My Own Little Genius...

*Warning -- this posting contains a mother's proud, gushing remarks. Proceed with caution! My mother became a grandmother relatively early in life at the hip young age of 51. She had older friends who had plenty of granchildren themselves and one quipped to her, "Now you have your own little genius!" Too true. Ok, so I'm forever away from being a grandmother, but I certainly feel like Will is my "little genius," "little comedian," "little sweetheart," and "all boy!" all rolled into one. To demonstrate the first...we've been trying to teach Will bits of sign language -- bottle, drink, hungry, more, please, and thank you. The first four he caught onto pretty well. The last two I guess are pretty abstract. He did sign "please" at my parents in November, but that's been it. Yesterday, however, he proved without a shadow of a doubt that he was able...when he wanted to be. I had a Braum's sack with a few brightly colored business cards in the bottom. Will could see the cards, but he's just too short to reach all the way into the bag with it standing up or laying down without crawling into the bag. This, he was not into. So, he crawled up into Mommy's lap -- not a bad place to be. His daddy came over and tried to entice him to pull out what was in the bag. Will, first child that he is, pointed to his daddy and then pointed to the bag. Daddy said, "Say please." That little Bugger signed for please without being shown the sign or anything! To demonstrate the second...he loves playing "Simon Says" when HE's Simon. The other night my sister was over for dinner. We sat on the couches in the living room and Will was in his highchair eating. He put his hand on his head, then looked very pointedly at me. When I followed his instruction, he looked pointedly at Rachel and then at Andrew. When we were all doing what he wanted, he laughed hysterically and gave us something new to do. To demonstrate the third...he did something I didn't even expect with him just having turned one. We stopped at Braum's one morning this week after we took Andrew to work. I had two heavy bags -- two gallons of milk, 14 yogurts, and some bananas. Unfortunately, my ability to judge distance is a little off, and when I opened the screen door, I ripped one of the bags I had set on the porch . All was good, I could still carry the bags in after I put Will down. One yogurt fell out on the living room floor. Out of curiosity, I asked Will if he could help Mommy and pick up the yogurt and bring it to the kitchen. He toddled back into the living room and after half a dozen or so attempts, he picked up the yogurt! He very determinedly, very seriously brought it to me in the kitchen...dropping it four or five times on the way. We were both so very proud of him!!! To demonstrate the last...we have a stump in the backyard that is the perfect height for him to sit on, and Andrew had placed him out there a time before. This day, however, was different. Will was not content to just sit on the stump and play with grass. He sat there for a moment, pondering, then he got up and surveyed the stump. Very intentionally, he leaned over the stump and placed his hands on the far side. One foot up, the other foot up...Andrew and I held our breath. Gingerly, he moved his feet to the center of the stump and stood up! Andrew and I didn't say anything for fear of startling him and causing him to fall. Will just stood there, checking out his kingdom. Then he put out his arms, hands opened, and he beat his chest! He was king of the world! He looked at us and did it again. With that, we had permission to holler and praise and make all kinds of commotion for his great accomplishment. Wow. Could he be anymore amazing?