Liam at 23 Months

Goodness, Liam will be two years old in less than one short month! This month will also probably fly by as we prepare to move into the house we just bought. Will is working extremely hard on the house, but it looks like we will be moving the first week in May instead of at the end of April. I'm planning on having Liam's birthday party at our new place the third weekend in May, so it has to be done by then, right?!

Liam has really upped his vocabulary and communication skills this month. I can't even begin to tell you all of the new words he has learned and started saying. There's at least one new one everyday. I think he has also started understanding a lot more this month as well. He's now understanding and verbalizing up/down, hot/cold, open/close, happy/sad, etc. I especially love to hear him say he's happy! I think he pretty much understands most anything I say to him or ask him to do. He still may not comply, but he understands! Liam is also telling us when something hurts. He says, "Ow. Hurt." It's typically for very minor things, but he has also recently told me that his stomach was hurting. I'm so glad he's finally able to start communicating that kind of information to me!

Liam is also starting to say things he's obviously remembering. For example, yesterday he said to me, "Daddy. House. Church. Pepaw. Hat. Truck." He was telling me about the previous morning when Will went to work on the house while Liam and I went to church. After church, we went back to the house where we said goodbye to Will's dad (Pepaw) and Liam played with his hat and got to sit in his truck. He also recalled what he did Sunday evening when we went to Bible study. He said, "Na-Nate (Nate Nate), Wawa (his pronunciation of Ava), Cho-ree (Chloe), Katie. Box. Dirt." Katie is the babysitter, and all the kids played outside with a big box and with dirt. So he was telling me what he did and who he played with. It may not be sentences, but I totally understood him!

However, I have noticed that he is reluctant to say words that start with "L." He also usually has trouble pronouncing L sounds in the middle of words. "Color" is a word he says a lot, and for a long time, he pronounced it as "cuh-yur," which is fine. He now pronounces it correctly since he says it so much. So I know he could say words with L sounds if he tried. The bummer of the no L's is that the two big words he's never even attempted to say are Liam and love. No "I love you!" yet, but it'll happen one day!

He does sometimes make sentences, but typically no more than three words. Last week, we were outside playing and we heard a baby crying. Liam said, "Oh no, baby cry." That's a good example of his sentence ability at the moment, but I was impressed by his empathy for hearing the baby cry. Although today, he did also tell me, "It's biper (diaper) time." His favorite sentence at the moment is definitely "Wha dat?" (What's that?) The past couple of days, I've heard that one soooo many times as he asks me about everything in ALL of his books, even the words he already knows. I love that he wants to learn, and I don't really mind it. Yesterday evening, after I had battled an upset stomach all day and he had moved on to the Dr. Seuss books, I admit that I just started making up words unless it was already named in the book.

Liam is still loving coloring. He got to color with markers for the first time in the past month. He loved that, of course. After the mess they made, I got him some color wonder markers for Easter, but of course he didn't care for them...probably because he kept trying to use them on regular paper and nothing showed up! I'm waiting until we're out of the apartment to introduce him to painting and play doh (on the back patio)! These days, Liam makes a distinction between coloring and drawing. When he colors, he's scribbling all over the page. When he draws, he's making lines and being more purposeful with the marks he makes. He holds the crayon correctly and can draw lines, spirals, and what he calls "stars." If I ask him what he's doing, he will say, "Draw pitcher." The sticker obsession has died down a lot, probably because I ran out of stickers! He occasionally asks for some, but thankfully doesn't get upset when I say they're all gone.

I've known for awhile that Liam is a visual learner. I really believe the alphabet puzzle and the ABC Duplos he got for Christmas helped him learn all the letters by the time he was 21 months old. Since we had focused so much on letters, numbers had fallen to the wayside, and Liam didn't really know any of them. I decided to get him a number puzzle a few weeks ago, and it has definitely helped. He now knows two and nine all the time, and is starting to mimic the rhythm of counting, although he usually just says, "Two, ich (one in Japanese), nine, two, two, two." Two is his fave! He's getting there, but he just doesn't have as much interest in numbers as he does letters. He can also read letters when they're upside down, and he's getting pretty good at knowing the lowercase letters. I think I've finally convinced him a lowercase "e" is not a "G."

