July 4th to Autumn

Liam nonchalantly observes a passing fire truck in a 4th of July parade while casually holding his "iPhone."

Before Liam's first haircut (other than the ones I've given him).

First official haircut wraps up and everyone is happy!

Liam and me at Luray Caverns.

Liam ready for his first day back at Montessori school after a fun summer at camp.

Liam and I pose together before I take him to his first day back at school.

Mommy says goodbye at home, but will pick up a happy Liam when school ends.

A rare shot of all three of us - thanks for taking this Joe!

Today we went to a farm to do mazes, see pumpkins and animals, slide down huge slides and take a hay ride.  Liam and I also shot an apple cannon together and hit the target twice!

Liam and I were "matchers."

Disney

We recently went to Universal Studios and Disney for a great family vacation.  My parents and sister came too, which made the trip easier and more enjoyable for everyone (thanks!).  Liam had a wonderful time and is already trying to convince us to return for a "3 week" vacation there.

Liam in full Cars regalia, ready to fly to Disney.

First stop: Universal, where Seuss Landing was the biggest hit, especially the rides One Fish Two Fish and The Cat In The Hat.

After two long, hot and humid days of walking at Universal, we bought a little stroller for Liam, which he *loved* and saved us lots of time and effort!  He now refers to this as his "big boy stroller" despite being smaller than his other one.

Let the "Magic" begin...

The "Dumbo" style rides were some of Liam's favorites and there was one in every park.  Here Liam and I ride the Triceratop Spin.  He was thrilled to be able to control the up and down movement of the ride.

The happy family in front of the "Tree of Life" which houses the terrifying "Bug's Life" movie (just one of many shows I would end up leaving early with Liam)!

Wearing Cars and posing with them, Liam liked EPCOT a little less than I expected. 

Although EPCOT did get him warmed up to greeting characters.

He was a character-greeting pro by the time we met Jessie and Woody outside Splash Mountain.

Post-meeting with Jessie and Woody, Liam excitedly recounts his adventures so far.

One of Liam's favorite rides was actually the set in front of Winnie The Pooh.  Here, he explains all about Pooh's honey to grandmom.

Double excitement - the Dumbo ride during fireworks!  He raved about both.

Watching our second "Electric Light" parade of the trip.

Watching the Pixar parade at Hollywood Studios under the precious shade offered by a vendor's stand.

A brief moment of relaxation during his adventures in Honey I Shrunk The Kids playground.

C ya real soon!

Entertaining Day

Liam had a very busy day Saturday. In the morning, he and I went to our weekly music class together where we pretended to make cookies, played with a slide whistle and danced around. Liam always enjoys this class and looks forward to it every week.

After coming home for a little lunch, Annika took Liam to the mall where he gave his Build-A-Bear a "bath" at the store, picked up Toy Story 3 and played at the mall playground.

When they got home, we got ready and Liam and I went to see the Wiggles in concert with our neighbors. Liam is a huge fan of the wiggles - we listen to them non-stop on every car ride, watch the DVDs, and sing two Wiggles songs each night before bed. This is a picture of Liam when the Wiggles first got onstage tonight:

He was smiling, bouncing, singing and dancing through the entire show and had a terrific time. I was very impressed with how sincere the Wiggles themselves are. They walked through the entire audience and collected cards, flowers etc. from the kids and took the time to read every single sign out loud. In my opinion, they put on a great show with a mix of greatest hits, improv, acrobatics and audience participation. When talking about the show tonight, Liam seemed to be most impressed with when they sang Twinkle Star with the lights off and everyone's cell phones on as the "stars." I think I was most impressed when the 57 year-old Jeff Wiggle did a slow-motion head-stand while singing a song.

But wait... there's more! When we got home, after listening to yet more Wiggles in the car, we all watched Toy Story 3 while eating dinner. We reminded him that he could ask to skip any parts that were scary, but Liam watched it all the way through despite some darker scenes. One of the parts that seemed to trouble him most was when Woody loses his hat :)

As we put him to bed, we reviewed the day with him and covered all of these things. At this point, we said that was it, but he said "no! I also jumped on the bed four times." So I would be remiss not to mention that here too, for the record.

Dancing with Ernie

On a trip to find a good toy airplane for Liam, we found out that the toy store can be quite a party! Sadly, we did not find a suitable toy plane.

