Christmas 2012

Now that it's the last day of the year, I should probably go ahead and write about Christmas.

Liam, of course, is still too young to understand what Christmas is about. He's still not even super interested in opening presents. This was probably the last year I had to open most of his presents. Pretty much the only goal I had for this Christmas season was to teach Liam the name Jesus and have him be able to identify baby Jesus in the manger. I got the Fisher Price nativity set for this purpose, as well as a couple of Christmas board books. We totally succeeded at this. Fairly quickly, Liam was able to identify the baby Jesus in pictures and even in nativity scenes in peoples' yards. He still likes to say "Jee-us" and find his picture in the books. He even gives him smooches sometimes. (He will give pretty much anything a smooch.) It's really sweet.

We keep our Christmas season calm, which is easy to do without any parties to attend. Will skipped his office party because he was sick, and Liam is my boss/coworker, and he doesn't host parties. We did get together with friends one night, and that was fun! Leading up to Christmas, we did attend the Christmas program at church, and it was a wonderful way to get in the Christmas spirit.

As for decorations this year, I put out more than I usually do. I made a felt tree for Liam and put that up right after Thanksgiving. He loved taking the ornaments off and putting them back on the tree over and over. He learned the word "star" the first day we had it up. Now he's kind of obsessed with identifying stars. I also decorated our mantel with a tiny tree that held our sentimental ornaments, and our new stockings that were handmade by a friend. The tree was left alone by the cats for the entire Christmas season. Miracle. The Fisher Price nativity (that I had to place back on the table multiple times a day...ok, sometimes I just left it all on the floor) rounded out our decorations this year!

Since our family lives in Louisiana, that's where we headed last weekend. We were only gone one night this time since Liam tends to forget how to eat and sleep properly away from home. Plus, he's just been a general fussbot lately, asserting his independence (which is actually a great thing) and making his grievances known (loudly). We were gone less than 36 hours, but the trip didn't feel rushed, and we managed to see everyone we wanted to see.

We left Dallas just 15 minutes behind schedule (which is a miracle for us), stopped for breakfast at our favorite truck stop in Kilgore (the halfway point), and made it to Homer right at noon. After lunch, the three of us headed out to the park just down the street for the 18th annual JAAG Christmas. The four of us (me, Amy, Amanda, and Glenda) have been celebrating Christmas together since were were high school freshmen in 1995. It works out since we all tend to be in Homer at Christmas. Some years, it's the only time we're all together. This year, Glenda brought her kids and Amanda brought her niece and nephew, so there were big kids for Liam to try and play with. Will took him on the merry go round with them and slid down the big slide with him. Amanda pushed him in the swing and on the springy horse. He had a great time "pay"ing. It was fun to be at the park. I have lots of memories of playing there and having/attending birthday parties.

After JAAG Christmas, we went back to my grandparents house, and my goal was to put Liam down for a nap. He was certainly tired, but still had some fight in him, and I ended up laying down with him on the bed while he slept. I didn't sleep, though. After the nap, we headed to my parent's house for our family Christmas celebration. We had a great dinner prepared by my sister and brother in law. Then it was time for presents. Liam got the most, of course! He had very little interest in opening gifts, so I helped him a bunch. He got toys, books, magnet letters and numbers, a table and chair set, as well as many other items. He also got his first bb gun from his papaw. Since he loves all things Curious George at the moment, I got him a CG Christmas shirt for cheap at Old Navy that he wore that night. He also got a couple of CG DVDs, and he even got to watch some after the present opening. He was a happy kid!

After all the excitement and the very long day, I was hoping Liam would go to sleep in his pack and play without a fight. Nope. He did lots and lots of screaming. Will and I ended up going to bed at the same time as him and letting him sleep in between us on the bed. It was nice to snuggle him at night, but I don't sleep well with him in the bed, and he never sleeps in our bed at home. I'm not totally against it happening on occasion, but he thinks our bed is a super fun place to play, and as soon as he gets in our bed, he's up jumping around and trying to stand on me. No thanks. Thankfully, he slept through the night!

