What a difference a year makes...

Halloween!

Will got dressed up in his lion costume (which I made - What can I say? Apparently motherhood brings out the Martha Stewart in me.) and we went to the Underhills' house to trick-or-treat. They were having a fire pit in their cul-de-sac, and the Surfaces were coming over with Rylee (2 years) and Owen (5 or 6 months). We walked around for about a half hour. Trey went to several houses. Will only went to two and had absolutely no idea what was going on. He had fun petting some of the neighbors' dogs and opening and closing mailboxes (WTF?). Then we hung out for a little while and ate hot dogs and Busken cookies and headed home. We had lots of fun. Going with friends made it a lot more fun than it would have been if it were just Will and me (since Tim is in Florida).

Hallzooween with Beth and Claudia

We kicked off the Halloween celebrations with a trip to the Zoo with Beth and Claudia. Claudia was a peanut. Will even had his first carousel ride.

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He really loved this cow.

Visit to Grandma and Grandpa's

On a nature hike


















"Driving" the tractor

15 Months

Wow, this was the most difficult picture I've ever taken. This, literally, is the only one where he is actually sitting on the couch next to the bear. Now that he has a mind of his own and has the mobility to back it up, things got much more complicated than they have been previously. Sitting still to have his picture taken with this bear was NOT on his agenda for the morning.

1. Communication - He says a few words pretty well and in the right context:
mama (although this also is used to indicate that he wants something)
dada
ball (He loves balls.)
up (This is a favorite of his.)
uh-huh (He uses this in place of yes to respond in the affirmative to something. "Do you want to go outside, Will?" "uh-huh" I'm not a big fan of this. I think it's my fault, though, because I'm realizing I tend to respond to him in this way a lot.)
bye-bye (always accompanied by waving)
ba ba (bottle)

He definitely understands a large amount of what we say. If I tell him we're going bye-bye or outside he bee-lines it for the door. If I tell him we're going upstairs he walks over to the stairs. When we read certain books I ask him where the sun, barn, etc is and he points to them. He has also started to identify body parts on others. He can point to my nose and eyes. He also has an odd affinity for belly-buttons... I haven't been able to get him to point to anything on himself yet, though.

2. Mimicking - He wipes his nose with any tissues he finds around the house. He brushes his hair with anything that even remotely resembles a brush. He likes to "talk" on anything he thinks may be a phone(tv remotes, baby monitor, etc.). He doesn't actually babble into them. He just holds them up to his ear (or sometimes even the back of his neck) like he's on the phone. He also waves and blows kisses.

3. Eating - He's been feeding himself toast and other finger foods for awhile, but he's now started to try to use forks and spoons. He's been able to get the food to his mouth on them for a month or two but is really working on getting the food onto the fork or spoon now. He has yet to do it successfully without help, but he keeps trying. I'm having a lot of trouble getting him to eat table food. He does fine with certain things, mostly breakfast and lunch foods (he eats oatmeal, toast, sandwiches, cut up pieces of fruit, whole bananas, etc.) but am really having issues with any kind of dinner-type food. I really make an effort to sit him in his highchair with us while we eat and have him eat our food, but he absolutely refuses. Won't open his mouth for it. I've found in the past that once he actually tries something he may like it and actually eat it. So I try to force at least one bite into his mouth. That, of course, elicits serious screaming and crying. And now that he's learned to spit things out the food doesn't stay in for more than a second. And if he can't successfully spit it out for some reason he sticks his hand in there and rakes it out with his fingers. He won't even eat typical things that most toddlers will eat like pasta. Wants nothing to do with them. I even bought him the little Gerber ravioli things that lots of my friends' kids eat. No go. The only thing he will successfully gobble down, oddly enough, is quiche. So I'm faced with the dilemma of him not eating (in which case he gets really hungry and starts melting down) or feeding him baby food. I generally choose the latter. But I think it's ridiculous that the child still eats baby food for his dinner most days. I'm just not sure what to do. I'm sure that me breaking down and feeding him baby food instead of what we're having for dinner just perpetuates the problem (he's no dummy)...

4. Teeth - All 8 of his front teeth are in (4 top and 4 bottom). He's working on his molars now. The molars on his top and bottom left have broken through and the gums on his right side are pretty swollen in that area so I think it's only a matter of a few weeks on those. No signs of his canines yet, though, which I find weird. He got the side top teeth before the ones in the middle, though, so I guess it's normal for him.

