Liam at 13 Months

Here we are, a month after his first birthday. I feel like Liam is now even more so in fast forward mode. I can tell that he will grow up a lot this next year, which is good. I think we're heading into a time of frustration as he is becoming more physically able but still can't communicate effectively. He's always learning, though, so I know this is just a short stage. I admit I am looking forward to the day when he can tell me what he wants or what's wrong. I'm over the screaming, and he doesn't just do it if he's upset. It actually happens more when he seems perfectly fine. I think he just likes to scream. I think he does it because he doesn't know how else to show some of his feelings yet or voice demands.

I'm dropping stats for awhile. Liam won't have another pediatrician check up until he's 18 months old. So I'll just say he's a little bigger than he was last month. He's a large, solid, strong kid.

Personality: Liam shows more personality all the time. He also seems to have more than one personality! He's becoming more affectionate and cuddly, which is so sweet. When I'm reading to him, he likes to lay his head on me or even sit in my lap now. He snuggles more than he used to. He will also show affection towards people other than us. Liam is a social little guy. He doesn't appear to be shy, even though he may act that way at first to get more attention from people! He actively seeks attention from other people, especially in restaurants. And of course people usually give it to him, so there's usually random people coming to our table or always looking towards us. Will and I are not used to that! It's cute, though, but waitresses especially seem to take a liking to him so they're at our table almost constantly. Liam's other personality is that of The Screamer. Sometimes it's just random screaming, but other times I can tell he wants to tell us something or do something that he just can't do yet and so he screams. It's SO loud. I feel like this age is somewhat frustrating to him. He just can't do everything he wants to do or say what he wants to say. Lately, he's been really frustrated during meal times and screaming a lot during them. I honestly don't know what it is. He's typically ok when he's feeding himself, but starts freaking out when I feed him. However, I give him the option of feeding himself non-finger food things like oatmeal and mashed up fruit (still won't feed that to himself, remember?) by putting some of it and a spoon on his tray for him to try. He just plays with it. He doesn't feed himself with a spoon yet, so I have to do it. It's the only way he eats fruits and veggies, so it must be done. He doesn't even try to put food on the spoon and put it in his mouth yet, but still he gets frustrated. Too many meals lately have ended in tears, both from him and from me. Any suggestions are welcome!

Skills: Now that Liam has mastered walking as well as any 13 month old can, I'm hopeful there will be a verbal explosion over the next few months. He still hasn't added any words he says on a regular basis, but he will randomly say words. In the past month, he's said door, thank you (dankoo), and get down (apparently. Will and I didn't hear it but 4 family members claim to have clearly heard it!). He still says "good" all the time, but lately his most favorite word has been "Dad." Liam has been saying it all the time! No daddy, just Dad! It's cute! He has also gotten better with his mimicking skills. I taught him how to turn his palms up and shrug his shoulders like he's asking a question or saying "I don't know." That's really cute, especially when he just randomly does it. He's starting to understand more words, even if he doesn't say them. He's also pointing to things more often. One thing Liam has learned in the past month or so is sharing, or at least handing objects to us. He does this a thousand times (it seems) a day with me. Nine times out of ten, he hands me a book. That's usually followed by some babbling and perhaps some feet stomping that means he wants me to read it to him...now! I always read the book if he hands one to me. He LOVES to be read to! It is seriously his most favorite thing in the world. I read a lot of books everyday, and a lot of the same ones over and over. I don't think I can emphasize enough how much he loves this. He also loves to look at books on his own and sometimes babbles "reading" them. I hope he always loves books!

Food and Drink: As mentioned earlier, there is sometimes some drama at mealtimes. I started this post last week, and things have been somewhat better the past couple of days since I wrote that. Liam is doing pretty good with feeding himself, but still won't touch the fruits and veggies. However, he did feed himself a small bit of pickle at a restaurant the other day. That may be the first veggie he's fed himself! Since he still doesn't have much in the way of teeth, the fruits and veggies I deem safe enough for him to eat are usually pretty slimy since they are soft. So maybe he just doesn't like touching the slimy stuff. He doesn't like to get messy when he eats. He will feed himself pretty much anything else that's a finger food. His favorites are bread and cheese and little fruit snacks. One thing about Liam, he is a slow eater. With anything I put on his tray, there is usually a time of playing with the food before he eats it. He likes to smush the cheese, but then he eats it. When I feed him something, unless he's super duper hungry, he likes to rest between bites. But, even though he is usually slow, he is the type of kid to put lots of food in his mouth at once. With snacks, I have to regulate them and put out a few at a time, otherwise he will have 10 cheerios in his mouth in a few seconds.