Liam has turned into quite the climber. He's always been good at physical stuff, but now he's starting to try things that really scare me. The only way he gets in his high chair these days is to scale it and climb in, and I've gotten used to seeing that happen. He's also mastered the metal climbing bars on the playground equipment outside our apartment. That still makes me nervous, because one wrong move and he's falling to the ground, which wouldn't be SO bad since it's not that far. The bad part is that he would surely bang his face/teeth on a metal bar on the way down. I cringe thinking about it. We are always there to spot him on that one. He also tries to climb trees, but so far has had no success with that, probably because he picks trees without really low branches! Thankfully, he has not yet climbed out of his crib, although I have seen him get his foot all the way on top of the rail. Once he figures out how to properly hoist himself up, we're in trouble. I pray that day is a long way off.

In terms of personality, Liam really has a great one. There are plenty of days, however, that I'm pretty sure I gave birth to the most stubborn human ever. If he doesn't want to do something, he WILL NOT do it. Saying "No" to him usually results in a fit being thrown that may or may not involve throwing himself on the ground in protest. It's usually a gamble on whether or not he will behave in public. BUT, he is a very sweet and kind boy, and he's super curious like his favorite monkey, George. He is very much into exploring the world around him, even if it may not convenient for his parents for him to do so at times. He started making real smoochy sounds this month, and is excellent at blowing kisses. He adores his small stuffed Totoro and absolutely has to sleep with it. Unfortunately, his slightly bigger Totoro which he also loved did not survive being puked on. I seriously love this kid, and I can't believe I've been fortunate enough to spend almost every single day of his entire life with him watching him grow and learn. What a blessing.

I convinced Liam to ride in his stroller for the first time in months, and we were able to walk to the nearby park to take pictures like we've done many times before. This will be the last set from this location since we will have moved by the time his birthday rolls around next month! I ended up taking a ton of them.

My tree hugger/wannabe tree climber

I love how the wind is blowing his hair up on both sides in this one

He posed himself this way and sat like this long enough to take four pictures.

Threw himself on the ground for a quick fit after I picked him up and moved him from sitting on an ant bed

365: March 29-April 4 AND April 5-April 11

Yeah, so I've totally skipped out on blogging lately. My thoughts are usually taken up with house things, so I haven't thought too much about blogging. At the times when I really wanted to write, I just didn't have time to do so. Therefore, you get two weeks of 365 with this post.

March 29: Of course this seems like FOREVER ago now, but this was the day Liam and I made an Easter collage. In this picture, he was drawing stars on it. At least that's what he told me they were. I can see it!

March 30: At that point, it was the weekend before we were set to close on our house. We figured we needed to start deciding on paint. I went to the local Ace Hardware to look at Benjamin Moore paint samples since I read they had all the cool colors. What's great about paint is that you can pick a color from one brand and have it made with another brand's (cheaper) paint. As of today (April 11) we still haven't decided on one single paint color!

March 31: That was Easter, and thankfully I did an Easter post already. Liam got lots of coloring supplies in his basket, and spent a lot of his waking hours that day with a crayon in hand.

April 1: I'm not sure if the apartment lawn crew was trying to play an April Fools joke on us, but throwing a rock into our sliding glass door was a good attempt at one. Our neighbor's glass door was also a victim of a rock thrown by the mower. Thankfully, it was replaced the next day and never shattered and fell apart.

April 2: Liam got this cheap bucket and gardening tool set for Easter, and has spent a lot of time playing in the dirt with it. He is happiest when there is dirt involved.

April 3: It's extremely common for Liam to stand on objects by the gate. On this day, he chose a particularly unstable (although tall) object.

April 4: Yeah, I didn't take any pictures that day, so I chose this picture of cheese I took the day before. A week later, I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea to take a picture of cheese. I'm partial to Tillamook cheese because in sixth grade, I was pen pals with a class of sixth graders in Tillamook, Oregon. Did anyone else have pen pals? This particular one was a school activity, but I remember having at least a couple other ones during my childhood.

April 5: This was a big day for us, as it was when we closed on our first home! I will be blogging about house stuff here on this blog under the title, "Close and Cozy." Close because the house is very close to church, the library and lots of other places we love, and cozy because the house is really small. We could've bought a bigger house, but we would've paid a lot more and not have been where we want to be, so we figured if a family of four (or more) could make this house work in the fifties, then we could too! Plus, a bigger house usually just means you put more useless junk in it. Like all good new home owners, we went to Lowe's that night to start getting supplies...like a crowbar.

