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.

Nach Vorne, Nach Hinten

During my freshman year of highschool, my German teacher, Frau Luchini, taught us a German song: Nach Vorne, Nach Hinten. Translated, this song reads "To the front, To the back, To the left, to the Right, to the Up, To the Down, To the Left, To the Right." During this song, we were required to actually make the directional movements. Little did I know then that over 15 years later I would use this German song to bring laughter to my first born. You have to excuse the singing and the camera work, but you will get a glimpse of a Liam laugh.
As a parent, it is very rewarding to be able to make your child smile and laugh. For a long time, I was convinced that Liam would be identifying with Oscar the Grouch.

Rock and Roll

I'm blogging while monitoring again and have just watched Liam roll onto his tummy, and then roll himself back onto his back! Although he could roll onto his tummy already, I think this is the first time I've seen him do the reverse, which is the more important skill considering the extreme warnings about letting your baby sleep on his/her tummy. Although my entire generation always slept on our front, it is now considered a dangerous activity to be avoided at all costs - including not letting mom and dad sleep because they must constantly monitor baby.
Just as I finished writing that sentence, he rolled onto his tummy and got stuck. I had to go up and roll him back, so I guess we're not "out of the woods" yet!

Happy Father's Day, Steve

Steve's first father's day was filled with family and even a small little laugh from Liam. His first father's day coincided with Liam's 3rd month birthday, and true to all the baby books, it seems to be a major milestone. He is gradually stretching out his feeding times to be 3-4 hours during the day (although he is still on a 3 hour schedule at night--argh!); he also seems very happy during the times that he is awake as long as you dance, sing or make funny faces to entertain him. I am excited for the day that he can play peek-a-boo and worry that I might be making it rather trivial as I keep trying with no reaction from Liam besides a look of, "Yeah, so what. I've seen you do that since the day I was born." He is also holding his head up almost all by himself and he seems less fragile than before (although, at his weight, I am not sure if fragility was ever an adjective I would have used to describe him).

Moving and Talking

I'm currently watching Liam on our video monitor as he "sleeps" in his crib. His head is now where his feet were 30 minutes ago. He keeps curling up and rolling onto his side, then uncurling. He always does this on his left side and it always rotates him a little bit counter-clockwise, so he just keep spinning around in the crib. His eyes are definitely open and he keeps sticking his hands in his mouth, so we'll see when he actually goes to sleep...

Liam is also doing a lot of "talking" recently. He seems to especially get talkative when I am around. He usually says some combination of "Lah" and "Rah" but has a few other cute sounds in his repertoire. I've been trying to capture these phenomena on video to post here, but as soon as he sees a camera, he is fascinated by it and stops everything he was doing. He smiles more each day and sometimes lets out a joyful little shriek and that always makes us happy and laugh.

Since Liam is now able to roll himself over on to his tummy, but is not quite 3 months, our doctor directed us to not let him sleep in the crib over night while we sleep, until he is at least 4 months old! So, now he sleeps in the papasan chair Mariel gave us over night.

OK, he seems to have fallen asleep while I wrote this (30 minutes of moving and then 3 minutes to fall asleep). Good thing we have this video monitor - thanks mom and dad!!

Mommy and Me

Liam and I have been exploring our world lately. We have been so adventurous that we have made it to the mall twice, Target and the grocery store once, and even to my office a few times. He is getting to the point that you can count on him not to cry for at least two hours. Getting out seems to be good for both of us--the activity mat can only be so entertaining for so long.

Once a week, Liam and I go to a Mommy and me support group sponsored by the county that we live in. There are 4 other moms and babies in the group and we mostly just sit around and talk about the progress of our children and what issues we are personally dealing with. We usually have a guest speaker such as a nurse practitioner or a baby massager. During the meeting, I can't help but notice how active and alert Liam is. He seems very interested in all the other babies sleeping in their mom's arms and I think he gets a kick out of making me walk around so he can see everything. Every time I go, I am also struck with how big Liam is...he always looks like he is ready to eat the other babies for breakfast. The pictures don't seem to show the enormity of the weight difference, but some of these babies (all older than 5 weeks) don't even weigh as much as he did when he was born. One thing this group has taught me is that all babies are different.
  

Gavs weekend

Once a year, my girlfriends from Boston and I get together to talk, shop and do "girly" things. We named ourselves "The Gavs" and even came up with a little ditty to sing when we are all together. This year, Gavs-fest was a little different--no longer was it about finding a cool destination and sitting on the beach with a glass of wine. Instead, the Gavs were kind enough to journey to Liam and we found ourselves working around a baby's sometimes unpredictable schedule. Luckily for us, Steve was around and did a lot of daddy duty so we could get out for a bite to eat and even saw Sex and the City. Future Gavs weekends will probably be more of the same as one Gav, Kitty, is pregnant with her first and is due in August. Another Gav, Melissa, is in her 2nd trimester with twins. You can guess that wine was not a hot commodity this weekend, but fortunately for Liam, holding a baby was. In the picture above, Liam is trying to be part of the Gavs, but by the end of the weekend, he is showing how tired he is of all the girl talk.