Will quieros Taco Bell

Forgive the Spanglish adaptation of the popular Taco Bell slogan, I know it's not proper Spanish but think it sounds funny. But the other day we grabbed dinner at Taco Bell and Will ate two tacos — a new record for the lad.

Afterward in the bathtub, Will says to me "Daddy, next time we go to Taco Bell I'm going to eat five tacos."

"Five tacos, no way! I couldn't even eat five tacos!"

"Yeah you could Daddy. You could eat six tacos because your belly's so big!"

And once again, Will speaks the unvarnished truth, and I'm left plotting a gut-reduction strategy.

Will weighs in on the election

While taking his bath Wednesday night, I heard Will sputtering "Buh-ROCK O-BOMO, Buh-ROCK O-BOMO." Just to make sure I was hearing him right, I turned off the water and asked what he was saying.

"Barack Obama," he said.

"Where did you hear those words?"

"On TV this morning."

"Do you know what they mean?"

"He's going to be the next president, that's what they said on TV."

So apparently he is retaining what's on CNN while he's scarfing down waffles in between Wow Wow Wubbzy and Lazytown. Encouraging.

Then Will took a turn handicapping the race. I happened to be reading Newsweek at the time, and showed Will the picture of Obama with his running mate on the cover.

"This man's name is Joe Biden."

"What's that guy's name?"

"Joe Biden."

"That guy's going to be the next president, after that guy."

And somewhere Will's godfather started dry heaving again ...

Big brother is watching

At our daycare, the "big kids" are downstairs most of the day and the "babies" are upstairs. So, Will only gets to see Charlie at lunch time and his teachers let him go upstairs if he ever wants to see "his baby."

Protective Will sometimes gives me reports like, "Charlie was sleeping REALLY well when I went upstairs at lunch."

This morning, one of the ladies that takes care of Charlie told me a sweet story about Will.

Apparently, as she was holding Charlie in the rocking chair, Will approached from the side and whispered in Charlie's ear, "I'm right downstairs if you need anything."

Someone told me when I was pregnant with Charlie that a younger sibling was the best gift I could ever give Will. I'm starting to think that Will is going to be the best gift I ever gave Charlie too.

I'll have to remember that the next time I'm saying, "Please stop squeezing the baby's head."

Our boys

Here's a shot of Will and Charlie from a couple weeks ago. As I look from Charlie's face to Will's face, I find myself thinking, "Was Will really ever that clean?"

Boys in play houses should not throw stones

Scott and I were moving at a good clip last Thursday as we left work. We had to pick up the boys, stop home to change, and get to Waupaca ASAP to meet Scott's parents, who were going to take Will to the lake house and camping.

We had a plan and it was working. As I ran upstairs to get the baby's stuff, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that one of my friends from work was getting a "talking-to" about her son.

Please not today, please don't be in trouble today, I thought.

As I came back down the stairs, however, I noticed Will staring at his feet and looking like a whipped pup. The daycare director and Scott were standing nearby, arms crossed.

"Do you want to tell your mom and dad what happened?"

Will, suddenly paralyzed and struck mute, did not want to tell us what happened.

Apparently, our son has joined a gang. And this rock-throwing gang decided it would be a good idea to throw shovels full of rocks at two of the teachers' cars.

Scott has a good sense of timing and is pretty good at finding the right words to say in awkward situations. He wasn't quite on his game that day, however.

"Soooo, Will's not going to be here tomorrow."

Will, who never really had a great sense of timing, quickly perked up and said, "Yeah! I'm going swimming and we're going to have a fire and s'mores and going camping!"

AWK-WARD.

Yes, we probably should have told Will, "Oh, no you're not. You'll never eat another s'more as long as you live!"

But, we didn't. He got to go to the lake for the weekend, he even got to have s'mores. And, as we drove home from Waupaca that night, where Will actually got pizza and ice cream on the day of his biggest behavioral transgression ever, we wondered if we'd played this right.

Will did receive an adequate amount of discussion about "good choices" and "just walking away" when his friends are making bad choices. He also lost quite a few toys and had to run through "saying sorry" role-playing and he made some apology notes for his teachers. Basically, he eventually did make amends in all the ways a four-year-old can. But, good parenting would dictate that we should have acted immediately. Instead, we were thinking about our own plans and Will's grandparents' plans.

And, as we reflected on the day's events last Thursday, we decided that we'd just live and learn ... the good/bad news, we figured, is that he'll probably screw up again and give us another chance.

We just didn't figure he'd screw up again on his first day back at daycare.

Last night, he tells me, "Mommy, the boys were throwing rocks again."

"Really?" I said. "Did you throw rocks too?"

"Yup," he said. "But, this time, after I threw the rocks, I just walked away."

That's really not what we meant, Will ...

Badger Family Day, part 2

Check out this last picture ... as a parent, does it get any better than seeing your child like that?

