Basketball!

Or as Will says, "baketbaw".

Will REALLY likes balls. So I got him a basketball hoop to play with. I thought this would add another fun aspect to all the ball playing that we do. He seems to really enjoy it, but mostly because he just wants to watch Tim and me make baskets. He doesn't have much of an interest in doing it himself very often. He does like the little mini basketball that came with the thing, though. So now with the green playground ball I bought him awhile ago, a few random cat toys he discovered somewhere, and the little basketball we have quite the ball collection.

Sometime over the last few weeks Will has turned into a full-fledged boy. He is wild, destructive, and ridiculously curious. I swear, he rips things apart just to see what will happen if they get ripped apart. It is a full time job keeping up with him and protecting the house from him. Every evening when Tim gets home from work he goes into crazy mode. He just runs around the house yelling and throwing things. He constantly wants us to rough-house with him. He loves being tickled and chased and thrown onto furniture. There definitely are some times when he sits and plays quietly. One of his favorite things to do is to go through his alphabet flash cards and tell me all the letters. (He knows everything but W and H at this point.) These are few and far between, though.

The vast difference between him as a boy and little girls his age became apparent when we went to storytime at the library this week. Will was the only boy in there around his age (all of the other boys were younger and not walking or crawling yet). There were several

girls around his age there, though, and they all just sat quietly in their mommy's laps. They clapped and sang. They paid attention to the story. They were just generally attentive. What was Will doing this whole time? Hmmmm... let's see.

- Climbing on the windowsill and trying to open the windows

- Rattling a stack of chairs in the corner

- Trying to open all of the doors and cabinets in the back of the room (which were locked, thank god)

- Repeatedly trying to escape from the room

- Collecting all of the balls from the stack of toys, which included stealing any that small babies may have been playing with

I'm also starting to see maybe a few tiny improvements in his eating. This week we got him to try a taco. This may seem like a silly, small thing (and not a very healthy thing for him to eat anyway) but, believe me, it was a big step. Generally, he refuses to try ANYTHING that is not clearly a cookie. This is the crux of the eating issue. I know that he would like to eat a lot of things, but he simply refuses to allow them to enter his mouth. I think he only ate one or two bites of the taco after the initial bite, but that's more progress than we've seen in months so I was thrilled. Then last night we got him to eat chicken and biscuits (chicken gravy with pieces of chicken, peas, and carrots over biscuits). He ate a fair amount. Of course, he wouldn't eat what was on his plate, only what came off of Tim's plate, but it was still a win. I'm really hoping we continue to make progress because I have no intention of feeding this child baby food when he's 2 years old, nor do I have any interest in acting as a sandwich and chicken nugget short-order cook while trying to care for a newborn.

In Baby #2 news, we got the results back from the testing we had done a few weeks ago and everything looks normal. The test returns probabilities (not a firm answer), but the probability of the baby having Down's Syndrome or any of the other genetic abnormalities they tested for is very, very tiny. I'm finally starting to feel better. Not 100% all of the time, for sure, but food is much more appealing and my energy level is back up to normal. I guess 12-13 weeks is the magic number. Only a few more days until the start of the 2nd trimester.

The Flying Pig is this weekend. I'm nervous about it. I feel like a crazy person trying to run that far (on such a challenging course) at 14 weeks pregnant. Rationally, I know I can do it, though. I did the 12 miler just fine. But that was 2 weeks ago... Katie and Karen (who are doing the full) are planning on starting out really slowly (in the 11:30 range) so I figure if I stick with them for the first few miles to get warmed up I should be fine. I'll take it slow up the Gilbert and Eden hills, and then if I'm feeling good I can really go for the last 4-5 miles, which are all downhill. It's definitely not going to be a PR. The race took me 2:20 last year. If I can do that again I'll be thrilled. I think my goal really is just to finish in under 2:30, but at this point finishing at all (and not having a horrid time doing it) is a win.

Will and Claudia Sittin' in a Tree...

