Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! We've had a great day here- beautiful weather and a happy boy. The Easter Bunny didn't come until we left for church, otherwise there is no way we would have made the 9:30 service. We went to church and then out to lunch. When we got home, Will got his Easter basket and was immediately excited by the toy airplane. He's been really into airplanes and helicopters lately. Whenever he hears a plane outside he runs to the windows to look for it. And the other day, he was looking at my cross necklace and decided it was an airplane! He picked it up and started flying it around, making the sound and everything- all while I was still wearing it!

Anyway, Will also got a few books and a song flute. And, of course, some candy. Once Will's basket was emptied we helped him find the eggs. We'd have to point him in the right direction but it didn't take him long to find all of them. He was very excited to learn that there were Hershey Kisses in each of the eggs. He got one open after some effort and they all spilled out and he yelled, "Yes!" Will ate a good lunch so we let him go to town on some of his chocolate. He can also say something close to "Happy Easter." A good Easter for Will (and all of us)! If you scroll down to the last two photos and look carefully, you'll see that the Easter Bunny even brought a basket for someone special who's not here yet!!

Will has had another fun but busy week. The weather has been hot (highs in the 90s) and humid so it feels like summer. We're already eating mass quantities of watermelon. To beat the heat (and to keep Will occupied) we got him a little water table for the backyard. He has fun splashing around and playing with his boats. He gets soaked but he loves it! He is also getting a new sprinkler toy to run through in the backyard for his birthday but we're having a bad drought and there are strict watering restrictions so Will probably won't get to use the sprinkler until we get some rain.

Will has made a little progress on his counting. I've heard him count, in order, from one to twelve. He wasn't counting objects, he was just counting out loud while in bed and I heard him on the monitor. Once he gets to twelve he starts saying "ah-teen, ah-teen, ah-teen." That's how he does the numbers in the teens. We suspect that he actually does know a few colors but he's just not that interested in colors quite yet. If you ask him what color something is he usually says green, though he's usually wrong. But when he's playing by himself with a color puzzle, sometimes he's pretty good at identifying the different colors. We suspect he knows the basic colors but is holding out on us. Letters are much more fun for him.

On Friday Will had a play date with a friend his age named Tyler. We went to the park and then to Tyler's house to play. Tyler was much more interested in interacting with Will than Will was with him. Will still likes to keep to himself and play on his own or with me. He's a lone wolf. They did click more when they discovered that they had a shared passion for floor care. Tyler had two brooms and a couple of dustpans and they had fun running around pushing the brooms.

We've also made a little bit of progress with the napping efforts. It's still a little inconsistent but we've discovered that if we get him up before 7:30 and make a very intentional effort to have him burn energy in the morning, the afternoons go much better. He eats a good lunch and actually naps around 2:00 or so. But we have to make sure we take him to the park or do some sort of activity that burns his energy. The days of him napping just because he's been awake for a certain length of time are over! The difficulty is that as his energy and mobility have increased, mine have decreased! Taking him to the park involves climbing, sliding, lifting, etc. So it's difficult sometimes. We're doing the best we can though.

The neighborhood pool is open now so that will help tire him out. We took him to the pool yesterday for the first time this season. Last summer, he was a fearless little water bug. Yesterday, however, he seemed to have a new awareness that he can't swim. We took him to the big pool, and he even had floatie similar to a life jacket on. But he was still very nervous about us letting him go. The two of us were right next to his side the whole time but it was quite a contrast from last summer when he didn't seem to know that he couldn't swim. I actually like that he has a healthy fear of the big pool now. He was much happier when we went to the baby pool. He had a lot of fun.

Will has made progress talking too. He has learned so many new words in the last couple of weeks and he's much easier to understand. In many cases, he only needs to hear a new word a couple of times and he'll remember it and use it from there on. He's even attempting more multi-syllable words (like the aforementioned "watermelon").

Finally, he seems to be starting to understand, on some level, that there is a new baby coming. We've been reading him kids books about being a big brother and having a new baby in the house. Last week I noticed that when I said the word "brother" he'd say "baby." Then I'd ask him where the baby is and he'd point to my tummy. Over the last few days, we've been getting out some of our baby stuff. Will likes to inspect everything and I tell him it's for his baby brother. He likes to repeat "baby" and "baby brother" and sometimes "baby Luke." I still don't think he knows what's about to hit him, but he seems to understand on some level that there's going to be a new baby. We have about 8 1/2 weeks to go and he'll be here!