Liam and I had a terrific weekend while Annika was out of town. I think my favorite parts were our walks to and from the local park talking about fall, walking in the grass and playing the stop-go game (or as Liam says: "Bop, doe").

Tree Yellow Down

Liam and I took a nice walk today and learned about fall. On the way
home we played the stop-go game: Liam periodically freezes and then I
freeze until he starts walking again. We both had fun :)

Rainy day

It was a rainy day today so we played inside at playwisekids.

Fun at Target

Liam had a great time exploring Target last night and trying on some merchandise :)

 

Playing in the basement.  When Liam sees this picture he says "Down.  Ball."

Pivotal Moments

Liam enjoys a bubble bath by putting the bubbles all over his head

Liam comes to the rescue of his friend before she is cooked by the witch.  One of a few such scenes at a local farm where we got a pumpkin and some expensive apples.

About a week ago, Liam started putting words together in two-word phrases.  The phrases take the form "no kitty" or "bye-bye daddy."  The leading word in these phrases is called a pivot word - it can be used in many contexts preceded or followed by an open word (e.g. bye-bye daddy, bye-bye mommy, bye-bye kitty).  These short phrases are referred to as "telegraphic" speech because they resemble the short-cut wording of a telegram.

He's really interested in letters now and will point out an M, O, etc. in random words that we see.  He identifies yellow (la-lellow) and blue.  At first, I thought he might be red-green color blind, but he can point to the right color when asked, he just doesn't seem to be able to say those colors.

Sitting in a stroller can be a real drag, so Liam has taken to walking along with us while we push an empty stoller (which is just a bit slower).  Here he is preparing to walk the dog:

Mommy was recruited to add the video, so while I was here, I thought I would also share this picture, which shows what a difference a year can make. You can see from last year at the farm, he was not only smaller, but he didn't get the "put your head in a circle" thing. This year, he even smiled for the camera.

Number of signs, words and phrases Liam can express over time (months old).

Spoiler Alert!

 

    We've put a big emphasis on communication for a long time with Liam.  We reward him for communicating calmly and effectively by giving him what he wants when he asks for it.  This has led to at least two things: Liam's ability to communicate very well, and Liam's expectation that he gets whatever he wants! Recently, we've begun to feel that he's started to get a bit bossy :)  The other night, he asked for his dog pajamas by doing the sign for dog and saying 'woof woof' while we were changing him.  Usually, we would comply, but the recent cold weather doesn't fit well with a t-shirt for bed time, so we wanted to put him in warmer pjs.  This was not acceptable to his highness, who definitely let us know.  After much protest, we got him into his warm pjs and then put his dog pajamas on top :)

    Sometimes, Liam doesn't even have to try.  We just loved this wooden train set our neighbors have, so we got it (for Liam, not Daddy ;). 

Favorite Things

Liam definitely has preferences now.

He enjoys banging on laptops

The swing is great fun

Peek-a-boo is still a favorite

He loves the cat, but I am not sure the cat returns the sentiment.

One Year

One year ago today, at 12:34, Liam was born and life hasn't been the same since - in a wonderful way! We threw a big birthday party for him today and had his friends and relatives over for a big celebration. We went whole-hog on the pi day connection and put up a "Happy Birthday Q T 3.14159" banner, several of us wore our "simple as 3.141592..." t-shirts from Mental Floss, we ate pizza pi(e), mixed-fruit pi(e), muffins in pi-formation, a big cookie with pi icing, brownies and cookies shaped like the pi symbol, and showed some pi(e) charts about Liam (like % time spent sleeping, eating and playing).  You might also notice that the fruit and pita dishes spell Liam's initials (LOL).

Many of Liam's friends from his "mommy and me" group were there to share in the fun and that created a really energetic and fun atmosphere.  Albert Einstein was also born on March 14th, so we put up a poster of him and added some captions wishing Liam a happy birthday.

We put together a movie of some pictures of Liam and a couple videos set to "Birthday" and "Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles.  We put the pictures of Liam in chronological order and it was amazing to see how much he's changed over the past year.

Liam enjoyed the big get together and was thrilled with all of his new toys and clothes.  His aunt Michelle also gave him a framed version of the poem she wrote for him when he was born.  We really appreciate everyone joining us for the occasion!  A special thanks to my mom for helping us set everything up the day / evening before.

