Random anecdotes

Here's a nice shot of my boys, faithful members of Red Sox Nation. Er, given the recent swoon by the team, make that depressed members of Red Sox Nation. But they're still true to their team, for better or for worse. However, David's just glad that his son has finally grown into his baby Red Sox baseball cap at last.

I thought I'd post some random anecdotes about William that don't have any overarching theme---other than being about William, of course--just to capture what sort of things he's been doing lately. So, without further ado...

The other night, we put William to bed at his usual time. David carried the baby monitor handset out to the living room and turned it on. We started hearing a really weird sound coming from the speaker. Normally, we can hear his music box playing softly in the background, and occasionally, we can hear him grunt or mutter. But this, this was a weird and rather loud unidentifiable sound. Baffled, we just wondered what on earth William was doing that could make such a sound, until David figured it out. "He's hitting those little roller bar wheel things on his aquarium set," he said. Sure enough, that's what he was doing: spinning the little wheels on the bottom of the Ocean Wonders aquarium crib entertainment set that's attached to the crib rails. I guess he wasn't sleepy, so he was finding new ways to entertain himself!

Another anecdote, without much of a point: we bought a high chair for William.

He's not eating solid food yet, but he will start rice cereal pretty soon, so we thought it might be good for him to get accustomed to his new seat first. So at dinnertime, David puts him in the high chair and pulls it up to the table while we eat our dinner. The first time William sat in the high chair, I was amazed by how (don't laugh) grown up he looked, sitting upright like that, looking at us. So far, William doesn't seem to mind the high chair, although you can tell that he doesn't quite understand why he's sitting in it. There are no toys, no lights; it doesn't move or bounce or jiggle. He just...sits there, with sort of a quizzical look on his face. That's even after I handed him his ducky toy and a set of links. But he'll get the point soon enough. We're going to introduce rice cereal around his five-month birthday later this month. That should be an adventure. Good thing that we bought a camcorder.

We've already videotaped one of my absolute favorite things that William does. I've written about his experiences on his activity mat, from the days when he would just lie there to the days when he discovered that, hey, he can touch those toys hanging from the arches. Well, he's a seasoned activity mat veteran now. When I put him down on the mat, he goes for the toys with all four limbs--with great, great enthusiasm. He's churning his arms and legs, and there are bells jingling and toys clanging all over the place, and the activity mat's twin arches shake like there's been an earthquake. David compared the sight (and sound) to a drummer in a 80s rock band at the height of his drum solo. Seriously. Bon Jovi, Van Halen, meet William Wyckoff.

I also captured David and William's little pre-bath bonding routine on camera. Each evening, around 8:15, William begins to fuss. It's his little way of saying, "Okay. I'm done." That's David's cue to whisk him off to the nursery and begin to get him ready for his bath. I, of course, am attemping the nearly impossible task of getting the bathwater to be precisely the right temperature to satisfy the demands of the men of the house. But while I'm agonizing over the bathwater, dipping my hand in the little plastic tub and consulting the Oracle of Rubber Ducky, David and William are having a grand old time laughing at each other. While David undresses William on the changing table, the baby always begins smiling and giggling, like he knows it's nearly bathtime and he can't wait. So David begins to grin back at him. Then William laughs a little harder, and David laughs back at him. They laugh and laugh, louder and louder, at each other, until inevitably, William gets the hiccups. As David carries William into the bathroom, William is still giggling in between hiccups. Laugh, hic! Laugh, hic! Laugh, hic! It reverberates around the bathroom. Then, William gets down to the more serious business of splashing Daddy.

See, I think that's one of the reasons that parents put up with sleepless nights. Because what is funnier than a baby laughing?