Peace. Out.

This morning I took both of the boys for haircuts to my awesome hair-dresser Rachel at Healthy Escapes salon. (Will took a bunch of pictures that I'll post later.)

Anyway, the whole experience was a bit much for Charlie. He was a bit tired and cranky by the time we left so I kind of figured he'd be asleep before we even left Waupaca.

"Is Charlie asleep?" I asked when we were still about 8 miles from Scandi.

"Nope, he's not," Will said from the backseat.

"I think he'll sleep soon, don't you?"

"No, I don't think so ... I think he just wants to rest in heavenly peace for a little while."

Just like the baby Jesus.

He's a stand up young man

Still comedy gold

We discovered on Thanksgiving Day that Will can make Charlie laugh just by going under the dinner table.

Almost two months later, this unlikely giggle-getter is still working like gangbusters:



Like we didn't have enough trouble getting Will to sit down for dinner.

Early retirement

Yesterday morning, I was brushing my teeth, and Will came into the bathroom to do the same.

"Daddy, do you know what retirement is?"

"Yes."

"It's when you get rid of your job and do nothing."

"Sounds about right. Why do you bring it up?

"I think you should retire and take me places."

A fine idea, my boy, but one that's not possible if we don't have enough money. You see, when you get rid of your job, people stop paying you, so you need to have saved up enough money to spend on food, housing, and taking you places.

"But Daddy, don't you and Mommy have enough money?"

"Maybe to retire for about six months after the way the stock market has been going lately!"

[Silent pause, puzzled look on Will's face.]

"OK, you can take your money and put it in my piggy bank, and then you'll have enough money to retire."

Not so, my friend. Wondering if he had subscribed to Kiplinger's behind my back, I asked Will where he had learned about retirement. I should have known:

"SpongeBob ... Mr. Krabs retired and they changed his restaurant around."

A poem by Will

I picked up this art project of Will's this morning ... the kids had to write their thoughts about sledding. Here's what Will wrote:

Sledding is ... warm.

The snow is hard.

I don't like sledding.

It brought to mind our first attempt to take Will sledding ... New Year's Day 2005. Charlie has still not been sledding but I think that may be for the best, given Will's opinion of it. Perhaps we started him too young...

Sunny Michigan

The other night, feeling the effects of our unrelenting winter cold, Will made an announcement to Charlie and me.

"Daddy, we should move someplace warmer."

"Really? Like where?"

"Like Hawaii, Mexico ... Michigan."

Apparently Will has been unable to escape all the news photos of tanned, relaxed Michiganders relaxing outside in the January warmth. Yes, if we moved into Candy's neighborhood in Trenton we'd spend every winter weekend at the beach building sand castles and sipping margaritas.

Sarcasm aside, I explained to him the downsides of living in warm-weather states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona -- oppressively hot summers, lower-quality schools, etc. Which led to a short lecture on property taxes. Which led to Will falling asleep -- mission accomplished!

If you resist

Last night at the dinner table I asked Will to finish his hot dog. When he didn't do it right away, I asked again.

"OK Daddy, if you resist," he said.

Resist? Oh ...

"You mean insist, right Will?"

"Yeah, insist."

What I should have said was "Resist is what you usually do when we ask you to finish your dinner food!"

Clone Troopers

Angela was nice enough to drive up and see us over the weekend, and brought Will and Charlie some nice presents. I was slightly jealous of Will's -- a full-sized Star Wars clone trooper helmet, complete with preprogrammed trooper lingo.

"We're gonna turn those clankers into scrap metal!"

Combine that one with the two cheapo trooper masks I picked up in San Diego last summer, and we had the beginnings of a pretty nice platoon. Not sure how I feel yet about Charlie joining the Galactic Republic's army.

Good prognosis

The other morning I was getting Will ready for school and holding Charlie, and for just a few seconds I had some intense stomach pain. It passed, but Will noticed my groaning and asked what it was.

"My tummy just hurt really bad."

"Maybe you ate too much food."

"Probably not, I haven't eaten anything since dinner, which was about 12 hours ago."

"Mmmm ... maybe you had too much protein."

I laughed it off, but a little while later thought about it and yeah, I did have three grilled sandwiches for dinner the night before. That's a lot of cheese, and a lot of protein. Maybe Will's right more often than we think.

Charlie and Grandpa John

Whose hair is more awesome -- Charlie's or Grandpa John's? Might be time to give the little guy a "high and tight" like his grandpa prefers.

Diapers? Love 'em, Babe

Who needs adult conversation? Part 3

As we headed into school this morning:

Jana: Will, look ... the sign says that it's too cold to go outside to play today.

Will: That's good. It's way too cold out there. I would not like going outside today at all. That would not be fun. In fact, if my teacher said we were going outside today, I would say that she's NUTS!

Overheard at the breakfast table this morning:

Will: Daddy, this magazine has the SILLIEST number EVER: V135.

Scott: That's the magazine's issue number. They are very important for magazines.

Will: WHAT? You've GOT to be KIDDING me!

Who needs adult conversation: Part 2

Will: Mommy! I see a connection!

Mommy: (looking around) Really? Where?

Will: No. I mean a see a connection ... Daddy is in charge of you, you are in charge of me, I'm in charge of Charlie, and Charlie is in charge of a mouse!

Mommy: Wait a second ... Daddy is in charge of me? When did that happen?

Will: Well, Daddy's bigger than you.

Mommy: Yes, but Mommy is older than Daddy. Why don't I get to be in charge?

Will: OK. OK. I'll let Daddy be in charge of me for awhile.

Mommy: That's nice of you. Now let's get to that mouse that Charlie is in charge of ...