The next morning, we headed to Ruston. I love Ruston. I would live in Ruston again. One question, though. When did Monjuni's become Pizzoli's? It was kind of strange to see that. When we rolled into Ruston, Liam was snoozing in the backseat. We dropped Will off at Baldwin's Jewelers so he could do a little shopping in private, and I decided to drive around the campus of Louisiana Tech. The campus was quiet, of course. It certainly has changed a lot in some ways since my college days, but in essence it's still the same. I was surprised by the appearance of several new buildings I had never seen, but comforted by the fact that many buildings I spent a lot of time in still look the same. Surprisingly, after only about 15 minutes, Will called me and told me he was finished at Baldwin's! After that, we headed to Chili's to have lunch with Will's parents before we headed back to Texas. As usual, Liam had a big time taking his Grandpa's cap and either putting it on his head or throwing it on the floor for laughs. After lunch, we went back by Baldwin's so Will could pick up his purchase, and then we got on I-20 coming back to Dallas.

It was dark when we got home but not very late. After dinner, Liam got a bath and I put him in his Christmas pj's. Then he opened his Christmas book, and we read it together. After Liam went to bed (in his own crib!), I wrapped his presents and Will and I filled his stocking. We also took turns filling each others' stockings with gifts we got for each other.

We didn't open presents right when Liam woke up the next morning. We waited until after he had breakfast. We got him three presents plus stocking stuff. We went a little overboard on stocking stuff, and some of it had to be wrapped because it wouldn't all fit. From us, Liam got a wooden alphabet puzzle, a Duplo ABC block set, and a play fruit/veggie color sorting set. He is loving letters lately, so I wanted to encourage him to play with them so there's more opportunities to learn them. We also wanted to start teaching him the names of different fruits and veggies. A week later, I can say that Liam loves his toys, especially the alphabet puzzle! He also wakes up most mornings and immediately starts building with his Duplos...and he pretend eats the play fruit and veggies. I got Will some things he wanted and needed, and Will got me Nutella and an Etsy gift card (still deciding what to buy with it)! We were both very happy with our gifts. Will also decided to give me what he bought at Baldwin's, even though it is technically a tenth anniversary gift (which is not until February). He didn't want it to have to sit around for two months! I knew what it was, but had no idea what it would look like. Inside the box was a beautiful vintage diamond wedding ring! I will most likely write about the ring more in February, but I have to say it's perfect! He did a great job, and I love the ring!

Later that Christmas Day, it snowed for several hours giving us a white Christmas. Unfortunately, Liam really doesn't have proper snow attire, so we just admired it from inside...for a couple of days. All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas!

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!

Much better!

Playing at Firewheel Playground

"Rock"

Messing with our friends' Christmas tree

Didn't want to stop and take a picture

Now some (a lot) from his 19 month informal photo shoot at the park.

The obligatory "walking away from me" photo

Mr. No Hands

Aww, a big smile!

Checking out the "tree"

"leaf!"

"Hat!"

"Rock!"

Playing with acorns

"Bow"

Putting two pieces of the acorn back together

November is Nearly Over

After the blogging frenzy that occurred in October (8 posts!), November has been much quieter, and this will be the third and final post of the month.

Not a whole lot has happened this month, and that's a good thing. I've been hanging out with Liam all the time as usual, and the little guy is amazing us everyday with new words he's learning. He adds words to his vocabulary so quickly that it's pointless to try and keep up with them now. He tries to repeat words we say, so it's getting easier to teach him words. A few words I've heard a lot lately include tree, star, leaf, water, cheese, baby, and Melmo (Elmo). Liam is starting to demand to watch his Baby Signing Time dvd all the time, and unfortunately can get very insistent with his demands. I try to only give in once a day! He is actually learning from it, though. He has started saying AND signing please and thank you lately. He also started signing "cracker" and even asked "Cracker, please" the other day.

The weather has been really nice for the most part, so we've gone on a lot of walks. Liam points out almost every tree he sees and loves to watch squirrels. Liam has also loved playing the "tar" with Will. That's his word for guitar. He's getting pretty good at strumming, actually!

