Liam and Gibson: December 2012

Now that it's the last day of the year, I should probably go ahead and write about Christmas.

Liam, of course, is still too young to understand what Christmas is about. He's still not even super interested in opening presents. This was probably the last year I had to open most of his presents. Pretty much the only goal I had for this Christmas season was to teach Liam the name Jesus and have him be able to identify baby Jesus in the manger. I got the Fisher Price nativity set for this purpose, as well as a couple of Christmas board books. We totally succeeded at this. Fairly quickly, Liam was able to identify the baby Jesus in pictures and even in nativity scenes in peoples' yards. He still likes to say "Jee-us" and find his picture in the books. He even gives him smooches sometimes. (He will give pretty much anything a smooch.) It's really sweet.

We keep our Christmas season calm, which is easy to do without any parties to attend. Will skipped his office party because he was sick, and Liam is my boss/coworker, and he doesn't host parties. We did get together with friends one night, and that was fun! Leading up to Christmas, we did attend the Christmas program at church, and it was a wonderful way to get in the Christmas spirit.

As for decorations this year, I put out more than I usually do. I made a felt tree for Liam and put that up right after Thanksgiving. He loved taking the ornaments off and putting them back on the tree over and over. He learned the word "star" the first day we had it up. Now he's kind of obsessed with identifying stars. I also decorated our mantel with a tiny tree that held our sentimental ornaments, and our new stockings that were handmade by a friend. The tree was left alone by the cats for the entire Christmas season. Miracle. The Fisher Price nativity (that I had to place back on the table multiple times a day...ok, sometimes I just left it all on the floor) rounded out our decorations this year!

Since our family lives in Louisiana, that's where we headed last weekend. We were only gone one night this time since Liam tends to forget how to eat and sleep properly away from home. Plus, he's just been a general fussbot lately, asserting his independence (which is actually a great thing) and making his grievances known (loudly). We were gone less than 36 hours, but the trip didn't feel rushed, and we managed to see everyone we wanted to see.

We left Dallas just 15 minutes behind schedule (which is a miracle for us), stopped for breakfast at our favorite truck stop in Kilgore (the halfway point), and made it to Homer right at noon. After lunch, the three of us headed out to the park just down the street for the 18th annual JAAG Christmas. The four of us (me, Amy, Amanda, and Glenda) have been celebrating Christmas together since were were high school freshmen in 1995. It works out since we all tend to be in Homer at Christmas. Some years, it's the only time we're all together. This year, Glenda brought her kids and Amanda brought her niece and nephew, so there were big kids for Liam to try and play with. Will took him on the merry go round with them and slid down the big slide with him. Amanda pushed him in the swing and on the springy horse. He had a great time "pay"ing. It was fun to be at the park. I have lots of memories of playing there and having/attending birthday parties.

After JAAG Christmas, we went back to my grandparents house, and my goal was to put Liam down for a nap. He was certainly tired, but still had some fight in him, and I ended up laying down with him on the bed while he slept. I didn't sleep, though. After the nap, we headed to my parent's house for our family Christmas celebration. We had a great dinner prepared by my sister and brother in law. Then it was time for presents. Liam got the most, of course! He had very little interest in opening gifts, so I helped him a bunch. He got toys, books, magnet letters and numbers, a table and chair set, as well as many other items. He also got his first bb gun from his papaw. Since he loves all things Curious George at the moment, I got him a CG Christmas shirt for cheap at Old Navy that he wore that night. He also got a couple of CG DVDs, and he even got to watch some after the present opening. He was a happy kid!

After all the excitement and the very long day, I was hoping Liam would go to sleep in his pack and play without a fight. Nope. He did lots and lots of screaming. Will and I ended up going to bed at the same time as him and letting him sleep in between us on the bed. It was nice to snuggle him at night, but I don't sleep well with him in the bed, and he never sleeps in our bed at home. I'm not totally against it happening on occasion, but he thinks our bed is a super fun place to play, and as soon as he gets in our bed, he's up jumping around and trying to stand on me. No thanks. Thankfully, he slept through the night!

The next morning, we headed to Ruston. I love Ruston. I would live in Ruston again. One question, though. When did Monjuni's become Pizzoli's? It was kind of strange to see that. When we rolled into Ruston, Liam was snoozing in the backseat. We dropped Will off at Baldwin's Jewelers so he could do a little shopping in private, and I decided to drive around the campus of Louisiana Tech. The campus was quiet, of course. It certainly has changed a lot in some ways since my college days, but in essence it's still the same. I was surprised by the appearance of several new buildings I had never seen, but comforted by the fact that many buildings I spent a lot of time in still look the same. Surprisingly, after only about 15 minutes, Will called me and told me he was finished at Baldwin's! After that, we headed to Chili's to have lunch with Will's parents before we headed back to Texas. As usual, Liam had a big time taking his Grandpa's cap and either putting it on his head or throwing it on the floor for laughs. After lunch, we went back by Baldwin's so Will could pick up his purchase, and then we got on I-20 coming back to Dallas.

