Liam and Gibson: Liam at 19 Months

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!