Dead ringers

My brother-in-law told me that Charlie looks like Seth Rogen. After giving Andy a good long glare, I took a long hard look at Charlie and I can sort of see it now:












I still think that Charlie looks more like Ed Henry from CNN ... especially when he wears his tie bib from Sharon (available at www.sweetmaggies.etsy.com):












Charlie's starting to get more hair on the sides and his curls are starting to disappear, but there were quite a few days this summer when I was a little worried that he would look like a different famous person ...

Who needs adult conversation?

Will: Mommy, what if a stranger came to our door?

Me: I would go to the door and say, "Hi, can I help you?"

Will: What if he said, "What's your name?"

Me: I would say, "My name is Jana. What's your name?"

Will: OK. OK. But what if he said, "My name is Yeti?"

On a Rolo

The other day, I told Will that he was doing a great job listening and going to bed and staying in bed.

"You've stayed in bed the last two nights and you've had no time-outs. Great job!" I told him.

"I'm going to do it again tonight," he said. Then, he swiveled his hips Elvis-style, pumped his fists in the air and declared, "I'm on a roll!"

Well, truth is, he has been on a roll. He's even started providing himself with incentives for good behavior.

This morning as we were walking into the school, he showed me a Rolo candy and said, "I'm going to try to not have any time-outs and do a good job listening and if I do, I'm going to have this, OK?"

"Cool! So you're not going to have any time-outs and you're going to listen all day?"

"No, Mommy. I said I'm going to try."

I'm curious to see if just "trying" gets him the Rolo or not.

School days, school days

"I just can't wait until Charlie and I can go to Kindergarten together," Will said in the car on the way home yesterday.

"Well, you guys won't be in Kindergarten at the same time," Scott said. "When Charlie's in Kindergarten, you'll be in 3rd grade."

"WHAT?!? Third grade? Third grade is HARD! You have to do math and science and ex-spear-ments. I can't do all that! Third grade is too much work!"

We tried to find out who had scared the love of learning right out of him but he couldn't recall.

The whole conversation did bring to mind that old song we used to sing ...

Kindergarten babies.
First grade tots.

Second grade angels.
Third grade snots.

Fourth grade peaches.
Fifth grade plums.

All the rest
are dirty bums.

No doubt Will's new-found fear was inspired by a third-grade snot.

Of course, I am a bit protective of my Kindergarten baby.

New Blue Eyes

Smooth moves

Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" came on the other day when we were in the van so I told Will about how his Uncle Nick did an amazing garter dance to that song at his and Sara's wedding.

Instead of being impressed, Will started questioning me about what made Uncle Nick's dancing so good.

"What did he do? What were his moves?" he asked.

"Hmmmm. I don't know. He was just a real smooth operator," I said.

"Is he a better dancer than me? Has he seen me dance?"

"Um, well, you're both good. I'm sure you could teach each other some great moves."

So, Nick, here's a video of Will's first dancing lesson: The Limbo (which he also calls his Hawaiian dance).

Mr. Socks

Turn Charlie loose in a pile of socks ...

Science is fun!

One of Will's Christmas gifts was a Magic School Bus chemistry kit. Santa's intent with the gift, we imagine, is to help spur Will's interest in science by performing some simple experiments with household items.

Early results are positive. The below experiment was pretty cool. We mixed yeast, sugar, and warm water in a test tube, then put a balloon over it. Lo and behold, it inflated! Reading to Will in bed, I told him to go downstairs and check on it. Seconds later, he yelled "Daddy! Daddy! You've got to see this!"

When I went to move the test tubes, the balloon slipped off and wet yeast got all over my hands. Ewwwww ...

Let it go already

We've been going through another round of "behavior boot camp" at our house. When Will turned four, I started calling it "the terrible twos times two." But, oh, that was a long seven months ago.

So, this morning, Will decided to jump on the couch. I told him not to jump on the couch. He continued to jump on the couch. I repeated, "No jumping on the couch. Stop right now."

"No," he said. "I don't want to stop."

Little punk...

Up the stairs, to Will's room. I'd like to stay I escorted him up there, but he's getting big and by the end I was sort of carrying/dragging him.

Next, he pulled a trick out his Auntie Sara's book and slammed the door in my face. (Sara did this so many times, Will's Grandpa actually took the door off the hinges. Mind you, she was closer to 14 than 4.)

I opened the door and said, "No TV. No TV at all today."

Scott and I didn't let Will watch TV for his earliest formative years. A decision we stand by. One unfortunate by-product is that it's now his favorite thing to do. We limit him to mornings during the week and we're pretty liberal on the weekends (mostly because sometimes we just would like him to sit still.)

So, no TV is a pretty big deal to Will on a Saturday. (I think it was a pretty big deal to Scott too, I think I heard him groan when I announced the punishment.)

Anyway, the slamming stopped and I went back downstairs to resume updating the baby books. Not long after, Will came down the stairs and went into the basement. Then he collected his colored pencils and paints and went back to his room.

A few minutes later, he came down with a beautiful picture he painted for me. He asked if I'd help him paint one for his Daddy too.

We had a really nice time and it seemed we were on the right track until an hour or so later when Scott came downstairs. I told him, "Will's not going to watch TV today."

Will looks at me with saucer-eyes and says, "WHAT?!?"

"Remember when you weren't listening and slammed the door?"

"Yeah," he says, pointing to the painting he made for me. "I thought you were going to let that go ..."

Brothers

Christmas isn't done yet!

Found this cute picture on one of our memory cards ... it's rare, since Charlie didn't like having the Santa hat on very much!

Happy New Year ... Happy Old Memories

Found a few videos ... all are within a few months of Will turning two.