One major change is that Liam no longer drinks formula. I was sad when breastfeeding didn't work out as planned and he had to drink formula in the first place, but I was actually also sad when he stopped drinking the formula. We ran out of it about three weeks after his first birthday. I didn't know it would be an emotional thing, but it was, I guess mainly because that means he's not a baby anymore? I don't know, but it was somewhat of a big deal to me. Since then, he's been drinking milk: mostly cow's milk with some soy. It seems he has outgrown the milk sensitivity he was "diagnosed" with at one month old. He's had more dairy in the past month than in the previous 12 months combined, but he's had zero problems with it. He has refused to drink milk (beyond the first sip) from his straw cup, so I've been letting him drink it from a bottle. I know that's bad, but I honestly feel like he needs another month or so before trying to go full-time with the straw cups. He drinks water from one throughout the day, but he sometimes takes a sip then lets it fall out of his mouth, just for fun. I'm trying to teach him not to do that. He did it with milk the other day, so until I can break him of this habit, I'm ok with him still drinking milk from a bottle.

Events and Firsts: Liam had two first birthday parties in May that were a lot of fun. He got to ride in a car facing forward for the first time. It was in a friend's car, as we still have him facing backwards in ours. We probably won't turn him around until the end of the year when we're planning on getting him a seat that only faces forward. He'll be about 19 months then, but I'm sure he will be the size of a two year old! Liam had his first play date at our house with his friend, Addy. They played really well together! On June 9th, we finally got a new vehicle! We got a Scion xB! The old, tired Camry is gone (traded it in). The xB (which is classified as a wagon) is the perfect size for us. We love it so far! Liam has a much safer ride now! His seat is in the middle of the back seat and it's so easy to get him in there. It was the best decision!

Teeth: Finally, there are more teeth to report! After several nights of waking up screaming, Liam's top middle left (from his perspective) tooth popped through on June 1st! Then the top middle right tooth popped through on June 7th! They are still in the process of coming down, so I guess he has about the equivalent of 2 and 1/3 teeth right now. Hopefully it won't be too long before more come in. As far as I can tell, no more are getting ready. These two coming in were tough on him. Lots of crying. He fell on his book, "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom," and that's what broke the skin for the second top tooth to pop through, so there was a little bit of blood involved with that one. Liam's smile looks so different already. He has a large gap between those two top teeth!

Now for some pictures! He is on the go (constantly, all the time) so it is extremely difficult to get him to look at the camera. I didn't really even try this month. These were taken at the Japanese Botanical Gardens in Fort Worth.

I can sometimes get him to look if he's strapped in the stroller!

Walking around the rock garden.

Louisiana Trip for Liam's Second First Birthday Party

Memorial Day weekend, we headed to Louisiana to celebrate Liam's birthday with family. This was Liam's fourth trip to Louisiana.

We ended up leaving much later than planned, so we stopped for lunch in Lindale at a Chinese buffet restaurant. As usual, Liam was a hit with the waitresses and people sitting next to us. He loves attention and isn't shy (still don't know where he got that from). The waitresses stopped to chat with him every time they walked by!

Liam did great in the car, but started screaming when we got off I-20 in Minden. He cried almost until we got to Homer. He was tired and hungry. Of course he fell asleep ten minutes before we pulled into my grandparent's driveway. But he woke up happy, and we visited with my grandparents and he ate some food! After that, we went to my parent's house and visited a little while before we met up with my grandparents for dinner in Homer.

