Sir Barfsalot

Well...we made it nearly 5 years.  Wm has his first stomach bug.  The last time he threw up he was a baby spitting up formula.  The poor little guy was out of sorts all morning (even asking to leave the Lego Store before he filled his bin!)  Then he started complaining that his stomach hurt.  Thinking some rest would be good, Steve was helping into bed when...splat!  Since Wm has no memory of ever throwing up, he was like, "what just happened?"  We snuggled him up on the cough with some saltines, Mexican Coke (which we had to tell him was "tummy medicine" because I had previously told him Coke has poison chemicals in it - which is TOTALLY TRUE, btw - and he refused to drink it when I said it was Coke), and Star Wars.  I provided for him a "barf bucket," of which he grew very fond and insisted on carrying it around with him all afternoon.  Wm continued to complain that his stomach hurt the rest of the day, but never barfed again.  He did have numerous horrifying trips to the potty that reeked up our entire upstairs, so something is not right in the digestive tract of Sir Wm.  Even though Wm was clearly not feeling well, he still insisted on building with Legos.  He ran around his room gathering pieces and building things, only pausing to run to the potty, ask for a cracker, or complain that his stomach hurt.

Interestingly, Wm also does not seem to be bothered by throwing up.  My memories of childhood barfing include intense sobbing afterwards due to the horror of it all.  Wm threw up and then was like, "that was weird...can I watch Star Wars?"  He then, oddly, seemed to dig the barf bucket and mimed puking into it constantly, laughing all the while.  When I set it next to his bed at nighttime, he said, "hey, look, I can just lean over, yack into it, and then go back sleep!"  Even at 32, I don't handle throwing up as well as Wm does.  He is a trooper.

Now I just have to hope that Steve, who gets a stomach bug if someone looks at him funny, escapes.  I can't handle two sickies.  I also, for the first time, am actually a bit concerned I may fall victim.  I had just lathered Wm's chapped lips up with my chap stick this morning...then immediately used it myself.  GERMS!!!!  I haven't had a stomach bug since I was in elementary school!  I have a record to uphold!!  Wm managed nearly 5 years himself, even in day care...not too shabby.  Definitely not Steve genes there!  Steve has a delicate constitution.

Wm the Builder

Wm has been a VERY busy bee ever since Christmas!!  He has not even played any Xbox - he's been too busy building!!  Every day he comes home from school and scurries up to his room to keep working.  He has completed Emperor Palpatine's Shuttle:

He has nearly completed the Ewok Village and General Grievous's Starfighter.  Steve wants to take an aerial shot of Wm sitting in the middle of all his Christmas Lego Kits once completed.  We are taking a dreaded trip to The Lego Store today for Wm to fill up his Christmas bucket with Legos from The Great Wall of Lego.  He is up in his room developing his game strategy for Lego selection.

Wm also had a GREAT week at school.  The preschool classroom averaged only 8 kids/day last week (all the faculty are off for break).  Wm LOVES it when there aren't that many kids around.  He was THRILLED with school last week and was super well-behaved.  He typically only acts out where the full load of 18 kiddos are there and he starts feeling overwhelmed.

And in super exciting Steve news - the weird owner of Soccer First called Steve in for a double secret meeting and gave him a $1,000 bonus for awesomeness!!!  Taxes shaved off a large chunk, but Steve is still left with quite the windfall!!  I told him he should go buy himself an iPad, but he put it in the bank instead.  Always careful.  That's why I love him.  That...and the fact that he makes awesome pancakes.

Labeling

Since a teacher has already tried to label Wm (at age 3!) with ADHD, this video especially resonates with me.  I'll pull him from school before I let anyone saddle him with some "disorder."  Schools need to change - not our kids! Wm is perfect just as he is.

Christmas, Part II

Well, this will go down in history as the Christmas of Legos.  Wm got 8 lego kits for Christmas.  And 6 of the 8 were big kits - and 5 of those 8 were GIANT kits! So as you can imagine, our house is COVERED in legos.  Example of the living room after PART of ONE kit was opened:

I had originally told Wm that he needed to complete a kit before he opened the next one.  But...that didn't last long.  Now all 8 kits are open and only 1 is complete.  It's nearly 1PM and Wm has not emerged from his room, other than to go out to brunch with Grandma, Papa, and Yaya.  I have a feeling he won't come out until prodded out for dinner.  He is IN HEAVEN.  