5. Other stuff: He LOVES being outside. A friend of mine from work gave us a big plastic barn he kids used to play with. We put it up outside and he really likes going out and playing in it. He's obsessed with signs for some reason. Every time we go outside or on a walk he wants to touch all of the stop signs, etc. This is particularly irritating right now because it's election season and there are political signs up all over that he wants to touch. When we go on walks he spends the whole time pointing his little finger at all of the signs saying, "Mama, mama, mama, mama..." He still loves books. He has two, in particular, that he got for his birthday that we read right before naps and bedtime that he really likes ("Down on the Farm" and "The Going to Bed Book"). He gets really excited when we sit down to read them. And sometimes when we're playing in his room he'll go get one of them and bring it over to me with his blankie and want to sit in my lap and read. He is very affectionate. He loves giving kisses. Sometimes he just walks over to me and leans in for a kiss. It's so cute! All of his stuffed animals get frequent kisses. As do some of his puzzle pieces (not sure what's up with that). His new project is figuring out how to open doors. I think once he gets another few inches on him we're going to be in trouble. And finally, he's obsessed with the show "Cash Cab". He gets really excited if we turn it on in the evening and likes to watch it while he plays. The only other thing on TV that really gets any response out of him is Elmo on Sesame Street. I generally don't put the TV on much during the day, but when he was really little I used to put it on in the evenings when we were waiting for Tim to get home just for some company. The only thing really on at that hour is "Cash Cab" so I guess he's grown up on it??

Cincy Half Pics

My Masterpiece is Complete

The sweater is done!! Tim is going to take it with him to Florida this weekend to give it to its intended recipient, baby Piper. I'm very happy with how it turned out. There are some rough parts about it (the seams on the arms, there's a spot on the back of the collar where I knitted instead of purled, the ribbon attachment, etc) but I think it's pretty good considering it's my first attempt. And I think it is some of those rough things that make handmade stuff so cool anyway.




Now onto my next project: Will's Halloween costume. Coming down to the wire on this one...

Cincinnati Half Marathon

I completed my 2nd half marathon on Saturday, the Cincinnati Half Marathon. It was the race's "inaugural" run so we all thought it would be cool to be in on the first one (so that we could be "streakers" later) and support a fall race in our hometown. Turns out this wasn't totally the best idea. Everything turned out fine in the end, but there definitely were some planning and organization hiccups that the race director ran into.

Things about the race that sucked:
1. There were only like 2 port-o-lets on the route. There were a fair amount in the first 3 miles or so that were put there for/by construction crews that some of the race participants were stumbling through construction sites to get to. I only counted 2 actual planned port-o-lets along the route, though. And when I say 2 I don't mean 2 stations with groups of them. I mean literally 2 port-o-lets. Now, I get that there were only 1,600 people running this race (versus the 20,000+ that run the Pig) but that's still a bit ridiculous. There really wasn't anywhere to go along the full 4 mile stretch of Eastern Ave. Not to mention the lines that were created at the ones they did have. They also didn't have any at the start/finish area so everyone had to use the park bathrooms which were not equipped for that number of people.
2. They gave out discounts and perks for people that registered late in the game. I've always had issues with things being fair so this really bugged me. I get that they were trying to increase their registration numbers, but screwing the people who actually chose early-on to support you and got their shit together and registered early is not the way to approach this.
3. The course was horribly boring. We knew this going in. And, to be fair, they were trying to create a "flat and fast" course which is a bit of a challenge in Cincinnati.
4. Not many spectators. It made the race pretty boring. I was actually surprised at the number that were out there, though. More than I anticipated, especially with some of the access issues to Eastern. This isn't really their fault. It's to be expected given this was the first year.
5. The medals are just ghetto.

Things they did well:
1. There were a TON of volunteers who were all very friendly and helpful.
2. Adequate and well-manned water stops.
3. Course was well-marked.

Bitching aside, it turned out to be a great race for me. I did the Pig in 2:20. My goal for this race was a 2:10. (I'm not really sure why. I guess I just wanted to at least maintain what I consider to be my appropriate 10:00 pace. Yes, I realize that a 10:00 pace is a 2:11, but I like round numbers.) Anyway, my chip time was 2:08:40. (Which matched what I clocked myself at on my watch. Maybe that's another thing they did well: Did not eff up my time.) Hooray for me! I beat my goal. That's a 9:49 pace. I am super happy with this. It's a big improvement from the Pig (although, in fairness, that may very well be due to the flatness of this course).

Right after we passed our cheering section at the Delta turnaround Julie needed to stop for the port-o-let. Katie was going to stop with her to stretch, and Karen decided to wait with them also. Beth and I kept going, figuring they'd catch us at the next water stop. Unfortuantely, though, because of the too few port-o-lets issue, they were waiting longer than expected and never caught us. So Beth and I did the last 4 or so miles on our own. We were feeling good and kicked it up a notch as our 2:10 goal seemed do-able. I'm glad I beat my goal and I'm glad I got to finish with Beth, but I'm still sad that I didn't get to finish with the other girls. I did get to do 2/3rds of the race with them, though, so it's OK. And they all got to finish together. How cute is this? Katie, Julie, and Karen finishing.














