Sleeping Beauty

Allen put Liam to bed tonight. It gives me a nice break when the house is quiet and I can do whatever I want. Usually, though, I just play Facebook games. I am exhausted most of the time, to tell you the truth. Lately we've all had colds, which doesn't help the tiredness.

For a while it seemed like Liam was giving up his afternoon naps altogether. I used to be able to lay down on the bed with him and get him to go to sleep, but then he decided he rather climb all over me and play in the bed. I couldn't hold him down and just got frustrated. So I made up a "special bed" in the living room hoping that he would fall asleep there. Now if he isn't falling asleep I lay down on the special bed and try to get some rest while he plays. Often he falls asleep between four and five p.m. This week he's taken some very long naps starting at that time. Makes for some late nights!

Often when he does fall asleep it's not on the "special bed, but somewhere else on the floor. Bumping into toys as he scoots around in his sleep doesn't seem to bother him.

Projects

You will not find this recipe in any cookbook! This is what happens when you combine lots of CSA veggies with not much time or energy. Helps to have adventurous eaters. It's curry made with leeks, beets and tops, coconut milk and black beans. That's what was handy. We have been enjoying our fresh organic vegetables, but they have often been more than we can eat. I would like to have done more preserving, but just wasn't up to it this year. Liam is often not up for new veggies, but he will at least try most. Often they come right back out, but at least he tries.

Liam has been working hard at learning to use the potty. Just yesterday we went several hours and several trips to the potty without having to get new underwear! The downside is that Liam still refuses to poop in the potty, so he can get a little behind in pooping when he's working on potty training. He gets to watch extra TV, though while he's waiting for developments.

Liam's big passion lately has been tunnels. Allen was dubbed "Tunnel-man" because he built some big 'pooky tunnels out of the big blocks for Liam. This track has survived much longer than most tracks do around our house. The tunnels have been modified and become parking spaces for small cars as you may be able to see in the picture.

We have also been continuing our project of learning Chinese. This has mostly involved play dates with Chinese friends, but we have also been watching a few online videos. This morning Liam was looking out the kitchen window at the neighbor's fall decorations. When he said, "Beaufitul flowers" I said, "Can you say beautiful in Chinese?" He said, "Beaufitul in Chinese."

Toledo Zoo

Last Wednesday we went to Toledo Zoo. It was sure different from last year's zoo trip when Liam thought that everything was a "doggy." Now he can say the names of the animals and even sometimes had special greetings for them. When I said, "Oh look, you can see the rhinos," he said, "Hi! I'm so glad to see you!"

He also enjoyed climbing on some rocks. He did a lot of walking around the zoo and actually got mad at us when we made him ride in the stroller on the way out.

Another big favorite was the elephants. I didn't know he was so interested in elephants, but it was the one thing he specifically asked to see.

He also had a close encounter with some ducks. I think that they were technically "wild" ducks that just happen to like living in the zoo. They aren't very afraid of people, though.

Catching up

Well, once again, it's been a while since I've managed to post. In July we went to New Hampshire for two weeks of vacation. We stayed with our friend Rob and enjoyed clean air and good fellowship. We had two weekends of "gaming." It was fun to play games, but Liam didn't have much patience with the process, so usually either Allen or I had to sit out.
Here's Rob and Allen playing "Agricola." I played this one too, but I'm not very good at it. Liam just wanted to arrange the little wooden pieces.

We also took a ride up a mountain in a sky tram. When we got to the top we took a little hike around the top of the mountain and climbed to the top of an observation deck. Liam was a trooper and climbed up the stairs himself. When we got back to the bottom he was pretty tired!


We also took another trip to Cascade Brook. The adventure this year was that one of Liam's shoes fell in the water and had to be fished out. Liam really liked throwing stones into the water and wading in puddles, but he didn't want to get in the water himself.


We enjoyed attending a couple of concerts that Rob played his tuba in. Liam danced to the music and did laps around the bandstand.

Out and about

Last week we got to see our friend Frances in Oberlin Ohio. She was lives in Texas now, but had a professional conference in Oberlin. We enjoyed having lunch with her. Well, mostly we enjoyed it. Liam was very frustrated because we wouldn't let him play with the salt and pepper shakers which were shaped like taxi cabs.


Afterward we took a walk in a nearby park. Liam walked round and round this planter. He would have been content to keep going but we were getting warm in the sun and I was getting worried about the bees which might not be as friendly as story books make them out to be.

