Love

Out of the blue tonight Liam cuddled up to me and said "I love you."
he also told me we are "best friends." It was very sweet.

Now it's here on the record so I can remind him when he's a
teenager :)

Steve

Can't try

"Do you sing the clean up song at school?"

"Sometimes... Not a lot... Just a little bit."

...

"I not getting tired! I can't go to sleep."

"that's ok, but lie down and Close your eyes."

"I can't close my eyes."

"Try."

"I can't try... I can't do anything."

...

It's really hard to get someone to sleep while you're both laughing.

Steve

Catch

After telling me it was my turn on the slide, Liam went to the bottom
and said "I catch you!"

I went very slowly down :)

Steve

Mustache

"Its a big one. Mustache!"

Who taught him what a mustache is?!

Steve

Gym

Since it's raining today, I told Liam he'd probably play in the gym at
school today. I asked "can you say gym"?

Liam thought for a second and said "I can't say gym."

Steve

How's your day?

Each night at dinner Annie and I ask each other "how was your day."

Tonight, for the first time Liam turned to me and asked "How's your
day?" And I said it was great thanks very much for asking. I was so
surprised that he decided to join in on the little ritual.

Then I asked "did you ask mommy?" So he turns to Annie and says "how's
Daddy's day?" :)

Steve

Bedtime talking

Some quotes from Liam tonight while talking about his day before
bedtime:

Mommy not go bye-bye anymore? Mommy go bye-bye three times: 1, 2, 3,
4, 5.

...

Liam woke up. Mommy came up. Give Liam books. Liam said "mommy mommy
mommy!" Liam not take a nap. Go downstairs, had applejuice.

(we crack up laughing)

Mommy's funny, Daddy's funny, Liam's funny.

...

Liam has Liam's Mommy. Liam's Mommy named Annika. Liam not have Addy's
Daddy, Liam has Liam's Daddy.

...

Liam not wearing sandals. Liam's right foot got stuck in a shoe. This
is the left foot (pats his left foot). This is the right foot (pats
right foot).

...

We went to Old Mcdonald's. Liam had French fries and a hamburger.
Uncle Muck came. Said "hi Uncle Muck!" Not Bobo. Uncle Muck go bye-bye.

There was so much more but I couldn't remember it. He was very
talkative tonight.

Steve

You need to do a twist!

Daddy: (singing) "Come on everybody let's do the twist"
Liam: (singing) "Come on everybody you need to do a twist!"

Steve

Phrases

Recently Liam has started saying phrases like: "here ya go Daddy" and
"I dunno what it is" which sound extra cute coming very nonchalantly
in his little voice.

Steve

Radical Dude

Liam loves wearing these old 80's sunglasses. I think its a good look for him :)

Recently, Liam started "calling" us in the same way he "calls" the dog: "Mommy, come!" He occasionally even adds in some hand claps or clicks to hurry us along if we delay. We're slowly getting him to at least modify it to: "Mommy, come... please." He says it so cheerfully and it's hilarious (even when he's "calling" me).

Hanta's Little Helper

Liam calls Santa "Hanta" and really enjoying decorating what he calls the "Hanta tree." While wrapping presents, Annika told him who would get each one. Here he is, practicing to be Hanta's little helper

Starting to read

Liam is on the cusp of being able to read. I noticed him reading some words in a book several weeks ago, but I think he's starting to sound things out now.

We had a fun time at IKEA today looking at things to make our basement more fun. They have a pretty cool slide. Beautiful weather today, so we're off on a walk!

Here's the Sesame Street song that made B Liam's favorite letter of all time!

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").

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 ;). 

Signing and Saying

Liam can now sign about 45 words and say about 24 (depending on what you count as a word and assuming I'm remembering everything). His signs are focused on animals, objects and requests, while his words are more focused on people (although animals and statements are close behind). Of all his words, there are only 7 that he can't also sign and they're almost all names, colors and letters, which are a bit more abstract. His words basically consist of the vowel sounds plus B, D, H, M and N.

I'm very glad we tried sign language with Liam since it has clearly enabled him to communicate with us much more than he can with words alone. I'd imagine this leaves him less frustrated than he would have been, but who knows? His vocabulary is very strongly centered around nouns (the verbs he knows like eat and sit are more focused on the nouns involved - like the food or the end-state of sitting - than the actions themselves). Grouping people with animals makes the focus on living things quite clear too. He's also picked up on the names of things before the attributes (e.g. ball before yellow). His spoken vocabulary is limited by the sounds he's capable of making, and his signs are also limited by the dexterity of his hands (yellow, sheep and water all involve more difficult hand shapes).

Here are the lists of words I'm counting so you can judge for yourself whether they "count" as words :)  Drum-roll please....

Signs:
Animals (13) : cat, dog, fish, lion, bird, pig, monkey, horse, cow, owl, bear, turtle, giraffe
Objects (11): moon, book, light, phone, bath (tub), fan (ceiling), ball, "that" (pointing), shoes, car, plane
Requests (10): help, open, pick-me-up, more, eat, drink, milk, please, down, sit
People (1): daddy, mommy
Statements (6): no (head shake), yes (head nod), all-done, bye, blow a kiss, hi/bye (wave)
Numbers (1): one
Colors (1): orange
Food (2): apple, banana

Says:
People (~6): Dada, Mama, Ady (friend Adeline), Baby (himself in a picture, or other babies), Debbie, Mommy, Daddy, Bobo (one of his grandfathers)
Animals (5): Ditty (for Kitty), 'oof (for dog), Moo (for cow), Raaar (lion roar), Baa (for sheep)
Statements (4): Bye, No, Hi, Uh-oh
Objects (3): Ba'a (Ball), Bone (dog's bone), 'Aoom (for car's vroom), Boo'oo (Pool)
Requests (2): Mo'h (More), num-num (for food)
Colors (2): B'oo (Blue), Yeddow (Yellow)
Sounds (1): A-choo (to fake a sneeze)
Letters (1): B

Kiss

I discovered that Liam learned a great new skill today - giving a kiss :) It's a wonderful new addition to our bedtime routine.
Liam is walking about 80% of the time now without help and I can tell we're on the verge of a new era of running after him. We took him to a terrific park yesterday with rubber padding all over the ground, and spent a long time following him around.

His signing vocabulary is getting bigger all the time and includes lots of animals (lion, cat, dog, pig, bird, fish...) and he's also starting to learn how to make some animal sounds (lion roar - which is adorable, woof, meow, moo).

On a visit to the zoo with his friends, he is fascinated by, of all things, a cow. To his credit, he did really like the elephant and the lion too--but he did indicate that the gorilla was a dog and had little interest.

Trying to play with the neighborhood kids that are twice his age, he ends up playing the role of the door-man.

Go get it!

We have taught our dog, Makoto, 1 trick: You tell him to stay, you throw his toy and then he will wait patiently until you say, "go get it!" Upon that command, the dog will jump into action and retrieve his toy. We have just now introduced Liam to this and he seemed a little perplexed, but also eager to get in on the action. You can tell in the video that he is wanting to be the boss and tell the dog to go get it. Now, we just need to teach Makoto to respond to "BUHHHHHH".

Standing tall

About a month ago, I turned my back while Liam was just waking up from a nap. When I turned around, he was standing up and laughing at his new accomplishment. He still doesn't pull himself up very often. He seems to have a smarter way to approach such things--Find a person who is mobile, say "Ba" and point until they bring you to the item you want. He has also found his own method of communication: "Da" is "this is fun", "Ma" is "I don't like this" and "Ba" is "I want." What more could a baby need?