The Dickinson Boys: Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween! We had a great day and fairly good weather, though it got chilly in the evening. We never were successful at getting Will to wear a costume. He had three to choose from (thanks to after Halloween clearance sales last year). And he wouldn't wear any of them. So we put him in his Tony Romo jersey and he went as a Dallas Cowboy. By Halloween Will got pretty good at saying "trick or treat." And he would say "Happy 'ween." But my favorite is when he would babble about the "great pumpkin" and the "pumpkin patch." We often had "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" playing on the DVD player in the car. So Will often talked about the "great pumpkin."

On Halloween we put Luke in his Winnie the Pooh bunting and Will in his Tony Romo outfit. Luke got to hitch a ride with me in the Baby Bjorn. He seemed fascinated by looking around at the trees and kids. And then the next thing we knew he was asleep and he slept the rest of the evening. The four of us headed out to do a few houses but we didn't expect Will to get too into it. He is a fan of suckers but he literally didn't know the word "candy" until just a few days before Halloween. So we didn't expect too much. Boy do kids catch on fast! He needed some prompting but Will said "trick or treat" at every house and then "thank you" at all but one (a scary one with a strobe light). He had the routine down cold. He ended up going to five or six houses then we turned back.

We expected not to have too many trick-or-treaters because the houses in our neighborhood are fairly far apart and most have long driveways. Boy were we wrong! We literally had hayrides full of kids trick-or-treating. We barely had enough candy. Because they were coming fast and furious we stayed outside in front of our house for about an hour after Will had finished his trick-or-treating. Will LOVED being outside after dark. He kept telling us "dark side" which is Will-speak for "it's dark outside." He waved around his glow stick that we'd given him for trick-or-treating and spotted all of the airplanes lit up in the sky (we're on some heavily-used flight path to one of the local airports). He greeted the other kids too. The most common thing we heard other kids say was, "I hate the Cowboys, but he's really cute." Will really had a good time. We decided to pack it in around 8:00 when it was getting pretty chilly and Luke was waking up. The next morning, I asked Will if he'd had fun. I thought he would say something about the candy or Halloween or pumpkins. But instead he only wanted to talk about the "airplanes in the sky." Funny what excites toddlers. He liked the candy when we'd give it to him but he didn't really ever ask for it. And he wouldn't ask for more when we'd give him a piece. I think he's just more of a cake man.

Overall I was impressed at how Will caught on to Halloween. I think he'll catch on to Christmas even more. Seems like we get a new toy catalog just about every day here. And Will loves to look through them. Last night I told Will it was time to go upstairs to go to bed and he picked up the Toys R Us catalog off the table, put it under his arm and headed for the stairs. He wanted to look at the toys while in bed! It's cute at this stage because he doesn't yet understand that those pictures are real toys that Mommy and Daddy could go buy. So there's no asking for anything. He just likes to look at the toys.

The Wed before Halloween we went to a little Halloween party at the library story time. So many cute little costumes. Will was also a Cowboy at that event. There were several other little boys his age not in costume so I suspect it's a common problem. I tried to get Will to hold his little football but he wouldn't let go of a spatula I'd given him to play with earlier in the day. He likes playing with kitchen tools and I guess he decided that a spatula went better with his costume. Uncle Jake told him to tell people he was cooking up some good offense. I did get him to leave it in the car when we got to the library but he was still without the football. This past Wednesday the story time theme was dinosaurs, which Will calls "daddysaurs." He had his dinosaur shirt on and had a little toy T-Rex with him. And he showed the class his daddysaur.

Luke has had a couple of milestones since the last blog. The day after my last post he rolled over from front to back! David had put him on his playmat for some tummy time and the next thing we knew he was on his back. So he knows how to cut tummy time short now. We suspect that he could roll from back to front if he really tried but he hasn't really given it a good effort yet. We've also started Luke on some rice cereal. The first feeding went really well. He seemed like a natural. Not too much mess and I even gave him seconds. But subsequent feedings have been more like what we remember when Will was starting out- more food on the bib than in the mouth. It's hit or miss whether he really cooperates with feedings. Soon we'll move on to some barley cereal then...[drum roll]...squash! His first veg! Very exciting.