On Monday we visited Grandma or "GG" in Lima. Liam and I went since Allen was in the middle of a three night "observing run" - he was running a telescope from his office. The telescope is actually in Arizona, but thanks to the internet he didn't actually have to go. Anyways, we had fun visiting with GG and Uncle John. Liam remembered that GG has blocks and he played with them and her "little houses" quite a bit. He also thought it was great fun to roll the container the blocks are stored in to us as we were sitting in the living room. He took a spill headfirst off a kitchen chair. It was pretty traumatic for all of us and he ended up with a bruise. But when we got home he said he had "fun" rolling the block container and didn't mention the fall. He's been climbing up on things just as much as ever since then - maybe even more.


In fact, the other day he picked up his ride-on car and put it on the ottoman. Then he climbed up on the ottoman and sat down on the car exclaiming, "Better!" Allen didn't think it was better since the wheels of the car were about to slip off on one side.

He's also been running more lately, which is good for his development, but can have negative consequences. Today he got his first band-aid. He and I were playing a "get you" game and he ran toward a wall and tripped. He caught the corner of a heating/cooling register with his forehead and clipped another part with his hand - removing a layer of skin. He recovered from this amazingly fast. After a brief application of an ice pack he said he was "happy."

The point of this picture is that it shows Liam's first band-aid. But he's more interested in the fact that it shows the truck on his shirt.

Chickens and other events

Last Friday we got the first box of vegetables from the "Community Supported Agriculture" farm that we are going to be getting our veggies from this summer. We had gone to an organizational meeting a few weeks before and Liam really enjoyed getting to pet a chicken. This time he didn't get to pet one, but he still enjoyed seeing them, and we remembered the camera.

Last week was a challenging week as Liam adjusted to not nursing. He generally woke up very early and then was tired and grumpy because he wasn't getting enough sleep. I found that it was generally easier to deal with him if we had an outing of some kind, so we took an extra trip to the library. We even arrived before it opened, which was hard for Liam to understand. He kept wanting to go "in."

Once he got inside he was mostly glued to his favorite spot - the train table. Since it wasn't right after story time he had less than the usual amount of competition for trains and track space. Possibly by observing other children playing he has discovered that there are other ways to have fun with trains besides letting them roll down the hill and watching them fall off the track. Not that watching things fall has lost its appeal to him!

Thomas Clothes

Liam and I stepped out onto the porch today to check the mail and found that although it was raining the air felt warm and soft. I thought Liam would like to walk around in the rain, so I put his swim suit on him and we headed out. By that time it had gotten somewhat cooler, but Liam still wanted to go. We walked up and down out walk and driveway in water that was deep enough that Liam said, "Splish splash! Splish splash!" When we got inside we changed out of our wet clothes, but Liam was still pretty excited about his "Thomas clothes." There are pictures of Thomas the tank engine on his swim suit.

Weaning

Well I may have nursed Liam for the last time - yesterday afternoon. We have been gradually cutting back on the amount of nursing he's been doing. Since Thursday night Allen has been putting him to bed. Yesterday morning and this morning when he woke up at five in the morning Allen gave him milk to drink and got him to go back to sleep. So yesterday we were down to just nap time. I decided to tackle that one this afternoon and managed to get him to sleep without nursing.

I feel both happy and sad about this. Nursing has been very hard on me physically. I wanted to nurse Liam longer, but he had started taking two hour "marathon nursing naps." I didn't get any rest to speak of during those times and was getting way too tired. Also, I've really been wanting to eat some chocolate, which I've been avoiding while nursing in case it kept Liam awake. And then there's my hormones, which I would like to get back to "normal."

But on the other hand, this seems like another step in the end of the "baby" stage for Liam. I don't think I can handle having another baby, so yesterday was probably the last time I will nurse - ever. I feel kind of sad about that.

I think Liam is adjusting to the change pretty well. I thought he would be very fussy when he woke up from his nap this afternoon, but he did pretty well. It helps that he's still really excited about the cars and "shovels" we got yesterday!

Liam is still sleeping in our bed with us. Well we try to get him to sleep in the crib and he's doing that more and more, but tends to scoot over into bed some of the time. I managed to get him to sleep this afternoon by going into the other room, which has a futon in it. Maybe he will start taking naps in there, which would be a step toward having him sleep on his own.

Why sleep in the crib when you can stretch out on the bed? Caught Liam in this pose the other day as he was just waking up from a nap.

Two dollar bag day!

I've been seeing signs for a garage sale at the fairgrounds, so I decided this morning to go - with Liam. We'd already been up since 6:45 and it was time for a change of scenery anyways. So we put the stroller in the trunk and headed off.

The first signs I saw for a garage sale led to a small sale - nothing exciting or very enticing. I managed to find a few kid's books, but I was thinking, "They opened up the fairgrounds for this?" The nice man at the cash register gave Liam a hippo key ring, but that didn't really make it worth the trip.

