A Little Bit More About Our William Warren

 William is a special boy.  I know I'm biased, but he really is.  He is always happy.  He is always ready to give some love, and he is always ready to receive some love with giggles and open arms.  He still loves to cuddle, and he still sucks his thumb and fingers his belly button.

I recently tried to take portraits of the kids.  Some were harder than others.  William was, by far, the easiest to get a genuine expression out of.

I have a million more photos that look just like this.

William has some kind of special joy in his soul that causes his smile to frequently enrapture us all.  I feel truly privileged to be his mother.  

Some interesting things about William:

William has a trademark, "Huuuhhh?" we frequently hear from him when we tell him something he finds unusual.  No one can say it as expressively and as curiously and as merrily has he does.  I need to record it for posterity.  When we clarify or explain our statement, William responds with his other trademark expression:  "Oh, that's right. . ."

William loves being a big brother.  He takes very good care of James, our bottomless pit, by feeding him whenever he notices James is unhappy.  William will climb to our high cupboard in search of cereal or crackers and give it to the baby with a friendly "Here you go, James."

When I put James down for a nap, William always wants to bring over James's special moose.  "Here comes. . .MR. MOOSE!"  William will exclaim as he thrusts it into James's arms.  James giggles the whole time, delighted by this trick.

William love to play cars and trains with James, show him books, and explain things.  He also loves to tickle little James.  And James loves it too; he laughs and laughs and lays still, hoping for more tickling.

We love to see William's goofy grins, like this one.

William is not really more active than the average boy his age, but he certainly gets hurt a lot.  It is a miracle we haven't had to rush him to the emergency room.  But you can certainly see the signs of his injuries when you look at him.  He chipped his two front teeth shortly after he turned one.  I have no idea how or when that happened.  And, because of his avid thumb-sucking, those same front teeth are bucked a little.  Due to continual knocks and accidents, William has had a bruise on his forehead for the past two years straight.  (You may think this is an exaggeration, but it's not.  This is why I was thrilled with the bruise was lighter when I took the picture.)  He has bumps and bruises everywhere else, too, but for some reason his forehead takes the brunt.  

A few days later, just as this bruise was going away, William fell off the couch and got another lightly bleeding goose egg in the same exact spot.

William is also extremely smart.  I will spare you a long explanation, but I will say that he's had a great vocabulary since he turned two.  He taught himself to correctly count objects sequentially up to 10 before he was 2 1/2, and he can count well above that otherwise.  He knows some letters already.  This is only impressive because I haven't spent any time teaching him letters yet.

Basically, I am just relieved that all of his head injuries have not damaged his cognitive function too badly.

William loves his big brother and sister.  He idolizes them.  He wants to do everything just like they do. 

On the rare occasion William does get upset, it is usually over an injustice cause by an older sibling.  William will spit out his angry words (literally, due to his sweet lisp) and the veins in his neck will bulge ominously.  But as soon as the spat is over, William is back to our happy-go-lucky guy and will hold no grudge.  Once in a while he will hit and get sent to time-out, where he is extremely repentant and faces his consequences willingly and obediently.  

William was born with the gift of obedience.  He loves to please and do what he can to make those around him happy.

He loves to help.  He always wants to help me cook, mix, wipe, clean, gather laundry. . .

Even the dishes.  I try to not get irritated when I come downstairs and see water splashed on the floor as a result of his autonomous and enthusiastic dish rinsing.  Needless to say, after enough reminders, he usually remembers to wipe it up on his own.  

William is a sweet, kind boy.  He loves to run and fight and play with cars.  He is easy to have around, and  because he is so happy, unfortunately he is also easy to forget about.  William's birthday was bittersweet for me because I realized all of a sudden that I have been so busy with various activities lately, I have not been playing with him like I used to.  He used to ask me to play cars with him all the time.  But he stopped asking because I always told him I couldn't.  William's birthday was a good reminder that even though he almost always seems carefree, he still needs as much love and attention as the other kids.

And I'm happy to give it to him.  William is one of a kind, and every single one of us is glad he's ours.