Aflac!

William is saying a lot more words, and pronouncing them quite clearly, too. His latest additions are "gabuud" with an adorably cute, slightly upward inflection at the end (for "kaputt") and "rrah-ra!" with an upward-downward inflection, which is his version of the Aflac duck's tagline.

The commercial with Yogi Berra in the barbershop comes on quite a bit during baseball games, and I tend to see a few of those in the summer. William ocassionally sits still enough for an inning or two before he's off again to inflict more destruction, so he inevitably has seen a few of the spots with the duck.

Yesterday, he saw my Scout bag with an embroidered head of a Common Loon on it, and without even looking up at me, he instinctively squawked, "rrah-ra!" and went along his business.

Aahhhuurrr

Evie started growling a few days ago. It's a sort of long, low, sustained grunt. She mostly does it when she's either sitting up or lying stomach-down, propped up on a pillow.

Last night she was leaning up against my chest as I lounged back on the couch, her face a mere inches from my nose. For a couple of minutes, she made the same growly, grunty noise. I laughed at her and sat her up straight, but she stopped, so I set her back on my stomach, trying to avoid her slobbermouth, and she started growling at me again.

Smiles

Evie is a very smiley baby. Every time I walk by her, she follows me around the room, and if I even look at her, her face lights up. Of course she can wail with the best of them when she's tired, but it never fails that when she wakes up from a nap, if she sees you, she'll be smiling.

She loves to be around people, and she's now old enough to know when she is not being admired. If I set her down for too long, she'll start complaining. I can return and look at her and she'll smile again, but if I walk away, it's not long before she's fussing again. I can pick her up and she quiets right down, gazing up with her blue eyes. Even if she's gnawing on a pacifier, I can see her cheeks twitch as she starts to grin at me again.

Ebbie

William absolutely loves his new little sister. He smothers her. Sometimes literally.

He steals her pink pacifer right out of her mouth *pop!* and starts sucking on it himself. Then a few seconds later, after walking around (tipping his head back and forth while rocking from one foot to the next) he shoves it back in her mouth.

If she's lying in her blue bouncer on the floor, he bounces her more. If she's in the swing, he swings her higher. If she's being bathed, he splashes around to make sure she's wet. If she's sleeping in her basinette, he peeks inside and says, "Hi, Ebbie!" I think he's just making sure she gets the most out of life.

William always helps change Evie's diapers. If she needs a blanket, William runs and gets it for her. If she's crying in the car, William will help sing to her. When she was born, he instinctively asked to hold her in his arms, on his lap, as he sat in the hospital's rocking chair.

He kisses her on the forehead and rubs his nose on hers. He is a good big brother, and he loves his little sister.

These aren't the locks you are looking for

You know those white, plastic, child-safety doorknob covers that you have to squeeze in on the sides to turn? William found a workaround.

It turns out, he walks right up to one of these pseudo-impediments, sticks his index finger into the big hole in the middle, grips the metal knob between his finger (on the inside of the contraption) and thumb (on the outside of the knob cover formerly known as functional), and turns. Voila!, he's in.

About a week ago on a Saturday morning, Mirjam and I were just waking up when we noticed that William was standing in our room. "Did you let him in?" "No, did you let him?" "William, how did you get in here?"

The darn things hardly even slow him down any more. We keep them on to try to distract him from trying to open the doors, but it's mostly to prove that we tried.

Who needs diapers?

Mirjam's working tonight, so I'm on William duty. We raked the yard and went on a walk. I fed him whatever I could find in the fridge and the cupboard. Then he plugged his nose, which is the sign we're trying to re-teach him when he needs to go to the bathroom.

I pulled off his sweatshirt, t-shirt, and pants, undid his onsie and diaper, and set him on the trainer seat. He hung out there for a while, flushed the toilet with nothing in it, said "bah bah" and grunted for me to help him down off the seat. Since he was already naked, I filled the bathtub with water and set him in it.

As I was eating a bowl of frosted mini wheats, he looked up from the tub and plugged his nose again. I ran in the bathroom, plucked him right out of the water, and set him back on his throne. Nothing. I thought he was just toying with me, as he does occasionally (little stinker), so I put him back in the tub and started to wipe down the kitchen counter.

When I looked back in, I saw William making the subtle strained pushing face that we noticed he does when he's filling his diaper. But he wasn't wearing a diaper. I leapt toward the tub desperately pleading "wait, wait!" but it was too late.

As I grabbed him up out of the tub, I saw the little William poop floating there on the side. Crap. I missed it. Just barely. At least it was still in one piece. We've dealt with much worse tub-poop-hand situations, so this was actually a relief.

