12 days of Christmas--Liam style

12 Fun new toys (at least)
11 Articles of clothing
10 Christmas dances
9 People chased
8 Lots of food
7 Packs of the car
6 Naps total
5 Cousins visited
4 Different houses
3 Celebrations
2 Outdoor walks
1 Amazing time

Liam had a wonderful Christmas and was able to show off his new skills: pointing at what he wants, rocking to some music and running in a walker. He loved the walker so much that he acquired a blister on his toe (it has yet to slow him down). The video below shows him enjoying his Christmas present. Sorry it is kind of long--I haven't figured out how to edit from our new camera.


Another video shows Liam's love for music and his potential dancing career. You can see he takes his dancing very seriously.

Santa on Pause

One day in the future I fear that Liam will be looking through his baby books and notice that one timeless photo is missing. He will ask, "Mom, where is my baby picture with Santa?" and I will have to tell him that "Santa had some hungry reindeer that year."

Liam and I braved the mall on 3 separate occasions at 3 different times of day to try to sit on Santa's lap. All 3 times, we were turned away because as the sign stated, "Santa was feeding his reindeer." It is important to note that the sign does not say when these feedings are to occur each day.

Liam really didn't seem to mind not waiting in the long line and I am guessing he would prefer Daddy's lap over Santa's, so it really worked out well for him. And even though I tell myself that I don't need the famous Santa picture for every year, there may be some clever photoshoping in my future.

We will fill you in on Liam's first Christmas after the holidays, but we sincerely hope that everyone has a safe and wonderful Christmas and a fantastic New Year. Oh, and if you are going to the mall to visit Santa, you might want to bring some reindeer food to help speed up the process.

A couple of firsts

Liam has had some new experiences lately. He played Picasso for an afternoon and experienced "painting" with his play group. I put this is quotes because having a baby paint is more like letting them swim in non-toxic goo. Just getting him to stay still long enough to make some hand prints and foot prints for the reindeer was a challenge. He had a great time though and I think I am going to have to make it a regular thing for him.

He also attended his first birthday party for one of the babies in his group. Adrianna was supposed to be born around the same time as Liam, but was 4 months early. She is doing amazingly well and Liam was thrilled to celebrate the day with her. His personality is a lot like his father's: very gregarious and social. He loves to be around people: one of the other fathers even remarked, "Liam seems to be the center of attention and it is not even his party!"


If you are painting using their hands and feet as a stamp, I recommend using a sleeping baby.


Another recommendation: Make sure you realize that only a very small amount of the paint will end up on the paper.


Liam had his face painted at the party. This lasted for about 3 minutes.


Not only is Liam a ham, but he is, unfortunately, kind of a bully.


The birthday girl enjoying her first taste of sugar.

Sweetness

Liam had a really tough time falling asleep tonight, so I went up to his room to try to help. At first, I tried holding him in the rocking chair, but he just struggled. So, I turned on the lights and got on the floor with him to play. We quietly played for about 20 minutes and then I gradually dimmed the lights and started to pretend I was going to sleep on the floor. Over the next 20 minutes, the room got darker and Liam played and crawled less and less. Eventually, he crawled over to me and put his head on my arms to fall asleep :) While falling asleep, he kept reaching back to hold my hand or grab my finger :) That was a highlight of my life so far.
After he seemed to be asleep for about a minute, I got up (he popped his head up too) and put him in his crib. He feel right back to sleep and we haven't heard him since.

Lingua Liam and Giving Thanks

We've started teaching Liam sign language because babies can learn to communicate with their hands before they have enough control over their voices to talk. As the book on sign language I got from the library points out, babies use sign language without instruction. For example, if Liam lifts both arms up, he wants to be picked up; if he reaches toward something with one arm and out-stretched hand, he wants it (or to be taken to it); rubbing his eyes means he's tired. These signs seem to be pretty universally used by babies and understood by parents without any coaching.

The book recommends teaching no more than 3 signs a day, no more than one sign per sentence and recommends starting with "more", "eat", and "milk" because they are usually the easiest to learn. They're easy because they don't involve much dexterity and they are things babies frequently want and need help getting. The book also recommends opportunistically teaching a simple sign for something of particular interest to the baby. For Liam, this has usually been "cat" so far. He now studies our gestures as we sign. If we're consistent, the book says he might mimic a sign in the next 8 to 10 weeks.

