Liam at Seven Months

This first year is flying right by! Pretty sure it's socially acceptable now to start planning his birthday party. It's Beatles themed (!) because he's too young to have a say in it :)

At seven months, Liam is a delightful little boy. He's so much fun! He's also super busy, always moving and messing with something. He has a great belly laugh now and he's still super ticklish. I love hearing his laugh. He's starting to show some affection. He reaches out to me and will kind of give me a hug, which is his arms out and laying his head on my shoulder. I'm pretty sure he's attached to me :) I'm definitely attached to him. I'm so thankful I still get to be at home with him everyday. If he sees me looking sad for some reason, he will look at me and start laughing. I really think he's try to cheer me up!

I don't know any official stats since he doesn't have another check up until nine months, but he weighs at least 20 pounds and is probably about 30 inches long. He is wearing 9 month size clothes now.

As I mentioned in the previous post, he "talks" a lot. I wonder what he's trying to say. He still loves the ABC song, and he likes it when I count for him. I get huge grins for that. He likes to be read to, but he wants to be touching the book the whole time. After I finish, I give him the book to play with because he loves to turn the pages and pick up the book and turn it back and forth.

Sitting up is no big deal now. He's a pro at it and has been for a long time. Of course he still tumps over sometimes, but not very much and it's usually because he's looking up at something and loses his balance. He loves to play with his toys, especially his Leap Frog toy my parents got him for Christmas (they gave it to him the day after Thanksgiving). He loves pushing the buttons and there's even a book-like page to turn back and forth. I'm afraid it's going to break soon he turns it so much!

He is mobile, but still isn't crawling. Rolling is his main mode of transportation, and he can cover a large area in a very short amount of time. He's constantly getting up on his hands and knees and rocking back and forth, and then he scoots backwards. So he's got backward crawling down. Whenever I see him wanting to go forward, I get the song, "Forward Motion," by Relient K stuck in my head, because he definitely struggles with forward motion. He does get frustrated sometimes that he can't go forward to get something he wants, but that's good. The frustration is what's going to make him crawl before too long. I'm kind of hoping he waits until after Christmas to crawl. That would just be more convenient for me! It really could be any day now, though. We really need a gate because we do have stairs in our apartment that go down from the living room to our front door. We are planning to move in a few months to a place without stairs inside.

He hasn't pulled up on anything yet, and I'm actually thankful for that. He's tried to in his crib, but when he was already in  a sitting up position. He doesn't attempt it from laying down. He does try to sit up using his own strength when he's laying down, though. He can actually halfway pull it off and get himself into a position where he's propped up on one of his arms. If I stand him up, he will lean on the couch and stand up by himself, but he usually starts trying to bounce by bending his legs and loses his balance. He loves to bounce! If his feet touch the floor in any way, he's trying to bounce.

He is eating a lot of different solid foods now. I'm making all of it except carrots. When he gets carrots, they are organic jarred carrots because of the nitrate levels. I'm hoping to start making his own cereal soon. He typically gets oatmeal these days instead of rice cereal. I think butternut squash is the best deal going for baby food. It's easy to cook, easy to mash up, and one squash makes a ton of food! He has had sweet potato puffs and he likes them. He will pick them up and keep them in his hand, but he won't put them in his mouth after he picks them up. It's so weird because these days, pretty much anything that winds up in his hands goes into his mouth. But not those! He's still not very interested in a sippy cup, but he does love to drink from a regular cup that I hold. The other night when he was getting a bath, he picked up the cup in his bath and put it up to his mouth to get a drink of water. I stopped him because the water had soap in it, but I was impressed! He still doesn't have any teeth, and I don't even feel any on the verge of coming in.

Now it's time for pictures. He's a little cutie!

Talking Liam

At almost seven months old, Liam is quite the talkative baby. He loves to babble on for long periods of time. Sometimes, he even babbles really loudly. He just loves to hear himself talk. Which is crazy, because I'm a quiet person, and to a lesser extent, so is Will.