Beth did a nice job of tracking our splits so here they are. You know, for posterity :-)

Mile 1 - 10:02 (Nice work, right on pace. It was nice that there weren't that many people because it was so much less crowded at the start and we didn't have to speed up later to make up for it.)
Mile 2 - 10:12
Mile 3 - 9:49
Mile 4 - 10:07
Mile 5 - 9:56
Mile 6 - 9:49
Mile 7 - 9:27
Mile 8 - 10:40 (We suspect the mile 8 marker was in the wrong spot because mile 7 was way too fast and mile 8 was way too slow so these are probably wrong.)
Mile 9 - 10:28 (Our hubbies, babies, and doggie were cheering mid-mile 8 so we lost a little bit of time to stop and visit.)
Mile 10 - 9:39
Mile 11 - 9:19
Mile 12 - 9:15
Mile 13 - 9:05
.1 - 44 seconds (We hauled ass to that finish line. I felt like I was going to die for several minutes after.)

This was just a great run. I ran it the way I always try to run them. I managed to maintain a good pace at the beginning, but reserved enough energy to make it through. And managed my energy so well that I still had it in me to pick it up at the end. We averaged a 9:20 pace on miles 10-13. That's significantly faster than my typical 10:00 pace, but I still maintained it for 4+ miles after already having run 9 miles. So a pat on the back to me. And a great way to finish out the 2010 race season. I probably won't be doing any big races in 2011 so I'm really happy I met my goals for 2010.

First Haircut!

Will was looking a little shabby so he got his first haircut yesterday. We've trimmed the hair above his ears before since it was itching him, but this was the first full-on cut. My mom came over and did it (since neither of us had any idea what we were doing). He was such a good boy!!! He just sat there, very still, the whole time playing with Grandma's cell phone. The whole thing probably took 20-30 minutes. That's a long time for a little guy to sit still and be good. I was very proud of him. And I think his hair looks pretty darn good given the fact that no one in the room has ever had any kind of formal training on this. Nice work, Grandma!

















The finished product:













He does look like such a big boy now, though. It makes me sad. We went out for dinner last night to celebrate finishing the Cincinnati Half Marathon (that will be a post for another day). We dressed him in jeans and a polo sweater that was a gift from Grandma Gee and he looked so cute and so old!

So I guess I'm supposed to run a half marathon tomorrow...

Tomorrow is race day and, to be honest, I couldn't care less. I'm not excited about it at all. I can't really say that I'm dreading it, I'm just not really looking forward to it. I can't get into it. I keep having to remind myself that I'd better drink a lot of water today, pack my race bag, etc. I feel totally under trained (not sure why because I've done all of the long runs and have been training for 3+ months), I have a horrible cold, and I've gotten totally crappy sleep this week (although when I think about the sleep I was getting back when I did the Pig and Will STILL wasn't sleeping through the night it's really not that bad). The weather's supposed to be good, though, and I've put in the time training so I might as well get my ass out there and make the best of it.

The Many Faces of Will

feeling a little sassy:

















happy guy:













REALLY excited about something (this face is usually accompanied by shaking):













looking like he's about to take a dump:













and the classic retarded pirate face:

Music Man

OK, I don't want to sound like a crazy mother here, but I really think that Will is musical. He loves music and dancing, and he really likes sitting and poking at the piano. Maybe all kids do this. He just seems to take a particular interest in it above other things. Anyway, I definitely see some piano lessons in his future...

Pumpkin Patch!

We went to the pumpkin patch and picked out some pumpkins today. It was 80 degrees, though, so it didn't feel very fall-like. We had fun, though. We went to a farm down on Route 8 along the river. It's a lot closer than the one we've been going to in Milford in past years. They had a bluegrass band playing, and we were able to go out into the patch and pick our own pumpkin. Will wasn't actually very interested in the pumpkins. He kept pushing them away whenever we tried to get him to pose with them. He wanted to run around in the patch, but kept tripping on all of the vines. We got a big one to carve and a little "spooky" for him. Too bad I still have no idea what the child's going to be for Halloween...

Hangin' Out

He LOVES "reading" books. He'll just sit there for a half an hour and flip through his books. Very cute. He still does try to eat the cardboard sometimes, though, unfortunately... Of course, during his reading sessions it is crucial that he has his "soundtrack" going. You'll note that he is surrounded by various toys that play music. He pauses from his reading to start up the music again when it stops.













I fear it's not going to be too long until both of my boys are sitting on the couch playing with laptops and ignoring me. It's bad enough that I have to fight a small, flat electronic device for Tim's attention... sniff, sniff...