Badger Family Day

Yesterday Jana and I took the boys to Madison to see our friends Jim and Molle and Ben, take Will to the Madison's Children's Museum, and then take part in the Badger football program's Family Day at Camp Randall Stadium. What fun!

First Will got his picture taken with Kyle Jefferson, one of the Badgers' two players to wear #7. Then, having not had his nap yet, Will started to inch toward meltdown, showing his disappointment while we played catch from exactly 10 yards away. But then ... a rally! First Will touched the goal post, which he thought was pretty cool.

Then we played football just beyond the north end zone, which was awesome. We'd run and tackle each other, chase fumbles, then get up with pieces of artificial Field Turf all over ourselves.

Jana took a lot of great pictures, here are a few. A couple more are on the way tomorrow, including how Charlie spent his time during the event.

Knee pit

Today after day care Will was cleaning up in the shower. He was doing a pretty good job, and I asked him if he was just about done.

"Yeah, but I still need to clean up my knee pit," he said.

Knee pit?

"Yeah, here," he said, pointing to the back of his knee.

Oh, like an arm pit ... only with your knee.

Sometimes the random things kids say make so much sense.

Will reads to Charlie

Here's a cute video of Will reading "That's Not My Pirate" to Charlie. It came pretty much out of the blue for us.

Waking up is hard to do

He's got a gift

This morning, Will proved it's never too late to think ahead.

"Guess what Mommy? On my next birthday, I want to have a camouflage party."

His birthday is May 20.

"And, I'm going to write notes to everyone to tell them to give me camouflage things."

Scott and I quickly jumped in.

"You can't expect people to give you gifts, Will," Scott said. "They probably will bring a gift, but you shouldn't expect it."

"Plus, it's not polite to write a list of things you want, except at Christmas when you write to Santa," I added.

Will quickly teared up, donned his whiny voice and said, "But, I don't want to get a bunch of old furniture and clothes for my birthday!"

So, if any of you were thinking of getting Will that beautiful antique sewing table .. you'd better think again.

Charlie and Bucky

Not sure if I've helped advance Charlie's love of the Badgers or sparked a lifelong fear of Badgers, but here's a fun video of the baby, the mascot, and On Wisconsin.

Oh, God ... I mean gosh

Will was in the play area at church on Sunday and I told him that we were going to go talk to somebody for awhile, so he should wait there for us.

"You're going to talk to someone?" he said. Then his eyes got big and he said in a half-whisper, "Is it Dog?"

"Dog?" I asked.

"I mean God."

Day at Sunset Lake

On a recent Saturday at Sunset Lake, a beautiful county park 15 minutes from our house that we've never been to before, Will practice his swimming stroke ... in the sand ...















... and practiced making snow angels ... in the sand.

Grandma Tappa and Charlie

Dunk tank

At the St. Mary Magdalene parish festival, Will took part in a dunk tank. On his first round, he connected with the target, but didn't throw the ball hard enough to trip the seat. On his second round, he connected with his first throw and put the lady in the water. The key: stepping with his left leg when throwing with his right.

Also key: stealing a dollar from his father's pocket. Well, sanctioned stealing. ;)

Yooper Eucharist

The other day at church, the priest was speaking about "serving Eucharist" as Will and I were walking to the bathroom.

"Serving Yoopers?!" Will said/asked.

"No, Eucharist," I said, and began the attempt to explain the Christian sacrament.

"Yoopers are people that live in Upper Michigan, right Daddy?"

"That's right, buddy."

I suppose that's what Sunday School teachers are for.

First day

Charlie has been having a super smooth transition back to daycare. I just called and he's pretty much been just eating and sleeping. His teachers said that he "really let us know" when he was hungry. He apparently also gave them hell when they went to change his diaper.

As for me, despite a checklist of to-dos that I think may rival a NASA space launch, we got out of the house within a minute of planned departure and arrived to work on time. (Deadlines are key in the publishing industry.)

Today has actually been very fun. I was greeted to a huge "Welcome Back Jana" sign on the window, balloons, lots of treats and a lot of very cool, very special pictures of Charlie and Will ... complete with clever captions! Below are a few, many thanks to my friends Katy and Sue for these. Enjoy!

Our boys

Everyone wins in Gwinn

During our trip to the UP, Jana took Will to meet up with some of his cousins in Gwinn for a centennial celebration. This first picture is Will (in white) with Nathan (in blue), who, if you'll remember, is about the same temperature as Will.

Blocking sled anyone?

On our drive home from day care today we passed the high school football practice field, and saw some blocking sleds. "What is that?" Will asked, and I explained.

"Can we buy one?" Will asked. Well, I explained, we could, but they're usually just for football teams. You need five people to use it, and they're for bigger people than you.

"Well ... when I get bigger, and you get bigger, and Mommy gets bigger, and Charlie gets bigger, and Mommy has another baby and he gets bigger ... then we can get one."

Sound reasoning, but I don't want to raise linemen.