Nature walk

I took Liam for a walk in his stroller today. So many flowers are in bloom right now and I wanted to get pictures of some of them. I'm doing a "Fruits of the Spirit" activity with some online friends and thought it would be fun to have some original pictures to use.

It was sunny, but not too hot. Liam should have been wearing a hat, but lately when I put one on him he takes it off and throws it onto the ground. I'm pretty sure he didn't get the point of the nature walk and wasn't too enthusiastic about the walk in general.


I enjoyed it, though and got some pictures I like. This neighborhood is full of small, older homes, but some of the owners must really like to garden - flowers, that it. I didn't see any vegetable gardens except ours. It's not doing great. But I digress. Here is a picture of some daisies that I thought came out pretty well. Gives me some nice material for my activity.

A sense of style

While in the past year I have gone from thinking carefully about what to wear each day to grabbing whatever is clean off the top of the stack, I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about baby clothes. It's amazing how quickly Liam outgrew those early clothes. It's also amazing how something that is otherwise perfectly ordinary, like a pair of shorts, can become funny when you put it on a very little baby. Here's an example:


A snowsuit from a friend in the Orient was also a big hit. Unfortunately it looked bigger than it actually was, and he didn't get to wear it much.


Now that we are back to warm weather I'd love to leave Liam in just his diaper. But I can't do it too often, because he's figured out how to undo that Velcro on the wraps. But it's still fun to be able to see those chubby arms and legs.

The Whole scoop

OK, prepare yourselves, this post is about poop. Don't worry, I will include a cute picture later.

Liam has been having some digestive problems lately, including the fact that he has only been pooping every two or three days. Lots of prunes have not solved this problem lately. I tried introducing juice, but surprisingly, he didn't like it.

Anyways, today was a pooping day. Liam even pooped in two installments for my diaper changing pleasure. As I was standing over the toilet for the second time rinsing out the poopy diaper I thought fondly of the month or so during which we used disposable diapers.

We got them for our vacation and then had some left over. It was so nice to just be able to package up the smelly diaper and throw it away. Plus, they were less likely to leak and his clothes even fit Liam better. I get why people use those things.

But really, isn't this how we got to the place we are at now concerning the environment? What was once a convenience has now become a necessity. Every day we use things that will never be useful again and have to be buried in a hole in the ground. Sure, in theory some of them are "biodegradable," but in reality the way that we store them means that they will not turn into dirt for a VERY long time. Even if they did, would you want to grow food in that spot?

So I comfort myself as I stretch Liam's clothes over his bulky bottom. Sure, it takes resources to make and wash cloth diapers, but at least by the end of his first year of oxygen breathing he won't have a mountain of trash to his name.

All right, you can relax. Here's the cute picture. It shows off the "bleach free" disposables we used.

Simple pleasures

Sometimes the best toys aren't toys at all, but everyday objects. I was frying an egg for my lunch today and Liam was bored and fussing, so I gave him the empty club soda bottle sitting nearby. He quickly found out that it rolls well and began to chase it all over the kitchen. Soon he was laughing at his own game.


Another favorite toy at the moment is a large yogurt container. Liam also chases this around the floor and uses it as a drum. Of course he'd also like to play with the remote, any paper he can get his hands on, CD cases...pretty much everything at this point, but these do not make MY list of "the best toys!" The camera is also a big attraction, which sometimes makes it hard to get good pictures and video. I just realized that a toy camera could come in very handy!

A sign of the times

Liam is definitely getting to the point where he has ideas to communicate but limited options for getting his ideas across. In preparation for this time I have been showing him signs - based on American Sign language - for a couple of months. A few weeks ago he started using his first sign. It's an improvised sign for "ceiling fan." Since we have four of these in our house and he's always loved to watch them it was a natural.

He still hasn't started to use the signs that I think would be the most helpful like "drink" and "more." But yesterday he used a sign that we hadn't been trying to teach him. I asked him, "Are you tired?" Right away he put his hand up to his eye. I've tried this several times since then with consistent results. Actually, the words "tired" and "sleepy" seem to be interchangeable for this purpose.