It was dark when we got home but not very late. After dinner, Liam got a bath and I put him in his Christmas pj's. Then he opened his Christmas book, and we read it together. After Liam went to bed (in his own crib!), I wrapped his presents and Will and I filled his stocking. We also took turns filling each others' stockings with gifts we got for each other.

We didn't open presents right when Liam woke up the next morning. We waited until after he had breakfast. We got him three presents plus stocking stuff. We went a little overboard on stocking stuff, and some of it had to be wrapped because it wouldn't all fit. From us, Liam got a wooden alphabet puzzle, a Duplo ABC block set, and a play fruit/veggie color sorting set. He is loving letters lately, so I wanted to encourage him to play with them so there's more opportunities to learn them. We also wanted to start teaching him the names of different fruits and veggies. A week later, I can say that Liam loves his toys, especially the alphabet puzzle! He also wakes up most mornings and immediately starts building with his Duplos...and he pretend eats the play fruit and veggies. I got Will some things he wanted and needed, and Will got me Nutella and an Etsy gift card (still deciding what to buy with it)! We were both very happy with our gifts. Will also decided to give me what he bought at Baldwin's, even though it is technically a tenth anniversary gift (which is not until February). He didn't want it to have to sit around for two months! I knew what it was, but had no idea what it would look like. Inside the box was a beautiful vintage diamond wedding ring! I will most likely write about the ring more in February, but I have to say it's perfect! He did a great job, and I love the ring!

Later that Christmas Day, it snowed for several hours giving us a white Christmas. Unfortunately, Liam really doesn't have proper snow attire, so we just admired it from inside...for a couple of days. All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas!

He's legitimately closer to two years old than one year old. It's time to start thinking about his second birthday party, I suppose. I knew the theme of his first birthday party before he was even born. I didn't plan ahead for the second one. Nowadays, Liam actually shows interest in different things, so if I had to pick a theme today, I'd choose cars (just regular old cars, not the Lightning McQueen variety) or Curious George. Goodness, he's loving George these days! I may just go with that. CG would be a totally cute party theme!

I think from now on, I'm going to forgo the categories for the monthly posts. I'm just tired of them! Instead, I think I'll just do a numbered list (at least for the time being). Since Liam is now 19 months old, I'll go with 19 this month. It's mostly stuff he's learned in the past month. His brain has really been working overtime!

1. Liam now knows and uses a lot more signs. More, eat, drink, cracker, milk, all done, cat, dog, horse, fish, hurt, baby, shoes, socks, hat, coat, please, thank you, car, train, ball, doll, bear, wash hands, sleep, brush teeth, book. He also says all those words. Liam also has signs for squirrel and rabbit, but I don't think they're official signs. I guess all that demanding he does to watch Baby Signing Time is paying off.

2. Liam all of a sudden LOVES to color (or cuhyur, as he usually says it). He never showed any interest in it until about a week ago. Now he's all about it. Especially precious: how he says "Wow" periodically as he's coloring. I need to get the boy a coloring book before he uses up all my white cardstock!

3. Liam learned how to fake sneeze this month, and he does it all the time! It's the build-up kind of sneeze: "ah ah ah chooo!"

4. Speaking of bodily noises, Liam now informs me of all his toots. I hear the word "toot" way too much. He will also call attention to anyone else's toots. They'll probably forever be known as toots in this house. The F-word is never uttered here! Oh and burps? They're called toots as well.

5. Liam finally, FINALLY, is getting more teeth. That's right! More than one. Three at once, actually. A top tooth popped through on November 23rd, and I noticed two on the bottom had popped through at the same time on December 4th. They're not all the way in yet, but he now has seven teeth! Surprisingly, these teeth came in without fussing or pain.