April 6: While Will spent most of his day at our new house changing the locks and starting some demolition, Liam and I played outside for awhile. I think he looks so adorable here! He was holding up the shovel and blowing through the hole saying, "Bubbles! Bubbles!" It looked like a bubble wand to him but sadly produced no bubbles.

April 7: We were at a friend's house for Bible Study and Liam was obsessed with these apples. He kept climbing up on the chair saying, "Apples! Apples!"

April 8: Overnight Sunday/Monday was rough. Liam threw up at bedtime and again the next morning. Throughout the day he acted fine, but wouldn't eat or drink much. As a result, he wasn't wetting enough diapers. So after his bath Monday night, I let him play diaperless hoping the freedom and the breeze would get him to go. It didn't work (thankfully?) but he was back to normal the next day.

April 9: Liam loves playing with Legos, especially building up the cars. I adore it, too. I only took a few pictures that day because we stayed home and there wasn't really anything going on. I think one reason I like Legos so much is because they're so colorful!

April 10: Since it was cold and rainy, this was another day we stayed at home. The only way Liam can look at books is if every single one of them is pulled off the shelf. In this particular Baby Einstein book, he kept pointing to the treble clef on every page and asking, "Wha dat?"

April 11: Will has done a ton of work in the house this week. At some point, I will post before and after pictures. Today was the day all the tile was being removed from the kitchen and bathrooms. With the house being close to 60 years old, we figured there was asbestos tile in the place. Over the decades, the kitchen floor has just been given layers of new tiles over the old ones, resulting in a too tall floor. We didn't want to get it all up ourselves and discover a cancerous surprise at the bottom, so we hired professional asbestos removers. I didn't take this picture. It was e-mailed to us by the work crew. And they did find asbestos material at the very bottom of the kitchen floor, but I'm not sure if they found any in the bathrooms. Since one of the bathrooms was added at a later date, we figured the chance of asbestos tile in there was pretty slim, but it was just more convenient to have it all done at once.

Easter 2013

I just wanted to share some pictures of Liam from Easter. It was a pretty typical Sunday for us. We went to church (we even got there slightly less late than we usually do), and Liam hung out with his pals in the nursery. After the service, we let him walk around some, and he went straight for stairs.

But before we went to church, Liam received his Easter goodies from us when he woke up. His response was, "Cool. Wow!" He got some of his favorite things including colors, coloring books, and blocks. The blocks are actually from his great-grandparents because they were bought with money they sent Liam in his Easter card. I got him some Color Wonder markers and paper in hopes he would forget (at least temporarily) about regular markers. It has worked, but he doesn't love the Color Wonder ones. He keeps coloring on regular paper with them, and that obviously doesn't work! He also got a box of 24 crayons and some dollar store coloring books. He loves to color and draw, and he spent a lot of time yesterday doing both.

After his nap, Will took Liam outside with his new bucket and digging tools to play in the dirt. I know I've said it before, but he LOVES dirt. Will had to bring him in kicking and screaming from playing in it.

That was our Easter Sunday, pretty much. At bedtime, I told Liam the Easter story, but he's just too young to get it. Hopefully next year he will begin to learn all about it.

Eleanor checking out the goodies the night before

I hung up the Easter/Spring art we did this week: a mixed media collage and a shifty-eyed bunny

"Cool. Wow!"

Had to drop some eggs first

Then it was straight to coloring

Checking everything out

More coloring!

"Bocks"

Almost ready to leave for church

You can't really tell, but he was making his smoochy/smacky noises with his mouth

We couldn't get him to look at the camera at all!

He was looking towards the door!

Up the stairs we went

Trying to make Liam go in right direction

Sophisticated dirt playing

Happy boy!

