Yes, I've been meaning to write a post about Liam for a long time. I started one two months ago, never finished, and now Liam is more advanced than he was then. Therefore, I decided to just start over. I haven't done an update since around the time he turned two, which now feels like years ago.
As you read from my previous posts, there's a big change coming to our family in just a few short months now. Our survivor, Gibson, is doing great and we are healing more everyday from the loss of Collin. I actually like talking about Collin now, and the majority of the time it doesn't even make me sad anymore. Liam talks about both Gibson and Collin. When Liam names the members of our family, he never leaves out Collin (or the cats). I do try to make him understand that there will only be one baby, though. He will tell us, "Collin lives in heaven with Jesus. Gibson lives in Mama's belly." He will understand one day because we will always talk about Collin. I think Liam is going to be a great big brother, and I can't wait to see what brothers are all about! I have no experience with that and neither does Will. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun, though!
Liam has had a love of letters for a long time, and has been able to identify them for many, many months. Lately, he finally learned the order of the whole alphabet! He can spout them off A-Z, and warbles the LMNOP part like a pro. He's very proud of himself for learning it, and usually claps for himself afterwards and says, "All the letters!" He can also read them in order when they're written down, and can read them backwards. He also knows them all in lowercase as well. He's recently learned all the sounds for each letter too. So we can ask him what letter a particular word starts with, and he will either know it right away or can answer when we sound out the first letter. Liam can also name at least one animal for every letter of the alphabet. So when I write down the alphabet for him, he usually goes through them and sounds out each letter and then says the animal name. I'm wondering when I can start teaching him to read some words! He does recognize his name when he sees it.
In addition to letters, Liam has also been all about the numbers lately. He can easily count 1-10 (and does so way too many times throughout the day). After 10, he will say 11, 12, but still skips to 14, then 16, but can then count 17-20 with no problem. He has also counted 20-30 a couple of times. However, when I ask him to count objects, he will usually still count all the way to 10 no matter how many there are. Also, when he's playing and pretending something is a rocket, he will count 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10...Blast off! So there's no counting backwards yet!
Over the summer, Liam developed a love for Thomas the Train stuff. I don't even know when he saw it the first time; it was probably just for a few minutes on TV. He was hooked, though, and really hasn't stopped talking about Thomas since then. He quickly learned all the names of the trains, even the obscure ones, and can identify them by their number and color as well. He seriously sometimes even counts in trains and is always correct. He knows the catchphrases for them all too. One of Will's coworkers gave us a big box of trains and tracks, and these days there's always some tracks laid out on the floor somewhere with trains on them. It's what he plays with the most and he uses his imagination well with them. Although lately (as in this week), Liam has loved playing with his Mater and McQueen cars. You can usually find them on the tracks as well. He really loves all of his trains, trucks, and cars, and, like I said, they are what he plays with the most. His Legos are a close second, but he builds trains out of them!
When he's not playing with transportation themed toys, Liam enjoys art. He colors and/or paints everyday. He seems to have lost some interest in coloring books, though, and prefers to make his masterpieces on plain white paper. Today, he painted two small pumpkins for Halloween. I may get a bigger one and let him paint it outside soon instead of carving one. His art is still the abstract toddler type, but he is starting to draw smiley faces sometimes (before giving it a third and fourth and fifth eye), and drew a picture of Curious George last week. It looks nothing like George, but some facial features are present, and he got out a stuffed George to look at for reference while drawing it. I hope he has artistic ability. He's always asking me to draw trains and Mater, but I always tell him, "Liam can draw it. Mama can't! (because I really can't)" If that doesn't work, I tell him to wait for daddy to draw it because Will actually has artistic ability and can draw those things. I do love that he loves art, though, and I'm looking forward to doing more complicated art projects with him one day.
Liam is starting to get into songs and singing. He never showed any interest in singing until recently. He's always enjoyed hearing me sing, though, which scares me because I'm not good at all. I'm probably teaching him how to sing off key! At bed time and nap time, we have our routine. Lately he has added two sings to the line-up. Pretty soon, I will be doing a 30 minute set! First is Jesus Loves Me, then part of All You Need is Love, then ALL of Yellow Submarine, then I recite Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and the new additions are the ABC song and a very short song I made up about Will called "The Daddy Song." Before all those songs are sung, we say prayers. It takes awhile, but Liam loves his routine. Anyway, I've sung them all so many times that he knows pretty much all the words too and will sing along with me. It's so sweet to hear him sing with me! I know that before too long he will busting out singing them on his own. His solos these days are usually just jibberish in a sing-song voice.
As far as Liam's personality goes, I kind of think there are two of them! When he's at church or someone else's house where we are not the ones watching him, he is very laid back and easy going. I don't think he hardly says a word at church and just goes with the flow! At home around me and Will, he is very assertive and sometimes even bossy. He talks all the time, and throws a fit when he doesn't get his way. I'd definitely describe him as stubborn! "Liam do it!" is one of his favorite phrases, and he's already pretty good at procrastination and getting us to let him play for just a few more minutes before bedtime! He's not shy, though, and loves being around other kids. He refers to the kids in our small group Bible study as his friends, even though they are all at least two years older than him and I don't even think they interact with him much since to them he's just a baby! Overall, though, Liam has a tender heart and is a sweet guy. However, he also ignores us sometimes and is willfully disobedient on occasion. If he doesn't want to be in a situation, he will let us know. I can count on one hand the number of times we've taken him out to eat in a restaurant since the spring, and I think all but one or two times ended with Will carrying a screaming Liam out of the restaurant. The other times, we quickly ate and somehow managed to effectively distract him long enough to do so. He's not a fan of high chairs in public anymore, but doesn't understand that he can't just walk off and go bother people. He is the type to struggle and scream until he is free. I am so looking forward to the day he grows out of that. Positive reinforcement and talking to him about it don't seem to work yet. I know it's just a phase, though, but I'm starting to wonder if Liam has managed to learn how to read and has taken this post to heart:
Rules Toddlers Live By.
On a positive note, however, Liam is well-behaved the vast majority of the time, even at home. He loves to snuggle with me. I recently got my first unsolicited "I love you" from him, followed by him coming over to me and asking for a "Kiss, mama." It was so sweet! Love you's and kisses are still rare coming from him, but he shows his love all the time. In what I also think is just a phase, he's not nearly as affectionate to Will. It definitely hurts his feelings some, but I think it's just because Liam spends all day everyday with me, and is for sure a Mama's boy at the moment. I think it will all change when Gibson is born.
Liam is improving his speaking skills all the time. He correctly uses pronouns, and has started saying "I..." instead of "Me..." most of the time. He's into differentiating ownership of items. "For you," "For me," "That's Liam's," and "That's for you" are common coming from him. He's speaking in sentences the majority of the time now. One of his favorites is, "No, I don't think so." Yesterday, he asked me, "Where's my cup?" "There it is!" Whereas recently, that would've been, "Where cup go?" "There go!" There are improvements all the time with his speech although some words still aren't pronounced correctly. He does still say, "Dee Doo" for "Thank you," but he has also recently just started saying, "Thanks." I know some kids his age speak much better, but I think he does a great job! He always gets his point across.
Some of Liam's Favorites:
-Thomas the Train and all his buddies
-Mater and McQueen cars
-drawing and painting
-pretending while playing (using that imagination!)
-playing with friends
-hanging out with Mama (all the time!)
-hearing me sing his favorite songs
-going to church
-playing on playgrounds
-watching shows
-letters and numbers (he's borderline obsessed!)
-claiming that food is Deeeeelicious!
