I hate Jillian Michaels, no not really! :)

If you read my last post you know that I am working out using Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. Holy crap! It is HARD! She is absolutely kicking my tail...in fact there are times that I want to scream expletives at her, but Will is in the room so I refrain.
For those of you who don't know, Jillian Michaels is one of the trainers from The Biggest Loser. She is hardcore, she yells at the contestants and she gets in their face. But, she gets results. And right now, results is what I want. I was fortunate to lose my pregnancy weight by nursing. But since I have stopped, weight is coming back. Pants and shirts that I could wear 6 weeks ago are now snug. I have to do something, because I can't afford a bigger wardrobe. So, Jillian, I might hate you while I am working out with you. But, if you give me results, I will be your best friend for life!

Monkey see, Monkey do

Will walking and talking on his "phone".
Kinda funny, but we have a little copycat on our hands. Will has taken to copying the things that he sees us doing. Humor me and read these 3 silly stories.
1. The other day, I was working out(Jillian Michaels 30 day shred for those of you who care) and I was stretching my arms over my head. I looked down to see Will doing the very same thing. He was watching the tv very intently and trying his hardest to do what I was doing.
2. Yesterday, Mike was on the phone. When Mike talks on the phones, he paces. He can't sit still. Anyways, he looked behind him and Will was following him step for step takling on his own phone (the tv remote).
3. And now, Will seems to think that he must dip everything into something, you know, french fries, chicken fingers, that kind of stuff. I guess we eat lots of dippable things at our house. Yesterday, he helped me dip chips into salsa. It was helpful, but he wanted to put the dipped chip back into the bag. Then last night he wanted to dip something into the bowl of chili we had sitting on the table. The only thing he could find was his travel size butt paste. Nice! Needless to say...no one wanted anymore chili after that!
On the phone, again.
On the phone, yet again. Will talks on the phone quiet a lot. Evidently he is a popular little man! (P.S. please excuse the mess in the background!)

Will at 13 months

I hope I never forget what Will does at this stage of his life. I filled out a baby's first year calendar that allowed you to write down your baby's favorite things and milestones for each month. I want to try and continue that. This post may seem random, but it is all about the things Will is doing right now.

Tonight as I was rocking Will to sleep I noticed that he was rubbing my arm. He did it for awhile until he nodded off to sleep. I sat there thinking about how precious this was. Right now he doesn't have a "lovie" that he uses to go to sleep...just his paci and his mommy! If only he would need me like this forever!

Will is officially out of onesies! He now wears t-shirts and shorts. He has moved from 6-12 months clothes to 12-18. We have found that he has a long torso, so he can still wear some of his old shorts that are 12 months. Anyways, he looks so much more grown up!

Right now Will is full of energy and fun! He plays hard everyday and has such passion about the things that he is playing with. His favorite things are his new slide, any ball he can throw, his laptop and phone, having you chase him around the kitchen and his mommy and daddy. We are finding that he is a mama's boy and he will scream when he sees me leave the room. He cries a lot right now when we are dropping him at the nursery at church. I guess it just comes with the age.

He is delightful, pleasant and happy most all the time, but he is showing his temper when he doesn't get his way. He can be quite dramatic, maybe that is where the red hair comes in!
He also is a little aggressive at times. He loves to get up on his knees with both arms over his head and slam his hands down on something. It might be the carpet, the water in the bathtub or your leg. You never know, but because of this we don't allow him to play to closely to his cousin Caleb!

He is also staring to understand the word no. Because we seem to have a little dare devil on our hands we have to use the word often, and sometimes it has to be accompanied with a pop on the hand. He has also learned to do something that he was just told not to do and to watch our reaction. He is already starting definant behavior. Oh dear! Lord give us patience and wisdom!

He is talking all the time. I call home at lunch everyday to talk to Will and he will just jabber on about something. It just melts my heart to hear his little voice telling me something important! He can say mama, dada and bye-bye. We are working on other words in English, but he mostly wants to speak in Will. It really is funny at how vocal he is. He loves to laugh after he talks also. Almost as if he is telling a joke or a funny story. Who knows...maybe he is!

Will is also getting quite a few teeth. He has 2 on the bottom and 3 on the top, with a 4th getting ready to come in. I wonder if this is why he is sleeping so terribly?

He is a great eater and loves pretty much anything you give him. His favorites right now are goldfish, butter cookies with the hole in the middle, green beans and mandarin oranges and pineapples.

So that's my baby at 13 months! Let me finish with some new pictures of Will!
Trying to get into a bag of goldfish. He now likes to put his hand in the bag to get his snack instead of you pulling it out for him. Mr. Independent!
Will with his cousins Vanessa and Casey.
Playing the piano with the girls at Great Gran's house.

I thought they were supposed to sleep at 12 months!