6. Liam has recently had a rough time being sick. Saturday a couple of weeks ago, he woke up from his nap feeling really warm. I thought he was just overly warm from his nap at first, and didn't think much of it. We tried to take him to the Santa's Village at the library, but he was really fussy before we left (but fine in the car), and then we drove around the parking lot for 20 minutes looking for a spot before we finally gave up. Once we were home, I took his temperature (bad mom move...I should have done it earlier). It was around 102.5. It had never been that high, and he had only had a fever one other time in his life (Hand, Foot, Mouth when he was 10 months old). We got the fever down some, and put him in bed. He was still hot the next morning. Liam acted mostly normal, but didn't really want to eat that day. We watched a lot of Curious George that day since he kept requesting it. We let him since he was sick. The next morning when we woke up, he was cooler, but still a little feverish. The fever actually went up over the course of the day. The day after that, he truly woke up without a fever. But later that day, the rash popped up. Yep, roseola. At that point, he was past the worst part (the fever), but over the next couple of days, the rash ended up covering most all of his torso and bum. Then it just went away. However, Liam also got some congestion in the middle of all of that, but nothing that was much of a problem. He had one rough night of sleep where I ended up boiling onions at 3am and then put the pot near his crib to help him breathe better. He did sleep the rest of the night after that, but of course his room smelled liked onions. Then on Friday, almost a week after the fever started, Liam woke up from his nap crying and touching his right ear. He was inconsolable. I called Will to come home since I knew I'd have to take Liam to the doctor (one car, remember?). That afternoon (evening actually...saw the doc at 6 pm!), Liam's pediatrician confirmed that his right ear was infected. A first for Liam. He had never had an ear infection before, and it was already at the "bad" stage, just a few hours after he started to complain about it. Looking back on it now, a day or so prior to the ear infection, Liam shook his head "no" a whole lot, which isn't something he normally does. I had no idea at the time, but I think he was doing it because his ear bothered him. Once we started treating the infection, he stopped doing that. Good to know for future reference. Anyway, an ear infection meant another first for Liam: having to take antibiotics. I know ear infections can be treated in a more natural way, but I'm neither smart nor brave enough to attempt that, so he's taking the antibiotics. As of this writing, he has a few more days left of the 10-day cycle. Then I'll pump him full of probiotics! Liam is pretty much all well now, at least I thought he was before today. He has an occasional cough, and actually is sounding a little stuffy again. I hope it's nothing serious. Will has a cold as well.

7. Liam experienced his second Thanksgiving last month. Last year, he was just a wee 6 month old. This year, he was a demanding 18 month old! He didn't have much interest in all the delicious food I cooked, and just wanted to eat cheese! He pretended a piece of pumpkin bread was a car for most of the meal. It was a low-key day since we stayed here and celebrated Thanksgiving by ourselves, just the three of us.

8. Liam started identifying and saying the names of characters this month. Elmo was the first one ("Melmo"). Curious George was the second. He just says "George." If he sees a picture of the Cat in the Hat (on his books), he says "Hat" and pats the top of his head.

9. Once he started saying the character's names, he also started demanding to watch them. I get bombarded with lots of requests for George, Melmo, and Babies (Baby Signing Time) throughout the day. I don't give in most of the time, but sometimes I do, especially when he was sick. YouTube is handy for these requests.

10. Liam has started making demands (err, requests), for other things as well. Some are food related (cheese! water! cracker!, etc.), and others are activity related (walk! go go!, cuhyur!, etc.). I like that he's starting to tell me what he wants, but it would sound a whole lot nicer if he added "Please" to his request more often. We're working on that part. Manners matter. It's super cute when he does say "please" though: "Peas."

11. As far as words go, Liam learns new ones everyday it seems. He tries to repeat words when we ask him to, so he at least attempts to say pretty much anything! It doesn't always come out sounding correct, but he gets an A for effort! For some reason, he has stopped saying "mine" and says "my" or "mise" in place of it. Along with the gimme gimme hands, he gets his point across, though! When we ask him a question, and he has to think about the answer, he has started to say "hmmm" while thinking about it. Liam is also starting to put "a" in front of most words: a baby, a dog, a star. He's also using plurals more often: babies, dogs, stars.

12. Liam is also starting to say more two or three word phrases. These include: thank you, oh no, where go, I want that (I wan dat), there you go (there go), my (insert lots of different words here), and get down.

13. Liam is identifying letters of the alphabet more and more as well. I seems to be his favorite letter at the moment, and he always correctly identifies it. He also knows B, D, O and E most of the time. He will repeat most of the letters after us, but not all. One letter he never seems to say or pronounce is L. He has never attempted to say his name. I am starting to occasionally hear the L sound when he says "color," but not at any other time. Our bedtime routine has started to include looking at our Tokyo Subways sign that is on the wall right outside his room. We stop there each night and he points out the picture of the bear (for Ueno Zoo), the fish (for Tsukiji fish market), and the airplane (for Narita and Haneda airports). Then he repeats the letters after us as we spell out Tokyo Subways. Two of his Christmas presents have to do with the alphabet. I think it would be awesome if he knows the alphabet when he turns two! Is that even possible?

