Liam graduates to the toddler room

When I took Liam to daycare today, he was moved into the toddler room for the day. Now that they are getting in so many smaller babies, Liam is being slowly introduced to the routines of the toddler room, especially since he is walking well and acting like a toddler in so many ways.

He got to play outside for a while and they told me that he ate lunch at the table with the other toddlers. Such a BIG boy! When I arrived he was napping on a mat on the floor, not a crib anymore. Now if I could only get him to do that at home!

I waited a while at daycare and then gingerly moved him to the car. He slept for another hour in the car and I chilled out in the car too while we were at the park. Then we got to play for a while at the Potter Park playground. Elli and Scarlet joined us with their mommy's. Liam had lots of fun on the swing and chasing the girls around (they are much faster runners than he is right now).

This evening it was stormy, so we stayed in and watched cartoons after dinner. Then mommy had to go to work in the rain, leaving the boys to get a bath.

Settling IN

Well, we are officially all moved in now. The only problem is that we still don't have internet connection. So, this is a brief update on things until we have a more reliable gateway to cyberspace.

Liam has been throwing full-blown toddler tantrums as of late. He screams so load that he's made is throat horse. During the moments between tantrums, Liam is busy exploring the new house, coloring with markers, helping mommy and daddy rake in the back yard, and playing with friends at the playground.

Liam as started showing preferences for different foods. His all time fav is gold fish crackers...what do they put in those things to make them so addictive?!

Moving Mania

Last night was our first night in the new house. Liam as so excited that he kept running around upstairs. Exploring one room and then another. We were all so exhausted from moving so much over the weekend that we passed out around 8pm. We slept pretty well, even with it being only 65 degrees in the house this morning. We haven't turned on the heat yet, but it might be necessary if the evening temps stay in the 40s.

I was so chilly this morning that I bundled Liam up in fleece pants, woolly socks, and a sweater. I took the time to hook up the TV and VCR after breakfast so that Liam could watch Baby Einstein while I unpacked some things. He happily watched his video. When it was over I came to check on him and there he was...half-naked. He must have gotten too hot, because he took off his socks and pants and was standing there in only a diaper (which was also partially removed) and a sweater.

Liam was a trooper all weekend. It was quite a crazy time, but we finally have most of our stuff out of the apartment...everything except my office and computer that is. Since we don't have internet service at the house yet, we're leaving the office till last. So I won't be updating the blog too often this week. I should go pack some books while Liam is napping...gotta go!

PS - A HUGE thanks too everyone who helped us with remodeling and moving! We couldn't have done it without you!

Super Poopy!

Today we had a potty training milestone. First, Liam indicated that he wanted to use the potty. He did this by going to and playing with the potty. Taking the hint, I undressed him and put him on it. Then he proceeded to go #1 and a moment later he went #2! This is his first time pooping in a potty. Yeah! One less poopy diaper to wash! I am so proud of him.

To celebrate, we went to Fenner Park for a stroll in the woods. We first went into the nature center. Liam had fun watching the turtles swim around in the tank, as well as looking at the injured morning doves they were rehabilitating. They also had books and puzzles and different objects from nature to touch and look at. Liam was particularly fond of a tree log, which he carried around with him while we were there.

Once back outside, we stopped off at the pond to look at fish and frogs in the water. Then we headed down one of the forested trails. Liam examined sticks, pine cones, rocks, and leaves along the trail. We walked quite a ways together, having lots of fun crunching leaves noisily under our feet. Eventually Liam sat down in the path, his little legs where tired. Luckily I brought my wrap with me, so I tied him to my back and we finished our walk. Once in the car, he fell asleep. We both took a much needed nap when we got home.

This afternoon, we ran errands together. Liam actually ate a little dinner tonight. He likes his daddy's sloppy joe. Today went too fast!

He's got fangs!

Well...actually just one fang, but I just had to make the Monty Python reference. Yes, that's right, Liam is getting yet another tooth and this time it's his upper, left canine. Sean and I have been wondering why Liam has been especially whinny the past couple days. I swear he was happy for only 20 minutes of the day on Tuesday (yes it's been that bad!). It's seems that teething is the culprit again.

This morning Liam woke up cranky, but I treated him to a nice bubble bath with the new stuff I got by California Baby. The bubble bath is aptly named "Tired and Cranky". It's guaranteed to turn your baby from cranky to sweet. It worked like a charm this morning, just long enough for me to get this cute photo of Liam walking his puppy and eating apple slices. He actually looks happy here!