Of course, the vast majority of his sounds are just babbles, syllables strung together in an incoherent pattern. But sometimes, he does say actual words. Words I've heard him say include:

Hey - This is pretty much the only word he uses properly. He only says it to me, Will, and if he sees one of the cats. He loves saying, "Hey!"

Hi - I've also heard this variation of Hey. He doesn't say it as much, though, which is strange because whenever we wave to him, we say "Hi" instead of "Hey."

Da Da - He started putting these syllables together a long time ago. "D" sounds are some of his favorite sounds.

Daddy - He will occasionally bust out the Daddy while he's streaming together D sounds. It's so cute!

Dad - Just recently he started saying Dad, with the D sound on the end. He was up for about an hour in the middle of the night last night, just as happy as he could be. He kept saying "Dad" over and over. Will was not amused since it was waking him up!

Of course, I don't think he associates any of these words with Will just yet. But it's still precious to hear them.

Cat - That's also a new one. He hears the word cat a lot, and the other day he said it.

Speaking of cats, last week, Liam also kind of meowed last week and for a split second Will and I both thought it was our cat Squirt. It sounded just like her.

Bye Bye - B sounds are also fun for him, and he usually says Ba Ba over and over, but sometimes it does sound like Bye Bye. I've also heard him say what sounded like "Bye bye Daddy." Another funny string of babbling he said one day sounded kind of like, "I don't want to," but of course, he didn't really say it.

My question is, do any of these count as a first word since he's not really associating them with anything specific (that I can tell)? I haven't counted them as such since I don't know if they really count. But if they do, then his first word was "Hey."

Perhaps he will be an early talker. I've been trying to get his babbling or "talking" on video, but when he sees the camera, he just stops! I love his talking!

Liam and His Band...Progress Pictures

This morning, Liam had his evaluation for his second DOC Band. It was just like the first time pretty much in that they took pictures of him from several angles and measured his head. In the update in the previous post, I mentioned that if the insurance claim for a new band is filed before the end of this month, we only have to pay 30% of it. So we are trying to get things done quickly, hence this evaluation today.

Looking at the pictures, you can definitely tell progress has been made. You can also tell that he still needs more time in a band. Also, you can see that's he thinned down some! And he has more hair. Cutie pie.

Original Headshot: 4.5 months

Today's Headshot: 6.5 months

September

Today

September

Today

September

Today

Liam and His Band...The Final Adjustment

Today was Liam's final adjustment for his DOC Band. At an adjustment, they shave off some more of the foam to make room for his head to grow. Today, they took off almost all of it in the two places he's been growing. That means he will officially outgrow his band by next Tuesday. However, his head is unfortunately not finished with its transformation. He has made great progress and it looks way better than it did, but it still needs some work. Next week at his exit appointment, they will take pictures of him and do another 3D image of his head. Then we'll truly be able to see the progress.

So we have a decision to make. Barring some miracle growth spurt, his head will still need some work. The therapist said his rate of head growth has been on the low end of the spectrum that they typically see for kids his age. Overall, it's grown about 8 mm, which isn't much. But we can't make his head grow at a faster pace. That means he needs another band. However, we really cannot afford another band. We couldn't afford this one, but the burden was eased by some very generous friends.

That means he will not be getting another band, especially not right away, and possibly not ever. We will see. It's possible to take a break and get another band later. I wouldn't mind him having another band and all that goes along with it: the daily cleaning of his head and band and the weekly adjustment appointments. The past seven weeks (really more like 9 if you count the appointments before he got the band) have gone by quickly.

I will feel bad if his head stays like it is, though. It's still flat on the top left on the back of his head. The bottom half of his head has rounded out nicely, though. I think it wouldn't be a problem as long as he has hair, but if ever goes bald (either by choice or not) it might look a little funny.

UPDATE:

Well, we realized that since we have met our out of network deductible with this first band, then getting another one before the end of the year is the cheapest way to do it. According to someone at Blue Cross, we would have to pay 30% of the second band. He really does need one. I honestly think another month or 6 weeks would be enough to get his head looking right. So now we're trying to fast forward things a little bit, and he has an appointment for an evaluation tomorrow. It will be just like the first one where they took pictures and looked at his head. So scratch what I previously wrote about not getting another band for awhile. It's actually now or never on a new band!