As we were heading back toward the car I spotted people coming out of another building with bags in their arms. I investigated and found the Wood County Humane Society garage sale. It was two dollar bag day! So we bought a bag and headed in. Clothes and kitchen items didn't interest us much, but we found some toys and games at the back. Filled a bag and took it out to the car. But I still hadn't made it over to the books, so I bought another bag and headed over. They weren't great, so after we'd taken the good ones we headed back over toward the toys. Liam was begging to get out of the stroller by this time, so I put the bag in the stroller and let him walk. Went pretty well until he started crawling around on the floor pushing cars. Dirty floor. We even got to say "Hi!" to our friends the Yu's.

When we got home we headed straight out to the back deck to wash the new toys (mostly cars and "shovels"). I took Liam's pants off him so they wouldn't get messed up. It's a good thing. His bottom got wet and grime from the deck rubbed off on his diaper cover. But we got the toys washed and brought them in the house. Finally Liam was free to PLAY! Had to stay in the kitchen, though since some of the cars were still wet.

Where to start

The problem with getting out of the habit of posting to a blog is that when you want to start up again you have to figure out where to start. I have no idea, but here goes....

Allen's parents, Jeremy and Phyllis visited us for two weeks. They left last Saturday. Liam warmed up to them quickly He called them "Dad" (for Grandad) and "Carpone" (which somehow translates to Grandma.) He gave them lots of hugs and enjoyed hearing extra stories and having more help building train tracks.


Before that we had a nice picnic with my family at a park near upper Sandusky. It was by a river and when Liam saw it he took a deep breath and said, "Delish!" He spent a long time throwing handfuls of sand into the river. He got sand and water all over him. I wasn't worried because we had a change of clothes in the diaper bag. It would have been more convenient, however, if the diaper bag had been in the car, rather than back at the house. Thankfully Aunt Cindy had some clothes she could lend us.

We enjoyed seeing baby Ben as well as Granny and Grandpa, Grammy and Grandpa and Liam's two uncles - Isaac and Titus. The day started out a little cold, but turned out to be beautiful.

Music

Liam has been having more and more fun with music lately. He likes to join in on songs like "The Wheels on the Bus" (although we do it with animal sounds) and "Doe a Dear." He also likes to play his drum and often dances to music. Our Chinese friends have keyboards that have rhythms programed in and Liam gets so excited when those are turned on and the kids all dance together.

Today I have heard a couple of two word "sentences" from Liam like "toys in" and "toys away." When he started to say "away" I thought that he was saying "hurray!" I had never heard him say "away" before. But he kept saying it in a way that made me think he was trying to make me understand him. Then he said what really sounded like, "I mean, away."

Liam has been more vocal about what he doesn't want lately. When we try to give him food he doesn't want to eat, or have him stop playing and go get his diaper changed he tends to wave his arms and give a little rant in baby language. Sometimes I have to try not to laugh as he seems to be explaining very emphatically why what I want him to do is a bad idea.

Busy weeks

I've been busy lately getting together with our new Chinese friends. Two get-togethers in one week, plus a counseling appointment for me is more than I'm used to. Plus, we had to buy a new microwave this week because our old one was catching food on fire. I'm exhausted now.

Liam is already benefiting from having more interaction with kids his age. On Wednesday he saw his friend Roger (14 months) climbing up some stairs. Later that day we were outside doing a little spring yard work and he climbed up the stairs to the porch all by himself - for the first time.

On Friday we met our friends at the park. Liam loved the swings and even went down a pretty big slide. He wasn't too sure about walking on the mulch, but he did pretty well. It was a little cold and windy, so we ended up coming back to our house for a picnic in the living room. Since that wasn't the original plan I hadn't cleaned up, but we had fun anyway.

Hopefully I can post some pictures soon.

A walk

Liam likes to tell us that he wants to take a walk. Today he and I walked to the library (well I walked and he rode in his stroller.) The weather was great for walking and we didn't have to try to find a parking space.

Things were much less traumatic for Liam today than they were last week. Liam had fun with the trains despite a rather large crowd at the train table. he even took a little tour of the big people part of the library. Before we left he said good-bye to his Chinese friends.

New words for today include "three" (Liam said "one two three" without prompting from me), "pumpkin" and "orange" (while pointing to a picture of an orange pumpkin), and "CD." It still can be hard to understand what he's saying, but if I don't repeat back what he's saying correctly he repeats it and sometimes points to an object or picture to help me understand.

A new season

Spring is promising to come. Most of the snow has melted and it was really almost warm today. Also the skunk that lives very near our house (possibly under the deck) has started spraying again.