Liam spent the rest of the day at daycare. When Sean picked him up, they told him that he hadn't eaten much and had a bad diaper rash. Ugh! Mr. cranky was back in full force this evening. He cried and cried while we tried to eat sub sandwiches for dinner at the new house. I gave him a plate full of sandwich cut into pieces. Normally he would have loved it, because it was turkey and cheese. Finally I offered him my sandwich. That's what he wanted. He had to hold it himself and bite off of it. He was happy and eating for a few minutes, then crying uncontrollably again.

Later when we got home I snuck a feel of his gums after nursing him and sure enough, I could feel a canine poking through. He's got thirteen teeth now!

I tried to perk Liam up before I went to work for the evening by giving him the toy watch I had made earlier in the day. I thought he would like his own watch, since he enjoyed wearing grandpa John's watch so much.

You spin me right round

Well, we're overdue for an update on little Liam. He's been quite busy lately! Last week he started spinning around in circles. He seems to enjoy getting himself so dizzy that he falls down :)

Liam has also been very talkative. He's started using personal pronouns. Last weekend, he bumped his head on a drawer in the kitchen and said "I ow". If I listen to his babbling carefully, I can often pick up fragments of words and sentences. He uses too many words for me to keep track of now.

He loves imitating everything I do. Some examples of what he wants to do: flush the toilet, sweep the floor, paint on the walls, drink from a cup, brush his hair and teeth, fix dinner in the kitchen, write with a pen, and today he "helped" me rake up old mulch in the back yard. I've noticed him carefully observing people and children around him and them imitating their actions.

This morning, while Ashtyn was visiting, he imitated her trying to feed her stuffed animal from a cup. He picked up his stuffed Pooh bear and gave him a sip from a cup too! Here are Liam and Ashtyn playing on blankets...seems my attempt at naptime is not working.

I try to encourage imitation where possible and appropriate, because I know it's the way he learns how to do things. For example, I gave him is own rake and own small paint roller when we were working on the house. Today I purchased some markers for him so that he can "write" things down like I do. For Christmas I plan on making or buying Liam pretend kitchen stuff, since I have room for it in our new place and because he enjoys playing in the kitchen with me so much.

And the rain came falling down...

Whew, what a wet and rainy day! Liam was back with us today as we attempted to finish most of the big tasks at the house. Today we painted the dining room, kitchen, hall, and stairwell. We also cleaned and painted window sills, installed the baby gate at the top of the stairs and added more coats of varnish to the master bedroom floor. I did take a few moments out of my busy day to take some pictures of Liam and to snuggle and feed him too. Here he is playing on the porch of our new house.

Just before we left for the day, I unrolled the play rug that we got for Liam at IKEA and let him run around in his room. He had so much fun! I think we will make such a special place for Liam to play in his new room. After we all cleaned up, we went out to Zeus' for dinner. Liam fell asleep on the drive over and was so zonked that he slept in my arms for most of dinner. He woke up just in time to eat some of the lamb meat out of my gyro, finish off the humus, and share my rice pudding. Yum!

Regrets

Sorry, no big posts lately. We've been very busy with renovating the new house and Liam has been at "school" (daycare) for the past couple days. It was hard going to work tonight and leaving Liam because he really wanted some affection and attention from me. On my short drive home from work I started reflecting on how fast summer went by. Them my thoughts went to the various activities and things that we had planned to do this summer and never did. It's amazing how just being a parent makes you come to regret all sorts of small things. I lived the first 28 years of my live relatively regret-free. But now, I regret that we never took Liam camping this summer, or to the beach, we never biked to the zoo or the market, and why didn't I make more playdates, my list could go on and on...I know it's silly, but it must be a natural part of parenthood.

On the other hand, we've done so much too! We went to a kite festival and saw Lake Michigan, we did go to the zoo many times and went to two other zoos as well, we went kayaking and took many, many walks, we went geocaching, and much more too...it's been a pretty adventurous summer after all. :)

It's a yellow sort of day

Surprisingly, both mommy and daddy where up before Liam this morning. He didn't want to get up and was snug as a bug in our bed. We went to work at the house again today. While playing with his duplos on the porch, Liam said "yellow" when grandma pulled out a yellow block. He also said "blue" when grandma asked him what color the blue block was. I think this was the first time that he said the colors of something. I taught him the names of common colors, but he hasn't used them before today.

Lucky Thirteen

Yesterday Liam turned 13 months old. My has August gone by fast! This past weekend was especially busy with working on our new house. Sean's folks and my mom came up to lend us a hand. We've been busy laying new flooring in the kitchen, cleaning, painting, refinishing floors upstairs, and even making a trip to IKEA for all sorts of stuff.

I think all the chaos may be a little stressful for Liam. Grandpa John has been watching him during the day, while Sean and I work on the house. In the evenings, Liam has been a velcro baby wanting to soak up as much of mommy as he can. Last night I let him take a bath with me. He had fun floating and kicking in the deeper then usual water.