Thanksgiving was terrific. We got together at two big family celebrations and Liam loved it. He has always loved being around lots of people and new things. Since he's happier, and we have so many helping hands, we can relax and enjoy ourselves too. Liam got sick just before Thanksgiving and woke up every 3 hours during the night like he did as a newborn. It was sad to hear his little coughs and labored breathing while he tried to sleep. He seems to be over it now and slept through the night last night for the first time in days. In honor of Turkey day, Liam had his first meat in the form of some chicken and sweet potato baby food. He liked it, but he's liked almost everything he can eat so far, so he's not too picky. Just don't try peas and rice together (separately is still fine)!

Liam is still learning new things each day. As this blog also serves as our baby book, I'll list some: army crawl across the floor (necessitating some child-proofing measures), clap his hands with a huge open-mouthed smile, wave, stand up (while holding something for support like a foot-stool), point at things he's interested in (right hand only), turn off the electric piano, and make one of his toys play "la cucaracha" ad nauseam :) while rocking back and forth to the beat.

Happy Birthday, Aunt Ria

1 score, and 16 years ago, Liam's Aunt Ria was born (109 years to the day that the Gettysburg Address was given.) To celebrate, Liam, his mom and his Aunt Ria all ventured to Gettysburg where they stood in some chilly weather and took in a bit of history. While visiting, Liam was lucky enough to meet a troupe of Union soldiers and a skinny lawyer turned Senator turned President from Illinois.
Unfortunately, a day after these pictures were taken, Liam came down with his first fever and head cold. Luckily for his mom and aunt, the doctor assured them that the cold was not brought on by the trip. That certainly doesn't make it any easier to see a temperature of nearly 103 on the thermometer. Infant's Motrin is a great thing, but I wish there was a medicine that would allow the parent to carry the pain of the cold instead of the baby.

A new direction

Liam began the week by visiting the polls with his parents; despite all the media about long lines, we amazingly walked right up the booth and were able to cast our vote for Obama in a matter of minutes. If you look closely at the picture, you can see both Steve and Liam are sporting their "I voted" stickers. Go Obama! We are looking forward to seeing this country grow in a new direction.
Liam is also starting to go in a new direction...well, a direction anyway. He is in the beginning stages of crawling and is now slugging along like he is doing a slow and messy military crawl. It is a little disconcerting when you leave your once immobile son in one place and then turn your back for a second only to find him in a whole new place. The doctor said his weight would prevent him from being an early crawler and it does seem to cause him to work pretty hard at it. I am guessing he will be in full motion by Thanksgiving. You can see the struggle in the video below.

Toucan Liam

We have all heard of Toucan Sam, but did you know that there is also a Toucan Liam? He has a much rounder head, has legs far from those of a bird, and is still too young to eat fruit loops--he also loves to participate in Halloween events.
Liam celebrated this holiday without the candy, but he did participate in a few get-togethers. On Thursday, he played with other dressed up babies from his play group. The photo shown was one of the best we got. I don't know how catalogs take group pictures of babies--it seems that only a few of the little guys were content in their costumes and some would never look at a camera. He also donned his bird suit for a luncheon at my work where he joined other animals like a cheetah, cat and bunny. With the weather being rather mild, Liam and his parents ended the evening on the porch handing out candy to the neighborhood kids. All in-all, not a bad Halloween. I wonder, though, is he going to look back at this costume and ask, "Mom, why did you make me be a butterfly!"

Entertaining Liam

There is a book out now called, "Naptime is the New Happy Hour". Unfortunately for me, that is all I get--one hour. Liam likes to take two 1/2 hour naps a day and he also likes someone to interact with him at all times during the periods that he is awake; this can be very exhausting for his caretaker. For this reason, we have a colorful assortment of chairs, toys, pillows and bouncers sprinkled around the house for his enjoyment. As he gets bored with one method of entertainment, we move him to another. His latest (and I think greatest) gadget is the jolly jumper from his grandparents Luke. We have a small video of Liam being "jolly" but I don't think it shows how much fun it really looks. The other video shows how we have to get creative with playtime since he is up for about 12 hours a day.

In other Liam news, he officially says Ma-Ma. This is not as wonderful a milestone as it sounds; I do not think he associates it with me and seems to only say it when he is frustrated and wants something. I think this might be why women are referred to as Ma-Ma: back in the day, cavemen must have been sitting around when suddenly their little one would get frustrated and call Ma-Ma. The men would probably look at each other, grunt, and say, "Woman, I think he is calling for you."

