on Saturday, for real.

Hair: Still red/strawberry. It does seem to be getting more blonde color, but we’ve been saying that from the moment he was born, so who knows?

Dirty Diapers: 5(!!) within 4 hours this evening. Whoa, mama.

Brothers/sisters? I can’t believe I’m even getting asked about this. Let me survive comps.

Will golfing, playing in the park, eating, and more…

Granna & PapPap’s Weekend with Will (Feb 18-20)

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=8wsl6ap.1rcr2d3p&x=1&y=-sq9vor

– Sunday night, after we (Granna, PapPap, Paul and I) got back from the park. Will ran right to his high-chair, scaled the front (no small task), climbed inside, and sat down. (As we usually wrestle him in, this was a bit of a surprise. We were all stunned.) The message: he was READY for dinner.

– Blowing on his food before eating it… in other words, doing exactly what we were doing with our hot food before eating it.

– BIG HUGS. He’ll run at full speed, throw his arms around you, put his head on your shoulder, and pat his little hands on your back. *melt!*

– BEDTIME. Between 7-8pm. We’ve finally got a routine and schedule — and BOY DO WE LOVE IT!

Trying to sing, “La, la, la-la, La, la, la-la, Will-iam’s song!” Dinner Monday night (Feb 21)

On the swings with PapPap!

On the swings with Mom!

Climbing the equipment at the playground. Taking Will to the park is not for the light-hearted. This child has *energy*, *willpower*, and *strength*. That is enough to make anyone tired, but he also is completely FEARLESS! Watch out, world!!!

Saturday, February 19th. PapPap gives Will his first golf lesson. Will watched and concentrated VERY hard… he spent the next hour chasing after the golf ball with the putter. He was good at hitting the ball, but needs work on the “two hands on the club” part.

Paul took Will out for a haircut today. Will’s new ‘do is ADORABLE. But he looks so much like a little boy that it hit me: my baby is a toddler! For the first time, I felt the unbelievably fast passage of time. Where did my baby go? It makes me want to take more movies and pictures… whatever I can do to capture every bit of wonder and discovery. How is it that my little baby is suddenly a walking, talking (well, almost), little boy??!!