Homeward Bound!

Well today was a very special day. We closed on our very first house! It was a super crazy morning, but oh so rewarding to spend the rest of the day in our home. Liam had a ball running around in the wide open spaces and hearing an echo when he yelled. We'll be spending Labor Day weekend and the following week painting and updating the kitchen floor before we move. Hurray, a house!

PS - Liam said his first sentence today. It was "I want deedee." Deedee is our word for pacifier. He said this when he was trying to take a nap in the car on our way over to closing.

"Liam, I am your father."

What a busy day! In addition to our usual Thursday errands we had various last-minute things to take care of before we close on our house tomorrow. This meant that mommy was on the phone a whole lot today. To make things even more interesting, we finally got Liam's 12 month photos taken this evening. My friend Lindsey, Marlow's mom, is an artist and photographer. She met us at the apartment and then we went to a local park where she took lots of photos of Liam. It was quite the workout, because he was walking around everywhere and climbing on the plants. He had a blast at the park. I can't wait to see how the photos turn out!

Later on tonight, Liam found daddy's light-saber under the bed. He was super excited about it...wow, it lights up and makes cool noises! Liam played with it for nearly an hour! Eventually daddy took the batteries out of it because he was tired of hearing the sound effects. :)

PS - Lindsey sent me a couple of photos via e-mail. Here's my cutie!

Bye, Bye, Bye!

This morning as Liam and I were leaving for daycare, Liam said "bye" three times and waved as he did! It's not yet a language explosion, but the language part of his brain is definitely developing right now. He had a great day at "school" (daycare). He got to play outside for a while on the swings and even went down a small slide. When Sean and I arrived to pick him up he was giving a smaller baby their bottle, which had fallen to the floor. What a thoughtful little boy!

This evening he had fun pulling pots and pans out of one of the boxes I packed. His favorite pan is the angel food cake. A couple days ago he figure out that the inner portion of the angel food cake pan will fit over his arm and he can put his fingers through the hole at the end. It makes me laugh when he does this...I call him ROBO-BABY! It's not a very good picture, but you get the idea.

Fun with Daddy!

This evening I had training for my new job as a tutor/mentor, so Liam got to spend some quality time with daddy. Since it was a hot evening, Sean took Liam to the splash pad to play. He said that Liam had fun, but preferred to be held by daddy rather than running around. Perhaps Liam is developing a little stranger anxiety after all...he seems to get a little nervous in crowds. Then daddy treated Liam to some ice cream. Boy, Liam is sure going to be spoiled in the evenings when mommy's not around! When I came home Liam greeted me at the door, giggling. He wanted me to pick him up as soon as I came in. It's so nice to be loved!

During the past couple days Liam been using more and more words. I've heard him say "down" and "why". He also used "kitty" a couple times while we were briefly at my mom's house on Monday. This morning we did our usual shopping spree at the thrift store's end of the month blowout. I must have really tired Liam out, because he took an uncharacteristically long nap between 11am and 3pm.

Yesterday we had a whirlwind trip to Indiana and back so that I could transport some more of my stuff from my mom's house. Liam was a trouper through it all, even through we were in a car for most of the day.

Highland Weekend

Today we took a drive to the Michigan Renaissance Festival in Holly, Michigan. We got a special discount for this weekend with our zoo membership, so we thought this would be the perfect time to go have some fun before we get too busy with moving into the house. The weather was just perfect today - nice and sunny for the first time in over a week.

For the occasion I made Liam a little kilt and also a matching pocket sling to carry him in. Unfortunately, in our rush to leave this morning I forgot my camera, so here are a few pictures that I took of Liam after we got home from our adventure.

We all had so much fun looking at all the vendors, watching shows, and people-watching too. We were there for four hours! Liam stayed awake the entire time, but fell asleep on our walk back to the car as we left. Surprisingly, he didn't want to walk on his own. I think the crowds were a bit much for him and he preferred to be carried by mommy or daddy in the sling. Liam got much adoration from the vendors and crowd...he did look pretty darn cute in his kilt!

I didn't get Sean's kilt sewn in time for this festival, but hopefully it will be done for next year. We also got him a heavy leather belt, a rabbit pelt to make him a satchel, and a ceramic flute. Mommy got a specially made bronze coin. Liam got a super soft teddy bear made from angora (see photos above). He loved it so much that he wouldn't put it down!

Mommy, here!

Yesterday Liam and I went to a crawler play-group. He has rapidly out-grown this play group being so big and active, especially now that he is walking. Luckily, most of the other babies who come to this group are also walking too. Liam is always so happy at these play groups. He loves meeting other babies, playing with all the toys, begging food off other mommies, and exploring.

