The Big 0-2

Today Will turns two. Time has flown so quickly and my sweet little baby is now an incredibly funny, kind, and definitely opinioned little boy. It's so much fun seeing bits of his personality being revealed each day as he turns into the person he will eventually become. I am immensely proud of him, and my heart has grown bigger than I ever thought it would or could.

We have a little party planned for him tomorrow and my in-laws are in town, so it should be a fun celebration (re-cap to come next week). For now, here's a quick run-down of some of the fun things Will is up to these days as a full-fledged toddler:

-He is starting to speak in sentences. "Mommy, sit down!" is one of his favorites, as he always wants me to come play with him. He also likes "watch your hands/head/toes!" (which we are constantly saying to him), "one more time and 'nough" (meaning "we'll do it one more time and then it's enough"), and "mommy/daddy read book."

-He can count to ten, although he sometimes mixes up six and nine, but hey, who doesn't get confused every now and then?

-He knows/sings his ABCs, but I'm pretty sure he thinks elemenopee is a word.

-He enjoys singing songs in general. "Wheels on the Bus", "Itsy, Bitsy Spider", "Kookaburra" and this song by Guy Clark, "Austin" (definitely not a kids song, but a good one nonetheless), are some of his favorites. He and Billy "play" Billy's guitar together and sing a song they made up called "Mushroom Man", which is comprised entirely of the words "Mushroom Man".

-He is obsessed with carrying around this miniature book I bought him at Barnes and Noble. It's a small-sized "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown", and now he must have it wherever we go. Fortunately, I bought two copies lest we can't find one.

-He's into telling people to share (including other kids at his daycare), although he doesn't necessarily follow his own advice all the time.

-He loves the shows Blue's Clues (to my chagrin), Yo Gabba Gabba, and Thomas the Train. He's recently become enamored with Cars the movie, and shouts "OH NO!" during the entire crash scene at the beginning.

-He's not potty trained yet, but likes to sit on the toilet making a "psssssss" sound with his mouth and then declaring, "all done!"

-He loves watching us cook. He insists upon either being held while we are cooking (hard to do) or standing on this little step stool we have so he can watch us chop, stir, and bake. He has a little toy grill that he loves to pretend he's grilling peppers on, just like daddy.

-He is VERY into "helping". He wants to help do pretty much all chores (carrying in groceries, taking out the trash, sweeping the floor, etc.). I'm pretty sure this won't last through teenage-hood.

-He and his daddy wrestle every night. Will does the pile driver on dad, and they love to chase each other around the house (Will also shouts "climby, climby!" and then proceeds to climb up Billy's chest onto his shoulders and then yells "flippers!", until Billy flips Will upside down off the shoulders. It's all very acrobatic).

-He is obsessed with forts. Pillow forts, box forts, trees that have a lot of overhanging branches that sort of look like forts when you stand under them. Our neighbor gave us a hand-me-down log cabin child-sized play house which resides on our back porch. Will could spend hours in that "fort".

-He likes pretending he's on the phone. He'll hold up his toy phone to his ear, tell me "shhh" (because that's what I tell him when we are on the phone), and then proceeds to have an entire conversation: "Hi! Um.....chicken nuggets!"

-He's a really good eater. We generally feed him what we eat, so he loves things like tomatoes, avocados, carrots, beans, mushrooms and olives, hummus, shrimp, fish, chicken, cottage cheese, most fruits, salsa, etc. He also loves soup, especially veggie, for whatever reason ("soupie!"). And, yes, just like all kids he loves his ice cream, French fries and chips, too. And chicken nuggets (see point above).

I could go on and on (just like any parent could). Let's just end with the fact that I adore this kid, and I'm so glad that two years ago today I was blessed to become his mama. Happy birthday, Bud!

Not too good to be true: Getting in shape while watching TV.

Since I've had Will, I've had to be creative about fitting in my workouts. I used to be an avid morning exerciser (got up at 5:00am and was worked out, showered and ready to go before work), but after Will, every ounce of sleep I get is too precious to wake up that early. So, I've taken to jogging with him in the stroller (not an easy feat to push 32lbs of kid and 25lbs of stroller up and down hills) and more often than not, doing an exercise DVD on my days off while Will naps.

I wrote in a previous post about my new love affair with Exercise On-Demand TV and it continues. For those of you who think you can't get as good of a workout at home as you do at the gym, think again. There are some REALLY hard workouts on this channel, and some of them are harder than most workouts I've done at the gym. As someone who has run triathlons and marathons, I'm not, as they say, just blowing smoke here.

Over the weekend I tried this workout. It's a forty-minute circuit training workout that gets your heart rate super elevated. At the beginning of the workout, the trainer mentions that there will be 15 seconds of rest between each exercise, and I thought that sounded like a lot of rest. Ha! I was so naive. By the middle of this workout, my muscles were shaking with the effort (Really? Five circuits of different kinds of push-ups?), I was dripping sweat and I felt slightly nauseated. All good signs of a tough workout.

So don't be fooled into thinking you need a gym membership to get in shape. All you need are a few dumbbells and a TV and you are set (just make sure you draw the blinds unless you want your neighbors to see you flailing around in your living room).

It's a bird, it's a plane...

I'm realizing the greatest thing about being a parent is reliving all the best parts of your childhood--things like Halloween and trick-or-treating. This year, Will was old enough to partake in the holiday festivities and man, was it fun. We dressed up the little guy as Superman (he's not really "into" anything these days, other than Blue's Clues, but I think my husband would rather not celebrate the holiday than to have Will dress up like a blue girl dog, or worse, geeky Steve. So, by default, it was Superman). We had dinner with the neighbors prior to trick-or-treating (their five-year-old son is Will's hero), and then we proceeded to meet up with other neighbor friends for full-on candy gathering. Will got it right away--he knew to say trick-or-treat when the door opened, to say thank you after he got the candy, and then to run like a mad man to the next house. We made it to about ten houses before he pooped out and the older kids went on ahead, but we had fun returning home and handing out candy to the other trick-or-treaters. Here are some pics from our evening, including a video of Superman flying: