Daddy Tree: Tiny Footsteps

Whew! What a whirlwind. Lily will be 3 weeks old on Thursday, and any fears we had about Willow adjusting to the little one have been unfounded so far. She loves that little sister! But as some of the more experienced parents in our lives have pointed out, Willow sometimes loves Lily a little too much. What I mean by that, and as most of you know, is Willow tends to crowd the baby and be too rough with the baby. Willow likes to hold the bottle during Lily's meals, but Willow, being a toddler and all, also likes to move the bottle around and tug it from Lily's mouth then plop it back in. Lily tolerates her big sister well, but when that nipple pops in and out of her mouth like that, her sleepy eyes flash open in terror (or pure annoyance). Willow also is a tad, um, forceful with the pacifier (an object to this point Lily doesn't much like in her mouth). Willow doesn't understand why Lily won't take the pacifier, so she uses her long fingers to pry open the baby...

Willow, and a bruised Daddy, climbed to the top of Nashville. On Wednesday, Willow got Daddy all to herself for a few hours, and the time included her first trip to the Adventure Science Center in Nashville. Even though the place was a bit "big kid" for Willow, she loved it. Willow loved three attractions above all others: the tower, the ambulance and the giant water table. She also liked watching other kids, big and small, zipping around the exhibits. The tower. Willow discovered the tower early on, much to Daddy's chagrin. I liked the tower, but if you've been to it, you might know why it was hard for me to keep up with a 2-year-old climbing to the top; tight crawls abound. But I tolerated those tight spots and kept up with Willow the best I could, and we made it to the top (and I didn't suffer too many bruises). Willow didn't want to leave that tower, but I practiced patience and persistence and eventually got her to go exploring elsewhere. The amb...

Willow turned 2 on Monday, and she'll proudly let you know how old she is by chiming, "Two!, then throwing up four fingers (and sometimes her thumb too). Our little tot is getting to be a big girl now. She can use the potty, and she can sleep (rarely still) in the big girl bed. She can push herself around on a tricycle, and she can climb the ladder up to the slide in the backyard. Of course as a toddler, she's Miss Independent and Miss Frustration, but she really does pretty well at tackling those "No, I do it" tasks and in communicating with us (though we had a tough time understanding each other today when she asked for "Nemo shoes," and all I heard was "No more shoes!" She toddled around frustratingly in bare feet for a while). I took her to the zoo for her birthday, and she showed sure signs she was growing up. She preferred walking over rolling around in the stroller (this made it tough for me to keep up with her little butt when she s...

I'm a bit sad. I'm happy Cherish and I have a new tot coming to the world in the next few weeks. I'm elated, actually. But I'm a bit sad my time all alone with Willow is coming to an end. This party during most of the day has just been the two of us. Now a third party is coming. This is the twilight of Daddy-stay-home-with-Willow. Soon it will be Daddy-stay-home-with-Willow-and-Baby-Code-Name-Olive. But time marches on. And Willow and I will adjust to life with a new little one. We will love Little Sister. With all our hearts. We will welcome her to the party. I will make time for both of them. And soon Willow will forget her time alone with this Old Dad. But I won't.

Willow's second birthday is on Monday, a day that has been approaching quickly, both on the calendar and in the tot's development. Willow is the size of an average 3-year-old girl. She wears 3T clothing and size 8 shoes. As for other developments, Willow seems to be bright (she can say her ABCs through "Q"; now I have no idea if this means anything to her or if it's simply rote memory, but I'm impressed). She's also climbing all over the place, up the ladder to the slide and up to the changing table top (gasp!). And that brings me to two big milestones we've been working on intermittently: potty training and big-girl bed training. Cherish and I have tried to not be too pushy on this stuff; we want Willow to learn at her own pace. This week, though, Willow has really taken off. She has been taking off her pants and diaper and climbing the footstool to get to the toilet. A few times, she has even tinkled! The bed has been a bit tougher because Willo...

Baby No. 2, code name "Olive," will be here in less than a month, so we've been bringing down boxes and boxes of baby stuff from the attic. This has had two effects on Willow, aka "Baby No. 1." She has reverted, somewhat, to being a baby, and she has started using the baby stuff to baby her babies. To be fair to Miss Willow, she has spent more time babying than being a baby. She's given her babies baths in the infant bathtub. She's put her babies down for tummy time on the, um, tummy time mat. And she has given her babies bottles, real bottles (empty, of course). She also likes putting one of her babies in the bassinet we've set up by the master bed. That baby sleeps a ton. As for being a baby, she has climbed into the baby swing, turned on the back-and-forth mechanism and switched on the lullaby music. Not many babies can do that. She's a pound or two over the maximum weight for the baby swing, so it groans under her 31 pounds (and there isn...

We continue to have early summer in this fine, fine April, and Willow and I continue to take full advantage of the warmth, playing outside every chance we get. This week saw highs in the 80s, and with them, the year's debut of the water table. Willow loves this thing, with its little slides for its little people, and its scoops and tiny boats. She mostly likes to scoop out water and do any of a number of things with it: Pour it back into the table, take it to water plants around the yard or, gasp, just turn it up and drink it! The other day, Willow played at the water table for nearly two hours straight, without any other care in the world. She's playing at it now, which gives me this rare opportunity to jot down something, quickly, in this blog. (This little girl keeps me busy, and off the computer; she HATES it when I get on the computer ... H-A-T-E-S I-T! Thankfully, she hasn't notice me typing away yet.) Today is another day in the 80s, and even though Willow is dre...