At the beginning of the year, we finally got rid of Walter’s binkie. He also started crawling out of the crib but we didn’t convert it to a toddler bed until his birthday, and he surprisingly stays in the bed pretty well. We also got a comfy chair (mainly for Mom and Dad).
Johanna help make his cake as well as helped play with his new toys.
His teacher asked if he also growls at home (he does) and says he is more interested in playing than learning, he especially likes dinosaurs and is good at picking up. He can be hard to keep in line, especially when trying to video chat.
Some of the things Walter likes to say - “OH NO, what you do?” and “How about now?” Like, when asking if we are there yet and I say No, he will say “How about now?” a few seconds later. His favorite show is Lion Guard. He especially like the crocodiles, Maku being his favorite, and likes to wrestle like them, calling it “mashindano”. Superhero girls is probably his second favorite. He has gotten a few scrapes, like this one next to his eye, but he doesn't complain much about them.
He still has to have his night-nights. He likes to put one over his head, act like a ghost, and say “Spooky”. He and Johanna also play the “Nah Nah” often which is them saying “Nah Nah” and us chasing them or at least pretending to case them. The night-nights get involved too where we play sort of a tug of war and then let go so the kids fall on each other and laugh, asking to do it again.
He is a monster when it comes to haircuts so we continue to (try) giving him haircuts at home.
He is all about sticks. Whenever we go outside he needs to find his stick (a special one he has set aside) and also has one picked out for Mom. When we go some place new, he looks for sticks and “tries them out” to see if it is the right fit for him. Once when he was looking for the right stick -- “Is this my stick? Nope! Is this my stick? Nope! Is this my stick? Yes! MAUI TIME!!”
He uses the potty at school with much success but is not interested at home. He was willing to use the potty seat as a necklace and wasn’t able to get it off himself.
Like a typical brother, he can get into Johanna’s things. They play together often, with Johanna typically setting the direction for what they are doing. We are more able to reason with him than when he was two, but when he is set on something, there is no convincing otherwise. Even his teachers say there is no winning with Walter, he is always the one that wins (aka gets his way).
He likes chocolate ice cream and the “beard” he gets when eating it.
And we will never forget the great poop incident. He was supposed to be napping but instead was yelling for quite some time, which was typically at the time. When Tony went to check on him, there was hardly a surface that wasn’t covered in poop.
He brings lots of laughter and smiles to our family.