Thinking about it, I realize that whenever Liam rubbed his eyes Allen or I would say, "Yes, you're tired. It's almost bedtime," or something along those lines. So we were reinforcing the sign without even realizing it.

Now you may be asking, "Isn't this just body language?" Well, it was just body language until Liam started consistently associating it with an English word. Now he can consciously use it to communicate. The motion becomes a symbol for tiredness. (OK, I'm in speech therapist mode here.)

I don't have a good picture of Liam signing yet, so here's a picture of a situation that doesn't really need language to get the meaning across. Well I think it's clear. Maybe we should have a "Write a caption for this picture" contest.

Liam sorts laundry

This is just a short clip from a five-and-a-half minute video of Liam sorting laundry. He was whining almost the whole time, but he kept at it. When I finally stopped recording and picked him up he started crying, like I had interrupted him doing something he really wanted to do.

If there is a gene that drives someone to sort laundry it must be recessive because neither Allen or I exhibit the trait. Liam, on the other hand, does this at every opportunity - and there are plenty of opportunities.

I know what you did last weekend

Well, not all of you, just the ones from our family who met us at a park for a picnic! It worked out pretty well considering that we picked the park off the internet because it was in a convenient location, not because we'd actually been there before. They could have marked that road as one way in the map on their website, though.

We enjoyed good food and good company. Grandpa brought a "corn hole" beanbag game, which was very popular. We celebrated Isaac's birthday. We also had a time of praise and prayer with a short message from my dad about the fact that Jesus welcomes all who will come to Him.

Liam enjoyed pulling grass, meeting Aunt Kathy's dog Alfie (and spending time with his Great Aunt Kathy who he hasn't been around much before), and generally having attention showered on him by his grandparents, great aunts and aunt and uncle. He did not enjoy the loud noise from a nearby airshow. As a matter of fact, neither did Alfie! They both turned to their respective "moms" whenever the offending noise assaulted them.

Liam Loves Literature

I guess it's pretty natural, since Allen and I both love to read and our house is full of books, but Liam LOVES books. Not just for chewing on either (although that is one of the things he thinks they're good for). He also likes to look at the pictures - sometimes even with the book right side up. His favorite way to interact with a book, though is to have someone read it to him. At the moment when we finish reading a book he takes it from our hands and pushes it back at us, not satisfied until we go back to the beginning and read it all again.

The book we read the most often is Little Quack's Bedtime. I literally have this book memorized word for word, which comes in handy when sleep is eluding our little guy. This is the best book we ever got free out of a box of Cheerios.

I'm also glad that the library has a collection of board books, although I have to admit that I expected board books to be a little more impervious to chewing than they are. I'm hoping that the library will be understanding about a little damage.

Then and Now - TV

When Liam was just a few months old his dad would hold him while watching sports - especially football - on TV. It seemed to sooth our baby, who often had a touchy tummy and didn't sleep too well. We figured it was the "white noise" effect of the cheering crowds.

One day when Liam was particularly fussy I walked with him into the living room and turned on the TV. If I was going to have to walk in circles around our not-particularly-large living room I wanted to have something to occupy my mind. Nat Geo was showing a rerun, though. I left it on because I was busy trying to figure out how to calm my increasingly upset son. Finally, I grabbed the remote and switched to a football game. His head swiveled around toward the TV and he stopped crying immediately. He was completely calm until the next commercial. Thankfully it was a Saturday and I could switch to another game!



In the picture above, Liam is watching football with his dad. This picture was taken in November, so Liam was just three months old at the time. You can also see that with a baby in the house, interior decorating was not our biggest priority!

These days, Liam is more interested in the remote than the TV. He figures that if Mom and Dad play with it it must be a good toy. Since electronics and drool don't mix well, we try to avoid letting him play with this, but occasionally he gets his hands on it.

Here's the video I've been trying to post!

This is the first time I can remember Liam doing something that cracked himself up. Before he always laughed at something we did. I don't think he gets the idea of what a bowl is for!

Sample Post

It seems like everyone has a blog, so I thought maybe I'd get one too. We'll see if anything really comes of it!