Yes, we're still alive...

I've been really bad about blogging lately because I haven't felt great and my motivation level has been about zero. It's really all I can do to get off my butt to cook, clean, and care for Will these days.

There's so much going on with the little man lately, though. He's talking up a storm now. He's using 2 and 3 word phrases/sentences fairly frequently now ("Hi, Mama", "Bye bye, Dada", "More crackers please"). I'm absolutely amazed at how quickly he is learning letters. I'm not really sure why he's decided to focus on this and am really surprised he's even interested in it this early, but I'm going with it. He can readily recognize 12-15 uppercase letters at this point and seems to be learning more and more every day. He's also picked up some new dance moves that are pretty amusing. He loves to dance, but he used to just kind of bob up and down. Now he's kicking his legs out in both directions and waving his arms. Pretty funny.

One of my favorite things he's doing lately is voluntarily giving kisses and hugs. He's been kissing and hugging for a long time, but only if you ask him for one. Now I think he's started to understand that they are signs of affection and will randomly stop what he's doing and come give you a kiss, like it's his way of telling you he loves you. So sweet!

He is currently OBSESSED with my dad. He calls him Paw Paw. We're always having to go around the house and look at all the pictures of Paw Paw. He's always wanting Paw Paw to come and visit. The other day Tim came home from work and for some reason Will thought it was Paw Paw. When it was Tim that walked through the door instead, Will gave him a very disappointed look and ran the other way. We went to visit Paw Paw at his house last week (my mom was there too, but that didn't really seem to matter quite as much) and we went on a walk to the lake, sat on the tractor, and took a ride around on the Kubota. Will was in heaven.

He LOVES being outside or just out and about in general. He really does not like being cooped up in the house. The last couple of times we've come home from somewhere he's started whimpering and saying "no, no, no" when we pull into the driveway. He was sick a few weeks ago with a fever and had to stay in the house for 5 days. The poor little guy was miserable :-( I'm very happy the weather's getting better so that we can get outside to play more often.

We're finally moved on from the Elmo phase and are now obsessed with "choo-choo's", which means Thomas the Tank Engine. He loves the theme song and dances like a crazy thing when it comes on. He's starting to actually engage in some of the stories. There's one episode where Thomas accidentally crashes into the stationmaster's house and Will gets really excited and yells "Accident! Accident!"

So working out has pretty much been a bust lately. I haven't done anything other than run for the past 5 weeks. I was doing pretty well staying on top of my training, at least, until the last 2 weeks when I only got in 2 runs each week for various reasons (Will was sick, scheduling, etc.) It's really frustrating. I know that part of the reason my energy is so low and I'm feeling so crappy is because I'm not exercising like I should be, but it's so hard when I feel so sick and am so worn out at night. And Will going down to one nap a day has really made it difficult to get anything in during the day because the precious nap time I do have needs to be used for other things (work, housekeeping, etc.) I'm feeling some energy come back now, though, and my determination is up so I think I'm on the upswing. I ran after work yesterday, did a workout video today during Will's nap (this was only made possible because my cousin Abbey, who is on spring break this week, came and played with him for a few hours this morning so I could get some work done), and am scheduled to run with the girls tomorrow. I need to try to get something in on Thursday, though. That will be the tough part. Friday will be a rest day anyway because I have my longest training run on Saturday (12 miles!). I can't believe it's only 2 1/2 weeks until the race.

I suppose I should do a sweater update. Ah, the sweater... It's almost done, I swear. I have maybe 10 more rows to go and then finishing off the edges of the sleeves and it's done. You'd think I could muster up the energy to just do it. It's going to be summer soon for god's sake! But I really haven't felt like knitting AT ALL lately. And to make things even more interesting, my iPhone had to be replaced, which meant that I lost the knit counter I had on there so now I don't even know what row I'm on in the cable pattern. Yikes! I have to finish it, though. I spent too much $ on that yarn to let it go to waste!