I feel like it's been a really long time since I did a post to update on my favorite little man, Mr. Will. So, before I'm writing up a birth story about his little sister, I wanted to get a good post in to remember what my little guy was like when he was my ONLY little one.
Will is 26 months old now (we just call him 2, however) and is just the light of our whole lives. In the last couple of months since he turned two, he's come a long way in speaking and communicating with us and gets better every day.
He likes to hug and give kisses - but mostly on his timetable. If you ask for a hug or kiss, you've only got a 50% chance your actually gonna get it. Along those same lines, he's pretty headstrong. He knows what he wants (or more accurately what he doesn't want) and he'll make that clear to you. I was joking with Geoff the other day that the key to a happy day with Will is convince him that everything is his idea. I'm surprisingly good at that, too.
I've given Will a bad rap over the past few months as someone who won't let me take his picture. I discovered on Christmas Eve that wasn't the case. He just doesn't respect my phone as a camera! When he had his picture taken with a
real camera, this kid was a HAM. So, my picture-taking philosophy has changed. So, you'll probably see less instant Instagram posts as I take more photos with my real camera.
Will's favorite things right now are the
Rescue Bots. He got 4 bots for Christmas and they are his favorite toy as well (although he still LOVES his matchbox cars). He may need to get the last bot as a gift when baby sis arrives. Geoff and I really liked the show when we found it because it was very kid friendly, but also entertaining to us. By now it has become almost unbearable as we've seen each of the 24 episodes enough times to act it out. But, Will loves it and he is too cute to turn down when it's time for a show and he just looks at you and goes, "Bots? Yeah, bots." and nods his little head.
Along with that, Will is also in the habit of asking you a question and then answering for you. "Crackers? Yeah, crackers." or "Car? Car." And he'll nod at you while he says it waiting for you to nod as well. It's extremely adorable. The upside to this is he asks for almost everything and doesn't just do whatever he's thinking. And, if I tell him no, he may pout, but he usually listens.
My pregnancy has confused the whole issue on body parts for Will. He calls his belly (and everyone else's belly) a baby. We correct him and try to explain that only mommy has the baby, but sometimes hearing him exclaim "Oh, no! Baby!" when he spills on his shirt is too cute to correct.
Will can point to and name his mouth, nose, eyes, ears, head, belly, arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet, and toes. He can also count to 10 (he usually needs a little help, as 4 gets repeated a couple times). He is also getting better at his letter recognition. He can mostly recite the ABCs with me and he for sure knows what an R, P, O and E are and he's learning more each day. He calls letters Rs and numbers 4s in general. So, if you are looking at a sign with him, he can differentiate the letters and numbers, but you'll think he's telling you all the numbers are 4s and the letters are Rs.
Will has recently developed a deep and abiding love for "machines." This means fans, essentially. But, any kind of fan. A space heater, a heater vent in the wall/ceiling of the house/store, a regular oscillating fan, a bathroom exhaust fan, etc. Even the grate at the bottom of the fridge he will kneel and point and exclaim "machine!" When we are in the store he will point out every vent and then proclaim, "More Machine!" His loves to turn fans on and off. So much it can be used as a reward.
After you take a bath, we can turn the fan on!
Will also learned a very important word last week - "Mine." He hasn't been using it in a possessive way too much yet, but just in a way that indicates he is understanding possession. He likes to explain who things belong to. "Mama's pancake, Dada's pancake, my pancake." Occasionally he'll proclaim something "mine" that wasn't really. So, we use that as a chance to talk about sharing. Last night he pushed away his own baked potato and pointed to mine and said "my tato." I said, "well, this is actually mama's potato, but we can share it." And, we did.
He's really a very sweet kiddo. He doesn't like to be punished and punishing him is really hard because of it. Luckily, his punishments are few and far between. He makes us laugh all the time and keeps us active and having a blast. I'm ready to get this pregnancy over with so I can keep up better with him again. We are SO lucky to be his parents and can't wait to see him continue to learn and grow.
Uh oh. Did you hear that? Further action. I'm going to start using that with Will. "Will, don't you throw that toy or I'm going to have to take further action." "Eat your peas or, you know, stuff will have to happen." 