I have not been able to find the time to update my blog. I apologize to those of you who read it and are dying to know what is going on in the Fessler house. With me being back at work, I honestly do not have time to blog, what with teaching all day, coming home to play with Will, cook dinner for Mike and Will, clean house, read to Will, bathe Will, put Will to sleep...you get the point. Once all of those things are done, I have found that I would rather use my 15 minutes before bedtime reading instead of blogging. Call me selfish.
Anyways, Will is now walking everywhere. Its crazy how it just happened over a matter of a few weeks. He rarely crawls anymore, and sometimes his walking looks more like running. You would think that this would make him sleep well, but in fact, he seems to be sleeping worse. He will only stay alseep in his crib for a few hours before he stands up and screams to the top of his lungs. We have tried to let him cry-it-out, but it doesn't seem to work for Will. He wants his mommy and daddy and the longer he cries, the stronger it gets. In fact his scream sometimes sounds like a shriek. It is really awful and there is no ignoring that scream at 2:30 in the morning. We have tried rocking him back to sleep, like we used to, but that is not 100% effective anymore. He prefers to come sleep with us, so we let him, because right now it is the only way the 3 of us get any sleep. This worries me a little, but a friend at school told me it is just a phase. That all 3 of her kids went through times of wanting to sleep in her bed and they always grew out of it. I can only hope. Its not fun waking up at 6 every morning after waking up at least once with a screaming baby. Mike and I are exhausted! Will this ever end?!

Attempts at walking

Will thinks he is big stuff now that he can get around on two feet. He walks every chance he can get and has really suprised us at how quickly he has picked it up. He took his first two steps on August 22, the morning of his birthday party. From there he has added more steps each day. Now he is walking from room to room. He has a new confidence in himself. With this confidence he now thinks that he can climb up onto any piece of furniture. So far he has mastered the rocking chair in his room, the couch, and the kitchen chairs. He has turned into a little roaming monkey!

This is Will walking and saying bye on video. I tried to get him to wave but he wouldn't do it!

Birthday and 1st steps

Us with the birthday boy!
My baby officially turns one tomorrow. Oh, where has this year gone. This whole weekend has been sentimental, everything still seems so fresh in my mind, and I really can't believe it has been a year.
Yesterday we celebrated Will's birthday with our closest family and loved ones. It was a perfect day! Sunny, low 80's, nice breeze, we could have not asked for a better day, especially since we were outside. We went to White Oak Park and rented a pavilion. Mike grilled hotdogs and everyone ate Cookie Monster cupcakes that my Gran I and had made the night before. It was simple, but fun.
Will riding on one of his new toys.
Jake playing on Will's new slide. This toy and the car kept the kids there happy.
Will and Abigail.
Will and Parker right before he ate his cake.
Will's Cookie Monster cake. This was the one he got to smash.
Getting started on his cake. It didn't take him long before he looked like this...
Nice, right!
He eventually looked like a smurf! Notice his helpers...I think they enjoyed smashing the cake as well!
Will got upset when I took his cake away from him. I gave it right back and he was instantly calm and content again. He loved his cake!
Will's new laptop. This was also one of the popular toys of the day. Most all the kids wanted to play with it, some at the same time!

The party alone made for enough excitement for one day, but Will decided yesterday morning that he was going to take his first steps. Mike, Gran and I were all sitting in the kitchen waiting on my mom and dad and Mike's mom to come to help us take things to the park. Will was standing at the dishwasher and my Gran was sitting in a chair close by. She was holding his sippy cup and I guess he wanted it because the next thing we knew he had let go and taken two steps towards her. We all screamed and clapped when we saw him! I think we might have scared him a little because he sat down and crawled the rest of the way. My mom and Mike's mom showed up not five minutes after that. My Gran loved that she got to see a first before they did!

All in all, it was a great day. Thanks to everyone who helped. It was a special day that Mike and I won't soon forget.

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school, not for Will, but for me. I always dread this day, not because I don't want to go back to school, but because it is usually chaos. I am sure it is like this in most elementary schools, but parents are EVERYWHERE!! I work in a k-1 primary school so I'm sure that makes things worse. I am polite to the parents and have always done my best to be supportive, but I have always found it hilarious that the whole family has to come in to watch Johnny find his desk, his breakfast card, his crayon box...you get the point. They also have to film everything and take pictures of each and everything he does for the first 15 minutes of the school day.
In the past years I myself was not a mother and so I was looking at this situation from a non-parent viewpoint. Today, however, was different. Today, for the first time, I could sympathize with the parents. I felt for them and what they were having to do. I saw a mother taking pictures of her kindergarten baby outside his new classroom and I got emotional. I tried not to stare, but I couldn't help but watch. The little boy was so excited and you could tell he was proud of himself. The mother was proud as well, she hugged and kissed him and gave him a big smile, but you could tell she was hurting. Her baby is growing up. Before she knows it he will be graduating high school.
I say all of this because my own baby is growing up. In two short weeks he will be one year old. Which means in 4 short years I will be that mother taking pictures of my baby outside his kindergarten classroom. I do my best to thank God everyday for bringing him into our life...he is such a blessing and we only get to keep him for so long. But, I am just reminded to cherish and treasure every moment we get to spend with him now because we'll never get it back. (even when he wakes up screaming a couple times every night)

Of course I can't blog without adding some new pictures of Will. Here they are!
Will learning to sip through a straw.
Four generations of Fessler men.
Will with his cell phone. He talks on this all the time. He knows what to do. Its pretty funny!
Will and I at Monkey Joe's, an indoor inflatable place. I don't know who had more fun...me or him!
Will climbing the inflatable wall.