Last night was pretty restless for all of us (just like the last several nights). I think Liam's lower, right molar is finally coming in the rest of the way. He wakes throughout the night and cries. He's also been resisting naps and randomly irritable during the day. Another sign is frequent bowl movements...ick! He's also been having a bad case of sweaty baby-head. He isn't running a fever though, just a little warm. I can't resist the smell of his sweaty little head and it gives him cute curly hair. Liam was less cranky today, so maybe, just maybe, the worst is over now.

Today Liam accompanied daddy and mommy to the hardware store to look at stuff for our new house. We found some great bargains on clearance. Not so much fun for babies though. So later we took him to Pruess Pet store. This is the mother of all pet stores! It's practically a zoo! Liam got to run around the store looking at turtles, ferrets, lots of fishes, and birds too.

Our neighbor, Chris, came over to visit for a little while in the afternoon. Liam loves Chris because he tickles and throws him in the air. Liam giggled up a storm!

For dinner I made everyone Sockeye Salmon. Yum! Liam loved it and ate nearly every morsel. Later this evening, I was busy putting clothes away after doing laundry when Liam carried one of our folding laundry baskets in to me and said "Mommy, here." I picked Liam up and put him inside the basket. He crawled out and then put the basket on his head and took off walking. He ran out to where daddy was sitting in the living room. I was laughing so hard that I got hiccups. Liam and I both ended up with simultaneous hiccup attacks, because all the play and giggling also gave him hiccups.

We also worked on doing somersaults today. I would tell Liam to put his head down and bottom up and then I helped him roll over. He thought this was great fun, especially when I demonstrated by doing a somersault too. No one was more surprised than myself, because I haven't done one in at least fifteen years!

Cup half full...

At daycare yesterday, Liam had a great day and was very playful. I was happy to hear that he is really having fun there. However, I was a little miffed when I learned that they passed out Oreo cookies for a snack...that sort'a negates all my hard work to feed Liam organic, nutritious, and balanced meals.

Yesterday Liam said "cow" for the first time. He said it while we were playing with his sorting farm set. This morning he said "cow" again when we were looking at a book that had cows in it. Liam was pretty playful today too. He crawled up on the loveseat and posed for some silly pictures this morning.

Liam got to take two walks today. One with me in the morning and one with daddy in the afternoon. I had a training session for my new job this afternoon, so my friend Alissa was nice enough to watch Liam for part of the time and then Sean came home early from work to watch him for the rest of the afternoon. I was gone for only a few hours, but I sure missed him.

This evening, Liam discovered how to fill a cup of water from the tap. It was really neat to see him figure this out. Then he went on to scoop water out of the tub to fill the cup after I turned the water off. Bath time is so much fun!

Friends on rainy days

Monday and today the weather was cold and rainy. Liam and I tried to make the best of it by spending some time visiting with friends. On Monday we spent the afternoon with Alissa and 14 month-old Ashtyn. They gave Liam a birthday gift...a set of plastic T-rex bones for playing in the sand! I'm sure Liam will have a blast with these the next time we go to the beach. This evening we got to try them out in the living room at home. Liam had lots of fun exploring Alissa's house and playing with all of Ashtyn's toys. Later, we all went out together to take care of the grocery shopping. It was nice to go shopping with someone else.

Today we went to the home of Sara and 15 month-old Elli. Liam spent most of his time chasing after their dog, Cody. He loves dogs and cats. Sara tried to talk me into adopting one of her cousins beagle/basset puppies. It sure is tempting, but I think there is too much going on right now to add a pet to our family.

Long weekend

Whew, what a long weekend! Liam and I spent the last three days in Indiana. We were visiting my mother to help her sort through my father's office and also to pack up some of the things in my childhood room. We got home rather late today.

The big news for the weekend is how much Liam was talking. He was saying and repeating words left and right! Words like: water, please, kitty, thank you, up, and more.

What's lost & what remains?

Today Liam and I met up with Lisa and her daughter Lesli (who is only three days older than Liam). We went to the Impression 5 Science museum here in town. While it was admittedly a little advance for our 12 month-olds, it was a lot of fun. Liam got to run around in a large space and had a blast looking in silly mirrors, playing with bubbles and boats in water tanks, making music on a piano and xylophone, and watching balls being thrown in a miniature trebuchet. We also sat inside a HUGE model of a mouth! We were quite hot and exhausted after all that!



This evening I went to my first grief support group...hence the cryptic title to this post. The lady who runs the group suggested that to work through our grief we have to think through what is lost, what remains, and what are the possibilities (for the future). I like this. It makes it easier to work through the grief and allows me to make my feelings concrete. So much work to do...