Gotta inspect the dirt on his hands

365: March 22-28

Texas seemingly forgot it was Spring this week, and it's been much cooler and windy. That, along with the fact that Liam has had a runny/congested nose this week, is why we've spent a lot of time indoors. We did some spring/Easter crafting, and I introduced Liam to markers. Of course he loves them and now regular colors simply will not do. I'm hoping a fresh box in his Easter basket changes his mind. I already miss the simplicity of crayons. I also introduced Liam to glue. I didn't have any glue sticks, so I went straight for the bottle. The kid is not yet ready for glue. Thankfully, though, he usually didn't realize that he had to squeeze to get glue out, so glue messes were kept to a minimum. He says glue really cutely, though, like "gyu." This was also the week Liam decided to start climbing up and into his high chair monkey style. Of course, the first time he did it my back was turned. I was quite surprised to see him standing up in it when I turned around. He had never even attempted such a feat before!

March 22: Will and I went to dinner and bowling with friends. Liam was at the church because there was free childcare! It was fun, but I was once again reminded at how horrible I am at bowling. Thankfully, I only go once every few years so it doesn't hurt my self-esteem very often. The picture is of my bowling shoes and Will's bowling shoes. I can't help but think about how many stinky feet have been in those shoes. Will's have probably seen less feet since they're an uncommon size.

March 23: That was the day we went to Hop 'n Hunt at the church. This was taken after we got home. Of course, Liam had to throw some of his eggs on the floor and fall on top of them. It's like the cool new way to play with toys around here.

March 24: I'm pretty sure Will took this one.l. Liam was brushing his teeth after a snack. He hates for me to brush his teeth, but he doesn't do a good enough job on his own. Any tips for making it easier or more fun for him when I brush them?

March 25: Will took this picture in the evening while I was at work (training for my new job which I will be doing from home once I'm comfortable enough doing so). I love Legos. I love it when Liam builds tall towers with them. I'm sure Will helped with this one!

March 26: Sometimes you just need a bath in the middle of the day. Liam was waiting (im)patiently for his when this was taken. Of course, when I took him to the bathroom, he had totally changed his mind about taking a bath. Thankfully, he eventually gave in.

March 27: Liam and markers = love at first sight.

March 28: This was the day I brought out the glue to make a bunny rabbit out of cotton balls. We both ended up with our hands covered in glue and cotton, but I actually did pretty much all of the gluing. Liam was more than happy to keep coloring with markers.

Hop 'n Hunt

This past Saturday, we went to the Hop 'n Hunt event at church. It was originally supposed to be outside and include a sunny Easter egg hunt. Texas weather had other plans, and instead it was cold and rainy and was held in the church gym. I knew this event, previously known as Spring Fling, would be popular, and I was concerned that it would be really crowded in the gym. We waffled back and forth about going, but eventually decided to go. We arrived about 30 minutes before it was over! This turned out to be the best choice. Liam had room to run around and time to try out several activities that may have had lines earlier in the day. Toddlers and waiting don't mix.

At first, he tried to interrupt games older kids were playing, but we successfully steered him to an open corner of the gym. There, Liam discovered a tall carrot made of balloons.

Next to it was a big bucket of soil to play with. Liam and dirt = best buds, so we figured we would be there a while. He enjoyed putting the soil in a cup and dumping it out. One of his sweet friends even played in the dirt too.

However, his short attention span got the best of him and we were on to the next station! Since the whole operation had to be moved inside, an egg hunt was a no go. Instead, there was an egg scoop where kiddos got bucketfuls of plastic eggs to take home. Liam spent some time picking eggs out of the box and throwing them back in. Then he came across a plastic rake and decided to use that to try and get eggs out of the box. He played with the box of eggs for a loooong time (at least for a toddler). Other kids came over to get eggs, and a couple of times he put an egg or two in their baskets. He was in serious play mode with those eggs. He even got a little help from our Preschool Minister.

Since the event was technically over at that point and people were cleaning up, we convinced him to move away from the box of eggs. That was when he ran over to the kiddie pool filled with ducks. Since no one was there playing the game, Liam just knelt right down and stuck his hands in (got the dirt washed off!). He even managed to scoop up a plastic duck with the net.

Since it was obvious that people were wanting to clean up that station, Will picked him up so we could leave. We talked to some folks at the door on our way out. That was when Liam decided to scream, getting out his frustration over having to leave the pool of water. That's when we knew for sure it was time to leave! We were only there about 35 minutes, but it was a fast and furious trek through a lot of different activities. Hopefully next year it will be sunshine-y and Liam can really hunt for some eggs!