As I've mentioned before, Liam likes to stare at people, especially girls. But now it seems he has started trying to "talk" to them to get their attention! He did this with the waitress at Homer Seafood and Pizza (you can get either!). He kept turning around in his high chair, since she was behind him, and smiled at her at said "Hey!" Sometimes he said, "Good!," which is his favorite word to say. So yeah, it's fun to watch, and this time Liam had a big audience (my family) to entertain. The waitress was smiling, so hopefully she was ok with it!

After dinner, Will, Liam, and I walked to my high school since my grandparents live very close to it. We even went on the football field since all the gates were wide open. Even if they hadn't been open, they wouldn't have been locked. It had been a long time since I had been on the field. Liam was not impressed, of course! After our walk, it was bedtime for Liam, but he was not ready! He wanted to play some more and spend time with his great grandparents. He was flashing lots of smiles and being cute! He just wanted to stay up, and he was really wound up, so I didn't fight him on it and let him stay up until I knew he was truly ready for bed.

Saturday was a very busy day. We set out for Ruston, and I sat in the back giving Liam a bottle while Will was driving. We've done this many times before and never had any problems. But this was Liam's first time on a trip in his convertible car seat which makes him sit up higher and he can see out of the back glass. I'm not sure why, but something about drinking the bottle while going down the road didn't sit well with Liam. Once he had finished almost the whole bottle, he promptly projectile vomited it and all of his previously eaten breakfast all over himself, the carseat, and yes, on me as well. I yelled at Will to pull over, but the side of the highway wasn't the best place. Thankfully we were nearly to Athens and pulled into the (there's only one) convenience store parking lot. I had put a towel in the trunk for the trip, so I grabbed that and a full Nalgene water bottle and started cleaning it off of me just enough so I could function to take care of the rest of it. I got Liam out of the seat (poor guy), and Will helped me and got his clothes off of him and cleaned him off. I cleaned up the puddles in the carseat and on the back seat (thankful for leather seats in that moment), and then cleaned myself off some more.

We were headed to Ruston to have his one year pictures taken. Thankfully, I had been smart enough to not put him in his picture shirt, but he had been wearing the jeans he would have his pictures taken in. So I cleaned them off really well, and we put them on the front dashboard to dry. By some miracle, I had brought a pair of shorts as well (I know it's bad, but I pretty much never carry extra baby clothes with me). We put him in his picture shirt and the shorts, I dried the carseat as best I could, put him back in it, and we continued to Ruston. All in all, we handled the situation very well, I thought. We didn't freak out; we just dealt with it. I didn't have any extra clothes, so I smelled kind of like peach pumpkin pie baby food that had been part of his breakfast for the rest of the day... and it was a long day!

In Ruston, Will stayed at his parents' house to visit with them, I changed Liam back into his jeans which were still damp, and the two of us headed to Lincoln Parish Park where my friend Jamie took Liam's one year pictures. We were a little late, but it all worked out fine. As usual, Liam was Mr. Serious for the camera, but we managed to get some smiles out of him. I thought the shoot went really well, and it didn't take very long either. After that, I gave Liam another bottle since I knew he was hungry. Thankfully, I think he was only carsick, because he was perfectly fine the rest of the trip. Once we were finished at the park, we went to visit our friends the Kilpatricks. We had a nice visit with them, and Liam had fun getting into all their stuff, so the wrangling of him wore me out! We then met up with Will and his parents for lunch. By then, I think my clothes were mostly dry and so were Liam's pants! We ate at a new fast food place in town, Teriyaki Grill.

Unfortunately for Liam, there weren't any girls to stare at, but he did occasionally try to get the attention of the woman behind the counter. At some point, a guy came in and got an order to go. He sat at the table next to us while waiting for it. He was great with Liam, and Liam had fun hamming it up with him. I think he even gave him five! The restaurant was right next to Eskamoes (frozen custard), so I decided I wanted to get some since it had been years since I'd had any. We were just going to drive through, but then we saw that Jamie (the photographer), her husband Brian, and their three boys were sitting outside there! So we got to hang out with them for awhile, which was neat because none of us live in Ruston anymore!