Nothing new on the sleeping front for Luke. He's still up twice a night. And he is legitimately hungry, not just needy. So he's eating around the clock just like Will did. I had dared to dream that this baby would sleep through the night before 9 months (when Will dropped his night feedings). Luke is still a very light sleeper and we're still trying to work out a good pattern for his napping. It's difficult. And we briefly attempted to take his swaddle away but it really wasn't pretty. We thought we could hold out longer than he could but we were wrong. So he's still being swaddled. Though he's getting so big that he can break out of it whenever he wants so I worry less that it's a safety issue if he happens to roll.

Other than the sleep issues, Luke is a pretty easy-going baby. He loves watching everything that Will is doing. Will is becoming more and more accepting of Luke too. Will no longer gets clingy every time I hold or feed Luke. And often when Will gets his hand on a bottle or pacifier, he'll go to Luke and try to give it to him- whether Luke wants it or not. It's cute. The only issue we have is that Will likes to take Luke's toys away or move them out of his reach. We're working on that one.

Will is very good at playing on his own and he is getting more imaginative and creative every day.
He loves copying things that Mommy and Daddy do. He pretends to cook while I'm cooking and vacuum while I'm vacuuming. He pretends to take pictures, talk on the phone and type on his computer. One morning I was making him a waffle and he opened the fridge to get his milk. He suddenly came over to me and asked for a towel. He usually only asks for towel when he has something on his hands and he hadn't even eaten yet so I was a little confused. But I gave him a towel anyway. He went over to the fridge, opened the door and started cleaning up some salsa that had spilled on the bottom of the fridge. Talk about a proud moment! He's always very good at cleaning up what he spills. But, sometimes he spills things on purpose so that he can clean it up.

He's been drawing a lot recently. He will sometimes ask for crayons and his coloring books. But what he really loves is to have a pen and blank paper. His favorite things to color with are pen and highlighters. Probably those lawyer genes he has. He loves to put blank paper on the fridge with magnets and draw on it with his pen. Quite the artist!

The weather here has been really nice. Nice fall colors and just the right amount of chilly. The four of us went for a walk today and Will was a little leaf collector. He loved stomping on the crunchy leaves and he'd bend down to inspect them and pick a favorite. When he had one leaf, he'd keep saying "leaf, leaf." Then when he'd pick up another, he's say, "two leaves." Our little counter in action! He also pointed out every mailbox, basketball goal and airplane he saw. It ended up being a long walk but it's important for a little scientist to get into nature.

Last weekend we even had snow! We were on the tail end of that Nor'easter that went up the east coast. Last Saturday we had some snow with giant flakes. It didn't really stick but Will got to see lots of it falling. The next morning he'd look out the window and say "snow?".

Finally, Will has just started to show some interest in colors. We've learned that if Will is not interested in something, he won't cooperate if we're trying to teach him. And we don't push it- we just wait until he becomes interested. But lately he's shown some interest in identifying colors. He can do most of the main colors some of the time but he's not 100% consistent yet. If how quickly he learned his letters is any indication, he'll probably know about 20 colors by next week. But so far, he seems to favor yellow and red. Will knows all of his letters but doesn't yet sing his ABCs. I often try to sing them to him while I change his diaper but he usually reaches up to cover my mouth. Infer what you will about my signing ability. But lately he's let me go. A couple of weeks ago I kept repeating "A, B, C, D" just trying to get him to repeat that part. He let me say it over and over again but wouldn't repeat. Then finally, after I said, "D" he said, "E." Like he was trying to help me out with what came next! So I think he knows strings of letters but he's not too interested in cooperating.

Up for this week we'll have another story time and maybe a park trip or two. Jumpbunch and swimming lessons are both over so we're on our own for activities for a while. David is actually taking a couple of days off this week for some family time since there is another Aircraft Investigation Board on the horizon. With his days off and Veteran's Day, we get a five-day weekend with Daddy!