We all had a wonderful Christmas!!  It started with a good Cory-cooked Christmas Eve dinner with "Papa with Gray Hair" and Great Papa.  We all had a great time!  Especially Wm, who scored this awesome Bobba Fett helmet from Donna:

Then, Christmas morning, Wm awoke to find Santa had visited his room while he slept and left him The Ewok Village!  Steve and I had a great time watching Wm tear into his presents...and stocking!  The funniest part was when he opened an empty cardboard box that says on there it can be taken to the Lego Store at Easton and filled with whatever Legos he wants.  But Wm opens it, throws it aside and says, "it's empty."  We had to explain he got to fill it up!!  He is already plotting what pieces he needs for his various side projects.

Next, we went over to Mimi and Guy's house where even more Legos awaited Wm!  He has been BEGGING Bobba Fett's ship, the Slave 1, for WEEKS.  This is the only kit Wm has completed:

Grandma, "Papa with Bald Hair," and Yaya came over to Mimi and Guy's house too!  Wm was SO EXCITED to have so many grandparents fawning over him!!  It was a GREAT Christmas!!  We had a delicious dinner, Wm built things, we chatted and visited...it was a blast!!!  Wm fell into bed last night and slept all the way until 8:30 this morning - that may be a new record!  We are hoping that he is so distracted by all his Lego kits that he forgets about the Lego Store for a while and we can wait until the after Christmas crowds die down.

So...The Lego Christmas 2010 is officially over!  And we are stuffed, happy, and overrun with Legos.

And...just cause it's super cute, here's a picture Mimi took of Wm and Steve:

Christmas, Part I

A longer post about Willie the WonderKid's WonderChristmas is coming, but for now...here are a couple teaser pics:

                                                        Christmas Eve with The Papas

                                                       Xmas morning under Wm's tree

                                                          Ewok Village!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
                                                                           

                                                    Gotta see what Santa left in the stocking!

                                                                  Ewok on your head!

Fever

William has a fever - and the only cure is...MORE LEGOS!

Proof of Genius

For four and a half years, I have been telling everyone that Wm is a genius.  And, in one lunch at Graffiti Burger (Wm's favorite place on the planet), Wm proved it thrice over:

1. As mentioned, Wm LOVES Graffiti Burger.  He was stuffing fries in his mouth as fast as he could.  One  didn't go in the right way (he tried to shove it in vertically and it got stuck) and Wm laughs and says, "that one didn't go in at the right angle."  Yeah.  He knows geometry.

2. While we are eating, Wm sees a bird flying by and says, "look, I think that bird is migrating someplace warm."  Wm has an understanding of both climate dynamics AND bird migratory patterns.

3. Wm saw the address of Graffiti Burger, 2700, and says, "that number is twenty-seven hundred."  Mathematical genius.  Kid already knows that adding two zeros to a number makes it a multiple of one hundred. Calculus, here Wm comes.

I rest my case.

Note: this genius confirmation makes sense.  Geniuses are often temperamental (check), hyperactive (check), evil (check), and obsessive (check).

Elf Tracks

Wm and I went out to play in the snow today and discovered ELF TRACKS!  Some small animal must have walked around our house and left little prints, but they didn't look like dog or cat prints (no claws), so I said, "Oh. My. God!  Wm, look!  Elf footprints!"  The look on his face was priceless.  He insisted we follow them - and then, strangely they stopped in the middle of nowhere and Wm whispered, "magic!"  He is SUPER excited for Daddy to get home so he can tell him that he discovered magic elf footprints.  Wm also decided that the prints were left as the elves were watching him to make sure he's good.  I am definitely encouraging that idea!

This morning, Wm was walking upstairs and dropped whatever Lego thing he was working on and it broke into a bunch of pieces.  Wm sighed in a long-suffeirng sort of way and says, "you've got to be kidding me!"

Winter Wonderland

Wm has been having a great time with all the snow we've been getting!  It's been too cold for him to go outside at school (when the temp dips below a certain threshold, they keep the kids inside), so we've had to soak up the hour of daylight left when he gets home from school.  But his teachers emailed me today to say that they finally got to go outside today at school and Wm was THRILLED.  They sent this picture of him with a crazy excited look on his face out on the playground at school:

Wm has developed a new hobby.  Kids (and adults) post how-to videos on YouTube showing how they build all sorts of things sans directions and out of the Legos they currently have - basically, going "off grid."  So Wm spends as much time as he can closeted in his room watching said YouTube videos and building things which have no pre-fab kit.  It made Steve nervous that Wm now has the run of the internet, so he downloaded some parental restriction thing that keeps kids from viewing inappropriate content.  Here's what I thought was weird: not showing bad language and sexy-type stuff was free...but it only blocked violence for an added fee!  So, god forbid kids see a bad word or a boob.  But, hey, it's A-OK for them to watch someone getting his arm ripped off and then beaten to death with it.  Where have we gone wrong?  