The three of us stayed here for Thanksgiving and had four whole days by ourselves since Will was off Thursday and Friday. I cooked a traditional (vegetarian) Thanksgiving meal for us, and Will and I ended up eating leftovers for several days. It was delicious! Liam seemed to enjoy the cornbread dressing at first, but then quickly got tired of it. I offered him several more things, and he ended up eating some pumpkin bread while pretending it was a car. Then he just demanded to eat cheese. We didn't do any Black Friday shopping, although I did end up at Wal-Mart for a few things we needed. The craziness had died down by the time I went, but it was still horrible as Wal-Mart always is. Hopefully it'll be a long time before I have to go back.

Friday and Saturday, we worked on a felt tree for Liam. I cut out the ornaments, and Will helped me with drawing the tree outline before I cut it out. It was extremely easy to make. I attached it to the wall with Command poster strips (I sure hope they come off easily). Liam likes it, although he much prefers taking the ornaments off the tree instead of putting them on. He learned the word star pretty quickly after we put it up. He also calls the red ornaments apples. I also got Liam the Fisher Price Little People nativity set, since the simple wood one I have has some very sharp corners on it, and he can't play with it. He likes to play with the plastic one, and that means it's never on the table. Wise men and Baby Jesus and all the other pieces are always strewn all over the floor. The tree ornaments are usually on the floor too! Oh well, he's enjoying them in his own way, right?

I love the tree! We haven't put up a Christmas tree in many years because our cats like to knock it over, eat it, and barf it up on the carpet. Yeah. Gross. Not worth it. I hate that I can't put up a big tree, but this year I was able to put up the felt tree and our tiny green tree. I put it on the mantel, and so far no cats have jumped up there to get to it. Eleanor thinks about it everyday, but I put pictures on the ends of the mantel so there's no safe place to land up there. Five days later, it's still standing! That is a miracle. I put our special ornaments on that tree. We don't have many ornaments at all (since we never have a tree), but we have a few, and I'm glad they're out and displayed this year. I also put some felt snowflakes and silver tinsel on the mantel for decorations. A friend is making matching stockings for us, so those will go up soon! It's the most Christmas decorating I've done since we've been married!

Christmas is coming! Liam is still too young to understand anything about Christmas, but I am hoping to start some traditions with him this year, and I already have with the nativity set and felt tree. I'm sure I'll do the felt tree again next year, and maybe even the year after if he's into it. We keep our Christmas very low-key, but I'm hoping to do some fun things with Liam this season that we haven't done before. What? I really don't know yet, but I'll figure it out!

Looking up at Totoro hanging from the ceiling fan

He looked up at me and said "Leaf"

Our Thanksgiving dinner: Tofurky, dressing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and rolls.

Liam eating Thanksgiving dinner

He loves to try on his daddy's shoes

The felt tree! 

Elmo didn't stick around long. Liam was TERRIFIED of it! He wouldn't go near the tree until I took him down. I think he was scared that he didn't move. He's always seen Elmo on TV.

Checking out his nativity set for the first time.

Our tiny tree, including the snowman ornament Liam "made" last year at church, a wooden ornament for his first Christmas, a picture ornament of Liam from last year, a Texas ornament made by a lady at International Friends at church, and our LA Tech ornament. The other ornaments were given to us by friends.

Liam and daddy playing the guitar

The first video is of Liam saying Thank You on Thanksgiving. It's cute, but he gets squirmy and is trying to get out of his chair at the end. The second video is kind of long, and is of Liam doing a tiny bit of clapping and dancing while Will plays guitar along to a song. It's mostly of Liam trying to mess with the guitar. Excuse the mismatched pjs.

Liam at 18 Months

Wow...a year and a half old already. This truly is a milestone month, as he is now halfway between his first birthday and his second birthday. Liam is a great kid! I think he's smart, too.

Stats: Finally, I have some stats since his 18 month check up was this morning.

