I have about 10,000 meetings today so I need to take a moment to catch up here before I’m buried.

S threw his back out again on Monday evening. He had been doing some heavy yard work and then volunteered with me in the nursery at MOPS, but partway through he just seized up – it was cartoon-ish the way his spine twisted. I stayed home from work on Tuesday, except to run in to the office with Will to get my computer so I could work a bit from home. Will was a huge hit with my coworkers – and I had the most wonderful day with him. It wasn’t that things were flawless and we didn’t have the routine issues, but it was sweet and loving and fun and we got ourselves over/through any challenges with minimal melt-downs on either of our parts. I have been aching to be with him ever since. It was exhausting, though, so I made sure to tell S how much I admire his work/energy with Will day in and day out.

I can barely keep up with Will’s communication advances from a recording standpoint, but want to note that he is saying the words ‘precious’ and ‘special’ quite often now – he uses “peshee” for both, in relation to places (special park) and people/pets (precious Ripple). The last few days, when I take him out of the car, he fights me in playful manner. Finally, the other night, he did that, then looked at me slyly and said, “Why?” in my EXACT tone of voice. He is also nearly to the point of being able to tell me the story line in a book – he can pick out certain actions on several pages and relate them to me before I read them. Oh, and we colored last night! I taped some scrap paper to his high chair and gave him some crayons. I was impressed with his experimentation of what different pressures on the crayon created and in general, he stayed on the paper.

A friend at work has a daughter who is 5 and recently went to the doctor to get her 4-6 shots. While there they gave her a sheet on where she “should” be developmentally. Some guidelines included: can count to 10, can use words to express feelings, both of which Will can do at 2! Which made us wonder less about Will’s obvious brilliance and talents and gifts, and more about how a child could be 5 and not be able to count to 10 or use “feeling” words…the only explanations we could come up with were either significant neglect from a stimulation/interaction standpoint, or some type of learning disability. I don’t know children’s stages intimately (I’m just learning what I can observe from Will) so I could be way off in thinking the above – either way, I have to think the average child could accomplish both those things well before age 5 with even limited guidance and encouragement.

I don’t have gestational diabetes. Thankfully. I had prepared myself mentally for a positive result, so I am relieved but sobered because I’ve never really had to contemplate a serious ongoing medical condition. It was good for me in that it made a) appreciate of good health in general and b) think more seriously about my eating habits. I certainly know lots about nutrition and have lost weight successfully but mainly through calorie reduction rather than through any significant change of types of foods I consume. It coincides with my goal to get more veggies into Will. Something to think about and work on leading up to Turtle’s birth and afterwards.