I am STUFFED.  I just came from out office holiday party where there was an insane amount of food.  I got really nice gifts from my coworkers.  I also managed to snag a little white chocolate snowman for Wm to have after dinner...AND half a pie for Steve!

Poor Willie

Poor Willie the WonderKid had an awful day!  His [good] teacher emailed me during afternoon nap to tell me that I had an "incident report" to sign at pickup (that means, basically, your kid got hurt at school and they want you to sign off that it's all cool).  Apparently, Wm first got poked in the eye while playing some strange peeking game with his best bud Alex.  Wm insists this was his Big Injury of the day. But, the incident report was for the next injury because blood was involved.  Where there is a blood, there is an incident report.  Whilst waiting in line at the drinking fountain, some other kid pushed Wm and his nose bonked the faucet.  Bloody nose ensued (as well as a complete soaking of his shirt). I decided to leave early and get the poor rugrat - because it sounded like he had had enough for one day.  So I waited until he was up from nap and took off and nabbed him.  He looked so pathetic and sad I took pity on him and decided to give him the night of his life.  I brought him home and we played snow tag until we were wet and partially frozen, then we came inside and had milk and cookies while we watched The Grinch.  I made him a PB sandwich (would have been grilled cheese, but that's what he had for lunch, so I opted for Fav #2) for dinner and used a cookie cutter to make it into a cool shape.  (BIG HIT. He was so into the cool shaped sandwich that I snuck some carrots and an apple into him as well.)  He is currently upstairs watching YouTube videos on how to build Boba Fett's ship and attempting to create said ship from his current Lego collection.  So, as you can see, Wm's day has taken a turn for the better. :)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Apparently, Wm is Mr. Hyde at school (evil as could be) and Dr. Jekyll (sweet as pie) at home.  We haven't been having any problems or really noticed anything weird, but early this week we got an email from his teacher that Wm is being super evil at school - calling everyone and everything "stupid."  We DO NOT allow him to say "stupid" at home (anyone who knows me probably knows I have no problem with pretty much any word Wm says as long as it's not a "hate word" meant to make someone feel bad) because it's hurtful.  But, I guess, at school, it was a whole different matter.  Friends were stupid, toys were stupid, classroom activities were stupid.  Then, Wm popped a friend in the ear for taking his book.  So Wm had to have a stern talking to.  In fact, I calmly told him that I was very angry and he was going to get a spanking.  He freaked out (as would be expected).  So I told him I was feeling angry, and if I reacted to my anger the same way he reacted to his, I would hit him - hence the spanking.  He was most upset about that.  I asked him how that made him feel when I said I was going to spank him and he said, "scared and sad."  So I told him that I bet Alex felt pretty scared and sad after he hit him.  Lots nodding and tears.  So then I repeated that I was feeling very angry, but told him I was going to respond to that anger the same way he SHOULD have responded to that anger, and hopefully would the next time - by going to a quiet "calm down" place until I felt better.  Lots of sniffling (and grateful head nodding when he realized that he was not really going to be spanked).  

So far, it has worked wonderfully!  Reports from the last couple days at school are glowing and Wm is even more agreeable at home!  We took him on a marathon shopping trip to Costco this morning (usually ends in some sort of evilness) and he was GREAT the whole time.  He is even now happily and agreeably napping upstairs.  He has gone to bed with no fuss, eaten with no whining, and been, basically, a very easy little guy ever since.  I think this may have had something to do with the fact that the elves who bring the legos to his advent calendar did not come the day after the hitting incident.  I told Wm they are invisible and watch him ALL DAY EVERY DAY - even at school.  That put the fear of Santa into him.

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

All sorts of exciting things have been going on in the life and times of Wm.  The thing he finds most exciting is that every night while he's sleeping, Santa's elves use magic to come into his house and leave 3 Lego pieces in the pocket of his advent calendar.  So every morning when he wakes up, he can add 3 more pieces to his Lego set - and on Christmas morning his Snow Speeder will be complete!

We also got the Christmas tree put up...

Wm has put A LOT of thought into his Christmas list and I told him it is now complete - no more add-ons.  So we went to Target yesterday to get a couple things I need for gifts and Wm started creating his birthday list.  The fun never ends.