Height: 34 inches (90th percentile)
Weight: 27.4 pounds (70th percentile) Once again, I thought he weighed more than that. Still, he feels like a tank even though he's only gained a little over 2 pounds in 6 months. This was the first time he stood on a scale to be weighed instead of sitting on the baby scale.

No head measurement, but Dr. Porter confirmed that his soft spot has closed up, which means Liam is totally hard-headed now (as if there was any doubt).

Personality: I feel like I run the risk each month of just repeating what I previously wrote about his personality...or at least writing about the same things but with different words. His personality doesn't so much change anymore, but is fine-tuned as he gets older. Liam loves to play. He loves his toys (and anyone else's toys he can get his hands on). He likes to build with blocks, but he loves to tear apart block structures, especially ones someone else built. He's definitely more into the "taking it apart" instead of the building at the moment. Destruction is usually his aim, but it's not with malicious intent. I honestly think he's just curious if something will come apart, so he tries to take apart most things. That's why the book "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" is currently in 5 separate pieces. Yes, it was possible to tear it apart, although he wore it down over time and made it fragile before tearing it in pieces. We keep it around because he does actually still like to look at it, and we look at the ABCs in the back all the time. I'm thankful I have that book memorized, and just recite it to him when we look at it. He likes to put objects on his head and call it a "hat." He does this all the time! Liam loves animals, and can identify pictures of many different animals and make many animal noises. The more recent ones are goat, squirrel, tiger, bee, rabbit, horse, and butterfly. He's still really gentle whenever he is given an opportunity to pet our cats (which isn't often since they HATE it). I think he does truly love animals. Dogs are still his favorite, though! Any animal he can't name is a dog. Other aspects of his personality include the fact that he is stubborn and determined. He's loud when he doesn't get his way, still screaming from time to time to make his grievances known. He's not timid (usually...he normally has to warm up to new situations and people, though). I'm hoping all these qualities just mean he'll be a good leader someday! He's still a fan of the word "no," but he at least knows how to say "yes" as well now! As for showing affection, he really stepped it up this month by finally giving us real kisses. He opens his mouth really wide and plants a wet one on our face and makes a sound like, "ahhh ah." He knows there's a smoochy sound with kisses, but he didn't know how to do that, so he just made up his own sound to go with it. It's extremely adorable, of course, especially when he does them without any prompting. Liam is super affectionate towards me, and less so towards Will and not really at all towards other people, unless he knows them really well. I'm sure the day will come all too soon when he decides to start planting wet ones on cute little girls!

Skills: I suppose for awhile, every month will be a language explosion! He seriously learns new words all the time and it's kind of hard to keep up with them all now. I know he can say at least 50 words. He definitely knows a ton more than that. He started putting together two words this month like "We go." or "Where go?" He's absolutely obsessed with going. He really just wants to escape and run free! He started really waving and saying "bye bye" recently. He's done it maybe a few times in the past, but he's really picking up speed with it now. He can answer simple questions, and the answer is typically "no." "Do you want to get your diaper changed?" "No." "Do you want to eat this food?" "No." Typical stubborn toddler stuff. But we can also ask him, "What's my name?" and for me, he answers "Mama," and for Will he answers "Dada." Then we ask, "What's HER name?" (pointing at a cat) and he answers something like "Geetch." Our cat Squirt's nickname is Skeetch, and one day Will asked him what her name was and he said "Geetch (for Skeetch)." We were impressed. He does not know Eleanor's name (and she probably prefers it that way). As I mentioned, he's really getting good at animal sounds and identifying animals. He says the name of some of them, like cat, dog, duck, and bird, but usually identifies them with the sound. For squirrel, he puts his hands up to his mouth and moves them back and forth (like a squirrel eats a nut), and for a rabbit, he moves his arm up and down and says, "Hop hop!" since rabbits don't really make any noise (that I'm aware of). Some other ones he makes the sound for include goat, tiger, lion, dinosaur, bird, and sheep. He will RARELY say "Woof woof" for a dog. When we ask him what a dog says, he almost always says, "Dog!" But he does pant like a dog and sometimes pats his leg, which is the sign for dog. He also started doing the signs for eat and baby this month, even though he says both of those words. He loves to see and identify babies! Baby is definitely one of his favorite words at the moment. Belly is also one of his faves, but it sounds like "behyee." Liam isn't so big on L sounds yet. He loves to lift his shirt these days and show off his belly, and wants to see ours too! One cute, smart thing Liam did the other day happened when he saw the Baby Signing Time dvd cover. He saw it and started doing the sign for baby and SINGING "Baby baby" in the correct tune of the theme song. It's so cute to see him start to figure out how to sing. He sings the the first two words of the baby song and the first two words of "Row Row Row Your Boat" now. I guess he thinks two words is enough! He's also finally starting to dance some. He's got his sway back and forth dance, but also occasionally busts out with some bouncing. Liam is also starting to try to repeat words we say. He learned "cookie" that way in about 2 minutes. Last night Will was reciting 1-10 in Japanese to him, and he repeated every number after him! Another thing with numbers: when we say "one" to him, he replies "two." He's also starting to identify letters like D, E, and O. He just randomly calls out letters sometimes. He is also starting to pretend objects are other objects, or at least they're cars. I've seen him pretend a block, a plastic container, and half a muffin were cars. All in all, I am amazed by Liam and how fast he's learning. He really does seem like a smarty too me (I hope I'm right!). Oh, and as far as sleeping goes, he has still retained the ability to fall asleep on his own! I don't want to jinx it, but bedtime has been super easy this month.