At this point, we were all worn out, but it was time to head to my parent's house for Liam's birthday party. Thankfully, Liam slept on the way there. My mom chose a jungle animal theme for the party and had decorations, a cake, and a shirt she made for Liam that all matched the theme. It was very cute! Liam's parents (that's us), both sets of grandparents, great-grandparents, and aunt and uncle were there for his party! We had dinner first (Liam ate some beans and cornbread), and then Liam got to open presents! Once again, he had zero interest in actually opening the gifts, so Will and I did that for him. He liked playing with his new toys, though! He got a lot of great gifts. His family loves him so much! Then it was cake time! We put the whole cake in front of Liam and he promptly stuck his fingers in it. He had a look of concern on his face. I don't really think it registered to him that he could eat it! He never put his icing and cake-covered fingers anywhere near his mouth. I gave him a little bite of icing and and he mad a yucky face and coughed a little bit! So I didn't try to get him to eat anymore of the cake. Once we took the cake away, he just smeared the icing on the tray. The rest of us enjoyed the cake!

Liam had a great time at his party. He does love attention, and he had a lot of it there. He enjoyed carrying a ball around and walking from room to room. He enjoyed playing with the balloons. He is a very busy one year old.

When we got back to my grandparent's house, Liam got his first kitchen sink bath. He needed it, for sure! Then he did some more lap-walking around their house, and then I put him to bed. He was worn out, and slept through the night!

After Liam went to bed, we watched some TV with my grandparents. We watched a couple of episodes of "Duck Dynasty," which is a reality show based in West Monroe, LA about a family who has made millions making duck calls. It was seriously scripted, but it's very funny! I enjoyed it, though, and I like that it shows some places I'm familiar with, like I-20 between Ruston and WM! It does not take much to amuse me, apparently.

The next morning, we loaded up the car and headed back to Texas, stopping for lunch in Bossier City. All in all, it was a great trip! And the car got great gas mileage for a change. It was the Camry's last trip to Louisiana, as we will be replacing it this month! We won't have leather seats anymore, so now I'm paranoid about needing something to cover the seat in case Liam decides to make a mess again!

Go Pels!

Liam's In Between Room

I can't really call it a nursery, and it's not yet a big boy room. It's somewhere in between, I suppose.

Before Liam was born, we planned to have a nursery for him like most parents do. I knew how I wanted to decorate it and what the color scheme would be. We moved into a new apartment what turned out to be less than a month before he was born. So of course, the nursery did not get done before we brought him home. That wasn't a big deal. We were planning on having Liam in our room the first couple of months anyway. Around the time he was 2.5 months old, his nursery was still not ready for him and we weren't ready to be so far away from him at night. That's when we moved his crib into our bedroom (Liam had been sleeping in a pack and play bassinet). Months went by with the intention of cleaning out his room (it became our catch all room) and moving his crib and him into it. But we never really had a desire to give up our roommate. Sure, there were times when we wished Liam was in his own room, but I guess the desire was never big enough for us to actually take action to get his room ready. Then before we knew it, we were planning another move to a different apartment. That's when we decided it wasn't worth the effort to clean out the room and it wasn't worth it to put Liam through two transitions.

We moved into our current apartment when Liam turned 11 months old. We had bought a new mattress for our bed, but still had our old one. The first week we were here, Will was out of town for most of it. Since the bedrooms are across the apartment from each other, I knew I wanted to be near Liam for at least that first week. The movers put his crib into his new room, not ours, so we put our old mattress on the floor in his new room with the intention of sleeping there the first week. As it often does, time got away from us and we ended up sleeping in his room for almost a month...on a mattress on the floor, even though our perfectly good new mattress and bed were in our room.

Finally, on Liam's birthday, May 14th, Will and I just simply went to bed in our own bedroom instead of Liam's. We turned the monitor on, and thankfully everyone made it through the night just fine. Liam never even woke up! His first birthday seemed like a good day to go our separate ways.

Since then, we've all adjusted well to our new sleeping situation. Liam has woken up a few nights, but it's not too bad having to walk across the apartment to him. I think we all sleep better being in separate rooms. We sold our old mattress a few days after his birthday, so now we can't sleep in there even if we wanted to!