I put him back on the kiddie seat, guessing that there might be a little more on the way, grabbed a big wad of toilet paper off the roll and recovered the evidence from the scene. I flushed the toilet, set William standing up on the dark green towel next to the tub, and started draining the tub while confiscating the blue rubby ducky and bottle that were also floating in the water.

When I returned from putting the items on the dishwasher--no joke, two seconds later; ten feet away--I moved William off the green towel to find one last tiny little piece of brown poop-ball where he had been standing. I can't win.

He looked a little cold, so I quickly cleaned his bum with baby wipes, wrapped him in a big dark red towel, and set him on the couch. I went to find a diaper and his white "vroom" pajamas, and met him back at the couch. I unwrapped the towel and noticed a large dark spot on the towel between his legs. He peed on my couch!

I couldn't believe it. I wrapped up the freshly cleaned and newly soiled red towel, laid him on the altar, uh, I mean ottoman, and slapped the diaper on--as if it would have made a difference at that point. There is a minor consolation in that William's pee is usually quite clear and watered down. Still, I thoroughly wiped the couch with a wet towel as I recapped in my mind what had just happened:

1. Ignored warning signs--poop in tub
2. Turned away for two seconds--poop ball on green towel
3. No immediate diaper--pee on red towel and couch

I hugged him and kissed him and read him a book and put him to bed.

Duck!

William learned a new word today: "truck." Sometimes it's "duck" and sometimes it's "guck" but it's always exciting when he sees one rumbling alongside the car. "Guck!" he exclaims, pointing out the window behind him.

A while ago he started trying to say "bus," but it usually ended up "bui." Nowadays he lets out a really excited "biss!" every time he and Mirjam pick me up from the bus stop after work. As we drive off, he waves and yells "bah bah, biss!"

Zoo and soup

Yesterday we went to the zoo and we saw the polar bear jumping into his swimming tank over and over again, and the seals and penguins swimming laps in their tanks. (One of William's favorite things to say now is "Oh, wow!") We also saw the timberwolf trotting in the woods, the monkeys jumping around in the treetops, and the lions and tigers lounging around on their rocks.

The gorilla was fed right as we were walking toward its cage. The keeper dumped a bucket of veggies right next to the thick glass window, and when the huge black gorilla entered the area again, it lumbered on over to where the veggies were and plopped right down next to the glass. It was really cool to be that close to a live gorilla. As it approached, though, William took a couple steps back and grabbed onto me. It was cute. "Oh wow!" said William hesitantly, as the gorilla ate it's corn on the cob, oranges, carrots, lettuce head, etc.

When we went to see the big cats, the he-lion jumped on the she-lion and tried to do what lions do in the springtime. She didn't want much of that, but it was long enough to cause a few smirks and chuckles. William didn't get much of a look as the crowd (with cameras! hello?) was quite big around the lions' cage.

Afterward, we went to one of our favorite eateries and had two free bowls of soup, pop, and breadsticks, thanks to Mom's collection of frequent diner cards. Mirjam had the wild rice and I had the beef garden vegetable. Of course, we had lots of breadsticks, and smuggled out a few as we left. Yum.

A few more noises

I still get "Dahn" instead of "Baba" every once in a while. "Mama" is now an extremely regular utterance, whether he actually needs Mirjam or wants something in general or is just running from one room to the next: "Mah-mah-mah-mah-mah-mah-mah-mah!"

I now practice going through everyone's names, in German, of course:
Jon: "Sag 'Papa!'"
William: "Baba!"
Jon: "Das bin ich! Sag 'Mama!'"
William: "Mama!"
Mirjam: "Das bin ich"
Jon: "Sag 'William!'"
William: "Ah-amm" (with just a hint of "y" and "l")
Jon: "Das bist du! Sag 'Baby'"
William: "Dee-dee!"

And just the other day, I tried asking him a couple of new names:
Jon: "Sag 'Oma!'"
William: "Ah-om"
Jon: "Sag 'Opa!'"
William: "Ah-omb"

Lobster hands

A few months ago, William found the green oven mitts lying around in the kitchen and put them onto his small hands and started walking around the condo--tottering slightly from one leg to the other--while opening and closing his little hands so that it looked like he had giant, insulated, fuzzy lobster claws attached to his little boy arms. As he strolled around from the kitchen to the living room, staring at his new monster pincers, he made the appropriate short grunts of lobster-claw hand-moving sounds: "Meh, meh, meh, meh."

I don't know where he got it from, because it's nothing we taught him to do, but he must have observed me making the lobster-hands grunting noise at some time while wearing the green oven mitts--which is not a far stretch of the imagination--because he's done it ever since he first stuck his hands in them.

He still does it, any time he gets hold of the oven mitts. Even if he's wearing his little black winter mittens, or Mirjam's big brown knit gloves, he's learned to make the same noises while pinching his little hands open and close. "Meh, meh, meh, meh."