Food and Drink: Really there's nothing new to report here. He is STILL stubborn about drinking milk from a bottle instead of a straw cup. I'm ready to be done with the bottles, but Will doesn't think it's a big deal, and I asked the pediatrician about it today and he said it's not a big deal either as long as we clean his teeth after a bottle (which we always do). He said it's more important that he drinks the milk. Liam is still working on his spoon/fork feeding skills. He's improving all the time, but because of the personality he has, I still don't trust him to have a freely movable bowl full of food in front of him. Why? Because it ends up on the floor. I need to just lay down a tarp (his high chair is on carpet, remember?) and let him go at it. I'm not worried about that skill, though. It's there and improving and he's great at finger feeding.

Events and Firsts: There are blog posts about them, but we celebrated Halloween recently and had family pictures taken at the Arboretum. I've seen them, and they are adorable! Liam did sticker art and did some coloring this month to work on his art skills. He's still not really into coloring yet, although I'm sure he would be if I let him decorate the walls. That's what he kept trying to do with the crayons. We also went to the Texas State Veggie Fair, which was a nice little food fair where everything was vegan. We had some yummy food there and saw lots of Dallas hippies. One big event was Liam's first hair cut! A week later, I still like it so I think it was the best decision to get it cut. His hair is still a little wavy, so I'm holding out hope that the curls return. Yep, we will most likely let it grow out again (if it looks good). This past weekend, we made a trip back to Louisiana to visit family and friends. My friend Amanda had her wedding shower in Homer, and then I went to a slumber party with friends at a creepy house. It was fun! Will kept Liam by himself at my grandparents house and everyone survived!

Teeth: Still just the four, although the pediatrician confirmed today that several should be making an appearance soon! Two on top are about to pop through any day now. He said his molars were bulging as well. So yeah, Liam might have a toothier grin soon! To the chagrin of parents everywhere, we are still distracting him with cat videos on Youtube to get his teeth brushed properly. It works, and I am not ashamed.

Favorites:
- dogs (I have a feeling this will be a favorite for awhile!)
- the cat videos (He is an expert at properly making meow sounds these days.)
- showing off his belly
- putting everything he can on his head and calling it a "hat"
- go-going (Still wants to go every time someone opens the door.)
- eating cheese
- snuggling with mama

Grin!

I don't think that's the proper way to play with that.

Escaped with the leg

18 month birthday cupcake treat

He had no interest in cake when he turned one, but I guess he likes it now!

Hmmmm....dead grass

Annihilating a dandelion

That's a sweet face

"Tree"

I see kids playing.

Walking to the playground