Fall has fallen

This past weekend, Liam went to a local farm where he met up with some friends, saw his first pumpkin and helped his mom and dad pick some apples. I think the main reason you take your 7 month old out to a place like this is for the picture opportunities. Lugging a 22 pound baby through the apple orchard does not making picking fruit any easier, but it does make it more fun. We met up with the other babies, moms and dads from the mommy and me group. It was funny to see one parent with a baby in a carrier and the other with a big bag of apples. It was also neat to see how consistent all the babies were; at the beginning (around noon), all the babies were wide-eyed and excited, but by the end, some were sleeping on their parent's chests and others were fussy--anxious to get back in the car for their 2:00 nap.

As it has been a while since we have posted, I will do double duty on this post and show some video as well. Liam seems to be picking up on the rules of peek-a-boo. I can't really tell if he really understands or if his arms are just in automatic flapping mode and I happen to be saying the phrase at the right time. He has given us several repeat performances, so I am going to say that he is a smart baby and understands this game perfectly.

Happy 31st, Daddy!

Steve turned 31 on Friday and Liam has been busy celebrating with his Daddy. We started with a trip to a steak house and because Liam can now sit in a high chair and is on a somewhat predictable schedule, we were able to have a good family meal out. We just have to be sure to be home by 8 for bedtime (Liam's rules, not ours) and have a diaper bag filled with toys and some baby food. We also celebrated by having people over on Saturday for games. Liam loves being around a bunch of people who will oogle and make funny faces in his direction. We closed the weekend with some time with Steve's mom, dad and sister where he saw his first birthday cake--after this picture was taken there was a nice little baby sized hand print in the icing! Happy Birthday, Steve--thanks for being born and thanks for giving us Liam.

Out of arms length

At our last doctor's visit, the doctor encouraged us to start baby proofing the house. While it seems ridiculously early to make sure that all cabinets and drawers can not be opened, we do have to do a bit a baby proofing every time we sit Liam down. As he takes a seat, we must now look around and see what is in his radius and ask ourselves "should he have access to that." He grabs everything. The problem, as these pictures show, is that even if there is nothing within his reach, sometimes an animal will accidentally cross his path. I have seen Liam literally throw himself on the poor creature. So far, all pets have been amazingly patient while he grabs a tuft of hair or an ear. He also can't seem to get enough stuff in his hands. In this last picture, he has a small ring in his mouth while he uses his hands to toy with the bag it came in.

The 6 month doctor visit was uneventful. The doctor said he is perfectly healthy. He is still big (29 inches long and 20 lbs), but not as big--he has gone from the 97th percentile to the 95th. As Steve says, that is still a solid A.

Back from Bean-Town

Steve had a conference up in Boston these last couple of days, so Liam and I decided to join him so that we could visit our old (and one very new) friends. Liam was once again an excellent traveler and enjoyed the hour long plane ride trying to figure out how to unlatch the tray table in front of him.

Liam seems to be very extroverted and is enthusiastic about being around people. He was thrilled that our friends Kitty and Jamie not only have a new friend for him to beat up (6 week old son Luke was not harmed during the taking of these photos), but Jamie's parents were also in town and he really put on a show for them.He was so wound up from our days hanging out with friends, he had a hard time going to sleep in the hotel room. We would give him a bath and put his pajamas on him, but he would just sit on the bed ooohing, cooing and sucking his toes. When we returned last night, he was very excited to tell his Papo (thanks dad for watching over our house) about his trip and forgot all about his 8 bed time.

Happy 6 month Birthday

To my little (or not so little) Liam:

The days and months seem to be zooming along and every day I wake up and am thankful you are in my life. On a daily basis, I love to look at you and watch you grow. To steal some words from my own mother: "You are like a prism--I want to hold you up to the light and see all sides of you." You are becoming your own little fascinating person: curious about all things including tv screens, people and paper. It is funny what a mother becomes proud of. I am proud of your chubby little hands, your ability to sit up at a young age, your amazing growth, but especially your smile. I love to make you laugh. Some words that get you going are boggles, boggie-woggie-woo and odd mouth noises. I like to play "where's mommy" and hide from you for a few seconds only to see your look of delight when I reappear. We also play "stack the blocks." I can stack about 6 blocks before you reach out and tear the whole thing down. I fear for the house and the animals in a couple of months; the girls in your play group lightly touch and reach for their toys while you seem to be on a seek and destroy mission.
Happy 6 month birthday, Liam! You took all the expectations I had about becoming a parent and threw them out the window, but you are so much better than I could have imagined.

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.

Go Bananas!