14. Liam is loving the guitar. He loves to sit with Will while he plays. He also loves to strum the strings. "Tar," "Teetar," and the occasional "Geetar" are demands we also hear on a regular basis. He can also recognize the sound of a guitar being played without seeing it. Sometimes Will plays his guitar in the bedroom, Liam hears it, and starts saying, "Tar! Tar!." He does a sign for guitar that he made up on his own where he makes a strumming motion with his hand. Will taught him this: "Liam, what does a guitar say?" Liam: "Rock." I know Will would be thrilled if Liam wants to learn how to play one day!

15. Speaking of rock, I find it interesting that Liam seems to know that the word has several meanings. He can point out literal rocks in a picture or at the park, and when he was on a rocking horse and a playground toy that rocked back and forth, he kept saying "Rock" while he was on them. I don't know that he understands the musical term of rock beyond the little phrase Will taught him, but I'm certain he will one day. It really is amazing to watch him learn, but it's even more amazing when he demonstrates knowledge I didn't even know he had! Like when he saw the camel in his nativity scene for the first time, and he pointed at the hump and said, "water." I didn't teach him that, so I guess he learned it in the church nursery!

16. Liam can now identify and say (his version of) the names of both cats. Squirt is "Deetch" or "Keetch" or "Teechy." The reason those sound nothing like Squirt is because we typically always call her by her nicknames, Skeetch or Skeetchy. Is it normal to have nicknames for pets? Eleanor is "Nor Nor" or "O Nor," although I have heard him bust out with a very clear and proper "Eleanor" a couple of times. The little guy still loves those cats and is gentle when he gets to pet them on the rare occasion. They STILL run away from him and want nothing to do with him. Way to hold a grudge, girls. Little do they know that he's going to be around for the rest of their lives!

17. Liam has really enhanced his dancing skills in the past month. Before, he just kind of swayed back and forth when we asked him if he could dance. Now he has a stompy dance and a bouncy dance. The stompy dance typically involves him spinning around too. It's so cute! And he does it on command for our amusement! He also spontaneously dances and claps to music.

18. One of Liam's favorite things lately is smooches. We should probably call them kisses, and we sometimes do, but for the most part we refer to them as smooches. It's just a cuter word. Anyway, Liam is pretty good about giving us smooches when we ask for them, although not always. However, he's typically always in the mood for smooching his toys and stuffed animals. His teddy bear, Noel, is in his crib when he sleeps. Today when I went in his room after he woke up from his nap, he was giving Noel lots of smooches. Tonight as he was falling asleep, we could hear him giving Noel even more smooches. Poor Noel. I hope he can handle all the affection. Liam is also an expert at blowing smooches. It's usually an on-command type deal, but he does take it upon himself from time to time to blow smooches. It's almost always to pictures of girls! The other day, he was looking at Dallas Child magazine, and blowing a kiss to all the pictures of little girls he saw. He also must have been blowing smooches in the church nursery the other day, because when I picked him up, one of the teachers asked him to blow a kiss. I've also heard of him blowing kisses to himself in a mirror at church! And when we were saying goodbye to Liam's friend Addy before she moved to Wisconsin, he blew her a kiss, and I think she kissed him on the cheek! Affectionate toddlers are cute! At least it's cute right now.

19. Seeing as how it's December 14th, that means Christmas is right around the corner. Obviously, at 19 months old, Liam still doesn't "get" Christmas. He just knows there's a large, green tree on the wall to play with and the stars stick to it. He also likes to look at the small tree on the mantel and he tells us our stockings are, in fact, socks. Very big socks. Unfortunately, we haven't done hardly any Christmas activities so far this year. I still want to take him to Santa's Village at the library, but he needs to be completely well before that happens. I figure we can start Christmas traditions next year when he'll be able to understand more of what Christmas is all about. This year, I'm trying to teach him to identify and say "Baby Jesus." It's working so far. He says "Jee-us" when prompted, but doesn't say it on his own yet. Baby Jesus in the nativity is still just "baby." However, on our walk this morning, we passed by two houses that have the large, light-up manger scenes in the yard. As we walked by, I asked Liam, "Where is baby Jesus?" and both times he pointed to the manger scenes. One tradition I am starting this year with him is to open and read a Christmas book on Christmas Eve. I may also get him some Christmas pj's. I totally get why folks do that now. It's so everyone looks nice in Christmas morning pictures! We will celebrate Christmas morning here by ourselves (going to Louisiana a couple days before), and I'm looking forward to Liam opening his gifts from us. I think we're going to go with the 3-gift limit, but he will also get a few little things in his stocking...I mean, sock.

Liam is a precious boy. I still am incredibly grateful that I get to spend everyday with him, and teach him, and watch him learn. It's the best gift!

Picture Time!

Will participated in Movember this year, and stuck it out to the very end. Liam joined in!