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!