The Life Aquatic

Liam had his first "swim lesson" on Thursday.  We weren't sure whether he'd love it or be scared.  It turned out to be somewhere in between.  Throughout, he was cautious, but not scared, and enjoyed certain aspects of it.  This was his first introduction to water deeper than a couple inches, so he might get more comfortable in time.

We were pathetically ill prepared for the experience in general: we left the house hoping to remember how to get to the pool, with no towels, and a bag too small to contain our stuff while we were in the pool :)  Fortunately, we found the pool, the hand/hair driers in the locker rooms dried us all off well, and we didn't lose any of our stuff.  Next time, we'll know what we're doing.

We all three got in the pool along with about 5 other babies and moms (only one other dad) and an instructor who had laid out groups of pool toys along the edges of the pool.  We played with the toys and did things like the hokey-pokey in the shallow (~4-feet) end of the pool.  As we got ready to leave, we saw some of the next-level class for kids over 1 year old.  They were kicking while holding the ledge (with parental support) and looked like they were having fun.  Sitting by the pool afterwards was one of Liam's favorite times as he watched everyone else enjoy the pool from the safety of the dry deck.

Overall, it was a fun experience and I'm glad we're introducing him to the pool.

Telekinesis

Liam is getting really good at sitting up on his own. He started out trying to sit up a while ago, but can now really sit on his own for a couple of minutes and interact with us, play with toys, and turn around a bit.

It's really interesting to watch his learning process. Right now, he's learning how to coordinate his movements - something we all take for granted once we're past a few years old. At first, he would concentrate hard on moving his arms and hands to grasp things. It is cool to think about it from his perspective - it must be like slowly discovering you have telekinesis ("hey, I can move these things on the end of my arm with just my mind!"). He is still sometimes fascinated with his own hands and how he can literally manipulate them.

Now he's learning about moving his legs and feet in a similar way - it started with random-looking leg movement when he's excited, but each day the movements become more purposeful. He can grab a toy between his two feet and bring it up to his hands, which then put it straight into his mouth. I can see the early stages of crawling as he lifts himself off his tummy onto his knees and elbows, and then almost pushes himself forward. One of the cute things he does now is to lift his head off the mattress while he's on his tummy and peek over the crib wall to see me. This, of course, usually draws me right back over to the crib to continue playing instead of letting him go to sleep :)

There's a similar process with his vocalization. It started with random sounds when he's excited, but is starting to get a little more speech-like at times. At first, his favorite phrases were "ra" and "la" but he now loves to say "bthv." Of course, without more than his two teeth, the "th" is very fuzzy and cute.

Speaking of teeth, he's got some coming through up top. The middle two, and the two on either side are starting to show. Beware of offering a finger for him to hold, it's likely to be thrust straight into his mouth for a nice bite!

He always makes me smile. No matter how tired I might feel sometimes, I brighten up when I walk into a room and see Liam. He's got an extroverted, easy-going and sometimes bubbly personality and an infectious laugh and smile. He's become very cuddly too, which I love. My favorite thing is to make him laugh. He loves to laugh at funny noises and faces and getting tickled or kissed on the cheek.

Stronger than yesterday

Even though Liam is an early roller, he hates being on his tummy. While face down, he makes a lot of uhh and ehh groaning noises which are usually followed by cries. While he still prefers lying on his back, he has started to at least tolerate being on his stomach. My friend Mariel and her mother bought Liam a nifty little tummy-time tool which resembles putting Liam on a clock so he can spin around and see 5 different play stations. For the first time this week, Liam might have enjoyed himself while spinning around. His neck is getting much stronger and he is realizing that his arms can help him lift up. This is great news for his parents, who, after getting a second opinion from another doctor, have decided to let Liam sleep in the crib instead of a chair at night.
He is also getting more coordinated and is actually holding onto objects. While he still is not grabbing at his toys, he will, when an object is placed on his stomach, grasp it and put it in his mouth. It doesn't seem like much, but the books say this is helping him develop hand-eye coordination...something this parent has always lacked.
While we might not have a soccer player on our hands, we do have a music lover. Today, during mommy and me, we had a music teacher who inspired the infants with bells, drums sticks and fun little ditties. Liam loved the whole program, especially the part where we banged on sticks. I have a feeling I better lock up my pots and pans.