Liam at Six Months

Six months already? Wow! It's kind of hard to believe. I can officially start planning his first birthday party now, right? Still too soon? Ok, I'll wait another month or so. Not that I just can't wait for him to be a year old, but I think his party will be so cute!

Six months is a fun age. Liam seems to be learning and doing new stuff all the time. He's not a fragile little baby anymore. He's a big boy! Literally. His six month stats:

Length: 29 inches (98th percentile)
Weight: 19 pounds (75th percentile) (There are some hefty 6 month olds out there, apparently!)
Head: 17 inches (They didn't tell me the percentile, but somewhere around the 25th, I think.)

Since his four month check-up, he has grown 2 1/4 inches, gained 2 pounds, 4 ounces, and his head grew half an inch. He's definitely not as chunky as he used to be. He is settling into being a long, slender baby. He didn't gain as much weight this time, and I think it's because he moves so much more now. He jumps like a mad man in his jumperoo. He's constantly rolling back and forth. He's basically never still unless he's sleeping. He does still have his chubby cheeks and chunky thighs, though! As for his head size, I honestly don't think anyone who measures his head gets the same number every time. They all seem to measure it at different places. I watch every week at Cranial Technologies, and there is some variation. Liam's head has obviously been undergoing some transformation since his four month appointment, but I think growing half an inch is really good!

These days, Liam is sitting up very well on his on. One day he was sitting up for just a couple seconds then falling over; then the next day he could sit up for long stretches. It's amazing how babies just literally start doing something well so quickly. He still falls over some, of course, but not nearly as much...plus he's got that DOC Band protecting him.

Liam's favorite song is the ABC song. If I sing it to him, he gets the biggest grin on his face! It has even been successful in calming him down if he's crying. I know it's this particular song that he enjoys because if I sing anything else, he just looks at me like, "Silly mommy. Why aren't you singing the ABC song?" Hopefully he will learn his ABC's at a young age!

As for other languages, we do expose him to several other languages each week. I count to ten in English, Spanish, and Japanese to him every day, and speak the little bits of Spanish and Japanese I know. I usually play some foreign talk radio in the background while we're playing just so that he can hear other languages being spoken. Supposedly (I'm not sure if this is true or not), at around 7 months babies have determined what sounds make up their native language, and they basically tune out unfamiliar sounds of other languages. But if they have heard the sounds of other languages before 7 months (and they keep hearing them), it will be easier for them to learn that language in the future if they choose to do so. Like I said, I'm not sure if that's completely true or not, but it has been proven that young children learn languages better than adults. I think there are other windows of language-learning time in the first few years of life. So it can't hurt him to hear other languages right now. We usually play Japanese, Spanish, French, German, and Chinese. Hopefully, he'll be a polyglot one day!

Liam's food horizons have expanded lately. He's been eating solid food for a few weeks now. So far he's had carrots (nay), butternut squash (yay), sweet potatoes (yay), and apples (yay, after the initial sour face!) along with rice cereal and oatmeal. So we're slowing adding in new foods. My plan is to make his baby food, and I'm hoping to start that up totally this weekend. I made the squash and apples, but gave him jarred carrots and sweet potatoes. He's only getting organic stuff, especially in this first year. On his official six month birthday, we let him try out a sippy cup. He's gotten good at taking his bottle, putting it in his mouth, and occasionally turning it up to get liquid out, although he doesn't do that every time. So I was just curious if he would kind of know what to do with a sippy cup. He grabbed it and put it in his mouth (although everything goes in his mouth these days), but he never turned it up (without assistance) to get liquid out. He preferred to play with it, of course, but I think he did well for his first time.

One of the new things he does is if he's sitting on my leg, he starts bouncing himself up and down (if his feet can touch the floor or couch). It's really cute and a good workout for his legs. I think he's trying to do what he does in his jumperoo. Also, he's quite grabby these days, and nothing within his reach is safe. He gets a tight grip on it, and it goes straight in his mouth (unless mommy stops him, of course). He is always messing with something! He also loves to eat his feet these days. They must taste delicious. He will also occasionally put his knees under him when he's on his belly. I can tell he wants to go places! He already can a little bit. He's been known to end up several feet away and facing the opposite direction from where you put him down.