A couple of weeks ago, Liam tried his first fruit--banana. As you can tell by the photo, he didn't much care for the first few mouthfuls; by the end, however, he decided that food is food and was fairly content--even though most of the fruit ended up on his bib. He is very funny to feed with a spoon. Used to having a constant flow of nourishment when eating, he is frustrated and tries to speed the process up by guiding my hand with the spoon to his mouth. While clever, this action actually slows the process down because he brings the spoon to him so the side of the handle goes into his mouth. This makes him mad and after a few times of the handle providing no food, we have to stop this silly spoon thing and return to the delicious milk.

This past week Liam has had his share of visitors: my friend Rell from New Mexico, cousin CJ and his 2 children from Chicago, and Steve's friend Alex from California. Unfortunately, we failed to get pictures of all of our guests, but we did get one with Rell. We were always goofy in high school and being around a child didn't necessarily make us the adults--I think the title of this post is more for us than for Liam.

5 months and movin' on up

For a few weeks now, Liam has been taking his baths with his knees in his face, crammed up into his little baby bath tub. Finally, his parents decided that the whole point of the bath was to relax him and how comfortable can you be in a bath that is as big as you are. So, Liam moved on up to the big boy bath tub. Because he can't physically hold himself up, he has to sit in a chair in the bath. As is typical with Liam, he wasn't so sure of this new concept of bath time, but after thinking about it and seeing his rubber ducky, he decided this new bath isn't so bad.
As we say happy 5 months to Liam, we should also remind him to get used to this concept of change. He is outgrowing everything. His infant carrier, his bumbo chair and he is getting a new high chair very soon. As Steve says, "soon, we will be giving him the keys to the car."

Happy Liam a couple months ago in his baby tub

Liam enjoys the before and after bath time routine too--Dad usually gets him ready for bed.

First taste of solids

I had to have a medical procedure this week and because of some of the medications I was taking, Liam was forced to have bottles of stored milk for a day and a half. I wonder if there has been a study done on whether bottle fed kids are more patient than other children? When Liam is hungry, he in no way wants to wait for you to prepare a bottle. Because of this, we decided it would be a good idea for him to have his first taste of rice cereal. We were hoping that it would help him sleep through the night better and groggy parents wouldn't have to do any bottle preparation at 2 in the morning.
To begin with, we tried it with a spoon--which Liam definitely did not like. This was demonstrated by crying and spitting the food back up; we, however, were not so easily deterred and we cleverly put a tablespoon of the cereal in his bottle. He drank it all up. It is rather comical to watch Liam drink a bottle. He is all business and I am pretty sure he can tell if there is more in the bottle and will not let it out of his sight until every last drop has been drunk.
The rice cereal along with his recent self soothing technique of sucking his thumb has been helping him sleep through the night. Now we just have to conquer using a spoon!

2nd cousins

As mentioned before, I come from a pretty big family...to put it in perspective, Liam has 48 cousins-once-removed. If each of those cousins has 2 kids, Liam would have close to 100 second cousins. In the past couple of weeks, Liam has had an opportunity to meet a few of his second cousins. While in Portland, he met Grayson (9 months old). He is also a sturdy boy and is at the top of the charts for weight and height...it is in the genes.
When we got back from the trip, Liam had a chance to meet Paige, Shannon and Lindsey--Steve's cousin, Mary's, kids. They loved observing him on the video monitor.

Hopefully, Liam will soon be able to meet his new second cousin's: Finn and William. Also, while not related by blood, Liam will soon need to meet a possible friend. One of my close girlfriends, Kitty, had baby Luke on July 31st. Congratulations to all the new mamas and papas!

Ginormous Child

We are back from the west and are trying to get back on East Coast time. I am beginning to feel like Liam is a night-owl like his dad because going to Pacific time was a pretty easy transition for him, but lately he has been sleeping in and going to bed later than usual.

I continue to be amazed at the rate of Liam's growth. Whenever I take him out, people will ask how old he is and be amazed when I say four months--they say things like "he is strong" and "what a healthy baby", but I know they are thinking "what a ginormous child". Before we left for the trip, we had Liam's check-up and he was 18.28 pounds and 27 1/2 inches long. This put him in the 97th and 100th percentiles respectively. Much to the doctor's surprise, he even has two little teeth coming in.

While we were in Portland, the we put the moby through its paces--when you have a big baby, sometimes you need a little assistance carrying him :) Sadly, we did not get a picture of everyone who tried out the moby, but here are a few. I also wanted to share a picture of my mom's side of the family. We were there to pay tribute to her and it is so nice that she comes from a big family...they say it takes a village; here is just some of Liam's village.