Personality: Independent is the word on the street for Liam. Especially when it comes to walking. One day when Will got home from work, he left the door open a few extra seconds and Liam was off down the sidewalk...no pants, no shoes. If I set him down, he will immediately walk away from me. Not a bad thing in the right situation, but it could be scary in other situations. Obviously, we know not to give him the opportunity to walk away in potentially sketchy situations like in a crowd in public. But we are giving him more freedom to walk and explore in the right situations,and that includes some public places. (I fear that he will HAVE TO be one of those kids on a leash one day. That is, if I don't want to lose my son in a crowd...which I don't.) The real trouble comes once we pick him up to avoid a danger or even just when it's time to go. He screams and arches his back like it's the worst thing ever! I'm definitely hearing more frustrated "grrrrs" these days! Occasionally there's even a little foot stomping action. So dramatic! Walking and exploring and playing are his favorite things to do. He's typically a good-natured kid and in a good mood. If he's awake, he's moving. He's always on the go! "Stop" and "no" are his least favorite words. He knows what they mean, and usually screams in protest when he hears them. I'm sure they will be a frequent visitor in my vocabulary for years to come. He definitely likes to push his boundaries, and sometimes even touches something he's not supposed to just to see my reaction. I know this because when he does it, he looks at me with a sly grin on his face. The problem is that it's hard to keep an "I'm mommy and no means no" face in those situations. All in all, though, Liam is a wonderful kid, full of life, smiley, and curious about everything! He's a smart one for sure.
Skills: Walking has been mastered. Liam is now working on running. He's also working on climbing on furniture like the couch or the chair in his room, but is still just too short (even though he's tall). He tries though. He still babbles all the time, but is saying more words. He has said "cat" in the past, but the other day he looked at Squirt on two occasions and said it. Besides his usual words, he's mostly a repeater of words I say. Those include "go go," "dow" for "down," and "dah" for "dog." We've noticed that he does understand a lot more words now. If I ask him to go get a book, he brings me a book. There are also several specific books I can ask him to go get, and he'll bring me the correct one. If we ask him to go get a diaper, he goes and gets a diaper. If I ask for smooches, he comes at me with his mouth wide open and gives me a hug...smooches to him! I've said it before, but everyday I can just see him learning more and more things and processing them. That's fun! Stacking blocks is one of his new skills. He got wooden blocks for his birthday, but hasn't shown much interest in them except to throw them on the floor. Lately, though, he's been stacking them and can stack up to 6 at a time. Then he knocks them all down! He's getting pretty good at throwing things, whether or not that's good. He drop tests everything by throwing it on the floor (the tile by the doorway) to see how much noise it makes.
Food and Drink: Liam is finally feeding himself more and more foods all the time. He's gotten better at chewing food and eating in general. The big news this month is that he finally started feeding himself vegetables and fruit! So far, he's fed himself broccoli, blueberry halves, some watermelon chunks, and even a few random bits of steamed carrot. Now, he won't feed himself these things every time I put them in front of him (except the broccoli), but he's doing much better! He's also started feeding himself scrambled eggs and graham crackers. It seems like Liam might actually still have a bit of a milk sensitivity (definitely not an allergy), so I've stopped giving him dairy for the time being to see if the issue goes away. One of the issues has stopped, but still working on the other that was most likely caused by dairy. Let's just say he's been a little backed up, which can be cause by too much dairy as well. I'm thinking the problem may have just been too much dairy, and will cut back on it from now on but not cut it out completely. He's STILL drinking milk from a bottle a few times a day. He just will not drink it from his straw cups, plus he literally runs to the chair in his room grinning when he sees a bottle in my hands. I've learned that if he doesn't want to do something, he won't do it! I'll probably give him another month or so before I start pushing the issue and move away from the bottles. It's not like he's emotionally attached to them. He only drinks from one a total of maybe 15 minutes a day.
Events and Firsts: Honestly, not a lot has happened this month and we haven't done much. Liam started feeding himself whole meals this month. He went to his first playday at the church, but probably won't go to anymore. Tried sleep training and it failed. I'm still trying to figure out what may be the best strategy to try next. It took a while for his sleeping to go back to normal after the training debacle, so I'm a little hesitant to try something else right now. Liam did get to go to Guitar Center a couple of times with Will. The first time, they left quickly because Liam started pitching a fit. The second time, they managed to come home with a guitar (that will be resold at a profit!). Last week, Liam got to play in the fountain at Post Eastside in Richardson. It was a nice evening to be outside and it was 7-11, so free slurpee! I think that was my first slurpee...it tasted just like an Icee. Yesterday, he went to the Japanese Baptist Church for the first time and got to hang out with Japanese kids. We hadn't been in 2 years, but a friend who was in town from Tokyo invited us. We will try to do more this next month!
Teeth: He still just has four teeth. I think the top middle two are finally all the way down. He's had some teething pain recently, but no new ones have made an appearance yet. It takes two toothbrushes to brush his teeth: one to distract him with that he can hold and chew and brush his teeth with himself, and then one I use to actually do the brushing.
Favorites: I think I'll add this category to highlight what some of Liam's favorite things seem to be at the moment.
- eating graham crackers
- playing with toy balls
- throwing toys on the floor by the door
- being read books
- walking outside
- seeing cats and dogs
- playing with water (still need to take him swimming!)
- opening and closing doors
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| Feeding himself a vegetable for the first time |
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| This picture shows why we call him Mr. Chunk |
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| Daddy and Liam |
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| Walking in the park |
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| Headed right for the street...until I stopped him, of course |
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| Walking away from me...off exploring |
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| Found some leaves |
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| That swoop is out of control. He needs a barrette...or a haircut |
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