Liam also has a sense of humor now and laughs at things that are genuinely funny. It's the greatest thing ever! Funny faces, jumping up and down, funny noises...they all make him laugh, along with the tickles. So cute! He also is quite talkative. He's always babbling and making different noises. One of his favorite things to say is "hey." Sometimes he even says it back to us if we say it to him. He also says "hey" to the cats, and then they run in the opposite direction. He likes those cats so much, but they don't want anything to do with him. One day, he'll be buddies with Squirt at least...hopefully.

Now for pictures! He sat up this time! He only fell over a couple of times :)

In all the ones with his band on, his mouth is wide open, so this is the best one!

Liam's First Halloween

I like Halloween. I haven't celebrated with a costume in many, many years, and I never put out decorations. But, I do actually like Halloween. I loved dressing up and trick-or-treating when I was a kid! Back then it was safer to go knock on a stranger's door and ask for candy. These days, not so much. I know people still do it, but I would be apprehensive about letting Liam get candy from someone we don't know. Thankfully, churches these days have Trunk or Treats where kids have a safe place to get candy. Our church has one every year, and I've been to several since I worked there.

I knew I wanted to dress Liam up for his first Halloween. What's cuter than a baby in a costume? Kittens, actually, but babies in costumes are the second cutest! Since he has his DOC Band, I knew the costume would have to "go" with it. It also meant costumes with headgear were out. One-because it would make his head extremely hot and sweaty and the band already does that on its own, and Two-it's possible most head pieces wouldn't fit over the band anyway.

So, being inspired by a Facebook comment when Liam got his band, I decided he would be a super hero named Super Liam! (The exclamation point is part of the name.) One of my faults (and there are a lot, but this is just one) is that I can't sew. I would have no idea what to do if you put me in front of a sewing machine. Back when I was young, I had zero interest in domestic-y things, and sewing (along with cooking) was included. Therefore, I never learned even though my mom could've taught me. I would like to learn how to sew because it's a useful skill to have, but I didn't have time to learn before Halloween. Ok, so we've firmly established that I wouldn't be able to sew Liam a costume. I also didn't want to buy a premade one. So I thought of ways I could make a costume that was personalized but didn't require sewing. I came up with felt. I knew Liam would need a cape and a logo. Pinterest convinced me I could cut a cape for him out of felt, and it was right. I could...and it was easy. I put some adhesive Velcro on it to close it at the neck. Next came the logo. I wanted it to be an "L" but not the type of "L" that makes you think of "Loser." So I drew a template of an L on cardstock that was all slanty and super hero-y looking and then cut it out of felt. It just so happens I own felt glue, so I glued it on his cape. Then I set about making the logo for his shirt (onesie, if we're being technical).

Before I even got the felt (the color was determined by what Hobby Lobby had in yards of felt, and pickins were slim), I had bought a cheap onesie and pants at Buy Buy Baby. I didn't really know what color scheme I would be going with, so I got a blue onesie and green pants. Looking back on it, I wish the pants had been a different color, but oh well. My plan was to fasten the onesie over the pants...instant super hero outfit! Anyway, back to the logo. I cut a red circle from the felt and cut out a smaller L. I glued it up and let it dry for a couple of days. The day before the church event, I thought his outfit needed a little something more. So I went to Michael's, not really knowing what I was going to get. I found a package of felt stars with adhesive already on the back. I decided to add stars to his super hero logo. Then I decided he needed a belt of some sort. Seems like most super heroes have a belt. So I measured his waist and cut a belt out of the felt. Then I put a star in the middle. Snazzy. Fastened it in the back with some more Velcro.

Finally, I had to jazz up his DOC Band to go with his super hero costume. I got some puffy scrapbooking letters on sale and spelled out Super Liam! across the front. Then I added a felt star for outfit cohesiveness and general awesomeness. And then the costume was done. Easy Peasy. After we got him dressed in his costume, I decided at the last minute to put stars on his socks too. I waited until we got to the church because his feet always end up in his mouth these days, and I didn't want him to choke on stars.