I know most people wouldn't dream about spending the whole first year of their child's life sharing a room with them, but there are plenty of other people who do and go way beyond a year. For us, a year was just right.

So now that Liam has his own room, I finally decorated it! I used the decorations friends made for it before he was even born. It felt good to finally get all of it up! I love his room. I think I will eventually put more on the walls, but I think it's good for right now!

Banner and pillow made by my friend Glenda

Curtains made by my friend Kelli. They match his baby blanket and the crib bumper.

Original artwork by my friend Amanda

Liam's First Birthday Party

Warning: this post is long and contains lots of pictures.

I admit that even though I wasn't really looking forward to Liam turning one, I was looking forward to hosting a birthday party for him! I truly believe the first birthday is solely for the parents, a celebration of surviving the first year. That's why I planned his party with a theme that amused me, because I knew Liam wouldn't care at all.

I chose a Beatles/British theme because I do love the Beatles, and I've always thought a Beatles themed party for a kid would be super cute. I added the British element to it because I thought it would make decorations easier. I was right!

Around the time I decided on a Beatles theme, I also joined Pinterest. Therefore the first logical step in planning the party was to make a pinboard with ideas for it. You can see my party pinboard here. I pinned a lot of things, not with the intention of using all those ideas, but just to get inspiration for the party I was planning. The downside of the pinboard is that it made me dream too big. I got all these fabulous ideas, and then toned it down a whole bunch. I definitely got a little carried away in my head, but thankfully not in real life. My small budget and small apartment brought me back to reality.

Even though I had been thinking about and gathering ideas for the party for a long time, I didn't really start doing any preparations until April. The first thing I did was make an invitation. I tried designing one from scratch, and I think I could've made a cute one, but a coupon code persuaded me to just get them printed through Shutterfly. I designed the picture on the front and then added the text and picture on the inside. I only ordered ten, and with the coupon code, it was cheaper than if I had bought supplies to make my own.

I sent out 9 of the 10 invites (had to keep one, of course!), and really started planning the food and decorations. In the end, I kept the decorations simple and used paper to create them. I am a slacker scrapbooker, so I'm decent with paper. I ended up not having time to do some things I wanted to do like make proper food description cards, but handwritten ones worked out just fine!

Almost everyone we invited came, and we somehow managed to host 27 people (including the three of us) in our small apartment. We moved the TV into our bedroom, and I think that helped a ton with space. There were lots of babies, kids, and parents! I didn't plan any activities because I knew the kids would play and the adults would talk and wrangle babies. I definitely had a great time. I hope our guests did, too. It was a great joy to have all those friends in our home! Liam just had a look of determination on his face the whole time, playing with his toys and checking on the other kids playing with his toys!

All in all, it was a great success, and it was a fun way to celebrate Liam turning one!

Front of invitation

Inside of invitation

Food table and birthday banner

Close up of food table.

The food selections were cupcakes (no clever name for them), Strawberry Fields and Apple Records wedges with Marshmallow Pie dip, Octopus's Garden veggie tray (octopus made out of a red pepper is in the middle), Cheese Cheese Me featuring crackers, Fish and Chips (goldfish crackers and potato chips), and Ringo Starr puffs (star-shaped puffs for the babies).

Another banner

Pictures from Liam's first year

Drinks set up

Guests signed the Dr. Seuss book. Planning to read it to Liam on his birthday each year.

Liam enjoying all the space before the party.

Cupcakes!

The toppers were made from stickers I found at Hobby Lobby. I stuck them to cardstock, cut them out, and glued them to sticks. SO easy!

They sat on stands I made from records. I painted the middles.

Liam playing with the big boys.

Guests

More guests

Singing Happy Birthday! Liam wanted to play!

Still wanting down to play!

A couple of Liam's friends in the perfect dresses for the party!

Eating the gift receipt from a present his friend gave him.

Getting Liam to smile for the camera!

Our little family

This picture cracks me up. Liam was in the middle of blowing a raspberry and he decided to stick his hand in Will's mouth!

Father and son.

Party favors: Mix CDs I made including Beatles songs, instrumental covers of Beatles songs, and some lullaby renditions of Beatles songs.