Friday Favorites #3

Friday Favorites is a weekly piece I started as a way to record the milestones and memories I don’t get a chance to blog about during the rest of the week.
 
Here are my favorite memories from this week.
 
My mom and my step-dad came to visit last weekend. She’s here often enough that Will remembers her, but it still takes an hour or so for him to really warm up to her again. He was cautiously friendly when they first arrived, like usual, but within a few hours he was playing like they had been there all along - he even ran up and gave her a hug around the knees.
 
My step-dad is a totally different story. He doesn’t have any kids (that he knows of!), has no interest in kids, and had never been married before he met my mom. He’s a great guy, but being a dad and having kids was just something that never interested him. He’s been great at putting up with my sister and I over the past few years – probably because he didn’t have to help raise us or deal with the teenage years – and he’s a good sport to put up with Will. Will sees things a little differently, and he loves to hang around Grandpa B. This visit, he couldn’t wait to give him knee hugs and share his half-eaten pretzel sticks. And by share, I mean try to shove them in Grandpa B’s mouth. It was pretty funny – but of course I swooped in to save him from the horrors of mushy pretzels.
 
He’s started helping more during bathtime. He tries to scrub himself with the washcloth, or wash his hair – yesterday, he even tried to help me get clean by scrubbing my arm.
 
New words:  poop, shirt, cheese (when we’re taking a picture – of anything, not just him)
 
Lately, he’s been trying to escape before bathtime. As soon as I get his clothes off and set him on the ground, he’s off and running. I know I could just carry him directly to the tub, but it’s pretty funny to let him loose. (The days he actually is cranky and it’s not worth it to play the game, I don’t let him down).
 
He’s started running to the pantry and opening the doors to point at all the food when he wants to eat. This happens often, and tantrums ensue when we tell him ‘no’…even if he just ate.
 
The past two days, we’ve let him eat dinner all by himself without any help from us. It’s been a huge mess to clean up, but he’s doing better already.
 
He says “Hi Mom” and “Hi Dad” when he sees us in the morning and evenings.
 
What special things do you want to remember from this week?