We only went to the second hour of the Trunk or Treat because I figured Liam would not be able to handle two hours of it. I was right! We walked around and looked at the trunks and talked to people we knew. I love seeing kids in costumes! Some of them are very creative. We had fun, and I thought Liam looked absolutely adorable in his costume! Fun times!

We also took Liam to a pumpkin patch to take pictures of him in his Halloween outfit (he may still be wearing that occasionally around the house sometimes...). He was mesmerized by the cars going down Coit and would not look at the camera. We brought Sophie along to squeak so he would look at the camera, but that didn't work. I think maybe I'm just a lousy photographer. Regardless, he looked pretty cute even if he didn't look at the camera.

We didn't do anything on the actual day of Halloween (Trunk or Treat was the day before), but he did sleep in his Halloween cozy pj's. I actually still put those on him some nights. Hey, they fit! All in all, I think Liam had a good first Halloween! Will and I didn't dress up, but I'm all for family costume themes one day!

Ooh..cars!

Smiling at Sophie

Immobile Mummy impression

Standing up to get a better view of the cars

Sitting up on his own! He

I need to see those cars, mommy.

Drool-bot was one of the costume ideas thrown around.

Flying with the help of daddy!

So cute, right?

Family picture

Liam's First Trip to the Zoo

I know this happened almost a month ago now. I put pictures on Facebook, but decided I should blog about it so we can remember it. My plan is to get this blog printed in book form one day. So on Tuesday, October 11th, Liam and I went to the Dallas Zoo with folks from the mom's group. I originally decided not to go since I would need to take the train (I am not driving to south Dallas by myself!) and I wasn't sure how Liam would behave (both on the train and at the zoo). Thankfully, my friend Amanda talked me into going. She said we could go on the train with her and her two children so we wouldn't have to go alone.

We met at Spring Valley station to get on the DART. I put Liam on me in the Boba carrier and pushed the stroller. The train was so crowded! Strollers everywhere. It was fair time, so lots of people were taking the train there as well. I'm glad I decided to wear Liam. Otherwise, I think it may have been an impossible feat because there is no way I would've left him in the stroller with it so crowded. The stroller couldn't always be right next to me because of space issues. The great thing about the Boba is that Liam always falls asleep in it, so he took a nap on me on the train. The bad thing about the Boba is that it produces some heat, so  between the sweating and baby drool, my shirt was soaked when we got to the zoo.

At the zoo, I put Liam in his stroller because I cannot wear a 17 pound baby for a long period of time, plus I wanted him to be able to see stuff. As expected, he showed zero interest in the animals. They were all so far away anyway; I honestly don't know if he even saw most of them. He was super content to watch the older kids we were with and just look around. At least he never complained to let me know he was bored.

He did look up at the birds when we went into the enclosed bird area. He also got to see a giraffe really up close. I thought he would love seeing a real-life Sophie, but he seemed indifferent.

At lunch, I changed his outfit because it was hotter than expected that day. After lunch he took a nap in the stroller for a while. Then we hung out with Amanda and baby Collette (who is one month older than Liam) while the rest of our group rode the monorail around the zoo. Strollers can't go on the monorail, so we had to sit that one out. It was a nice break. Before we left, we hung out in the children's area and Liam watched the kids playing. I put him back in the Boba for the train ride and he was asleep before we even got on the train. He was worn out!

Liam did amazingly well at the zoo. He was actually perfect. No crying or fussing...not even a whimper. I was quite impressed by him. He's a very observant baby and loves to just look at stuff, so I think he was just taking everything in. With the older kids we were with, I got a glimpse of what I'm in for one day! That was fun for me to think about! I can't wait to take him to the zoo again one day when he's old enough to be into it. I really hope he loves animals one day.

Cute old man Liam

Those eyes!

Such a cute baby!

Real-life Sophies!

He seems concerned about all those kids touching the giraffe.

Looking up at the birds.

Liam and Collette

He got his eye color from his mommy.

I love these parrots...they talk!

Worn out...about to ride the train home.