Yesterday Liam said what I really think was his first sentence. He said, "A book...read...lap." I didn't know that he knew how to say lap, so I asked him if was saying lap and he nodded his head. He said this while laying on the changing table.

New words today included heart, purse, and dance. He also said "apple juice." I like to ask him "Who loves you?" He usually says, "Mama and Daddy!" Today he said, "Daddy and piggy and Grover!"

Today we went to the house of a lady we met at the library. A group of Chinese moms and their little ones meet every Tuesday morning at her house. We had a good time. It was great to be with so many friendly people. Liam was nervous at first, but he really seemed to enjoy himself later, in spite of being bonked a few times by accident. He was really exhausted afterward. He just wanted to nurse when we got home and fell asleep right away. They also meet at another house on Friday mornings, so we will try that too...

Opposites, verbs, counting

Liam is learning about opposites. Thursday night we were sitting at the table and Liam was in his highchair. He pointed to the living room which was lighted up with an overhead fixture and a lamp and said, "Light." Then he pointed to the kitchen window, and said "Dark." Sure enough, it was dark outside.

This morning while I was eating my breakfast he wanted to play with the box his breakfast bars came in. He lifted the box up above his head and said, "up high." Then he put it down on the tray and said, "down low." I have been playing "up high, down low" with him for a while, but usually he just puts his hands up and down and I say the words.

Liam has been using lots of verbs lately. Words like: go, walk, help, run, peeking, and (just now) read. We went for a walk yesterday with Liam in the stroller. He really enjoyed it. The first thing he said this morning was "go." Then "walk." Actually, I'm not sure if walk is a noun or a verb in this case....

I have thought for a while that Liam knew how much "two" was. He would say "two" when he had two spoons in his hands, or two Cheez-its. But it didn't seem like he knew how much "one" was. Yesterday, however, Liam was with Allen in the bathroom. Liam's shoe came off and he gave it to Allen and said, "one." Then Allen put the shoe back on and said, "How many shoes do you have now?" Liam said, "Two."

This morning Liam was playing with his blocks. He put one block on top of the stack and said, "One." Then he put another block on top and said, "Two."

The Tall Tower

Last night Liam and I made a very tall tower. Liam really enjoyed this. When we had used up most of the blocks near us he went in search of more and was always delighted when he found them. As you can see, the tower got taller than Liam. He is very good at building with blocks now.

Today we went to the library for story hour. We were a little late and while I was hanging up our coats I left Liam standing by the door to the story room. Another child came out of the room screaming and Liam started to cry. It took a while for him to get settled down and he had a few more upsets while we were there.

Words and actions

Liam's newest words include: big, apple, run, Liam, push, and potty. He also says bread, help, up, block and car. I don't think I could make an accurate list of all the words he uses because he seems to get new ones every day. Sometimes he uses a word for a while before I figure out what it means. For instance I didn't realize right away that "coke" meant "coat."

Last night Allen was reading to Liam (not an unusual occurrence.) He pointed to the word "foot" in the title of "The Foot Book" and said, "What does this say?" Liam pointed to his foot and said, "Foot." Now it is the FOOT book and there is a picture of a foot right next to the word. I don't know what would have happened if Allen had pointed to the word "book" and asked the same question. Still, it's pretty impressive for a not-quite-nineteen-month-old!

Liam has also started to dance lately. I think this was helped along by his friend Mary practicing some new dance moves with him. Yesterday while we were Skyping with his Grammy and Grandpa Liam decided to do a little happy dance. It brought smiles to all our faces.

The sore throats of last week are now basically gone. Not sure yet whether Allen will manage to avoid the worst of it. I've had a migraine since Sunday, although it seems to be somewhat better today.

Some news

Well it looks like I haven't posted for a while again. We've been pretty busy. Granny had a heart attack and was in the hospital. We went to see her last weekend (the 14th). They released her the next day and then she was back in again by Monday. That explains the second trip that Liam, Mary and I took on Tuesday.

On Thursday Liam had his 18 month doctor's appointment. Since these are always traumatic for him I decided to take Grover and the camera and take pictures for a "Grover Goes to the Doctor" book. Hopefully that way we can be more prepared for the next visit. The doctor thought this was a great idea. Liam was sort of distracted by Grover and the pictures.

Liam had not gained much weight since his last visit, but the doc said that's normal because at this age they are more active. She asked us about his language development and it's clear that he's way ahead on that. He knows way more than 20 words and can name more than a few body parts.

Today I have a sore throat. Liam is spitting out almost everything he puts in his mouth - even stuff he usually likes. He chews on it OK, but doesn't want to swallow. I think he has a sore throat too.

Eight hours

Last night Liam went eight hours without nursing! He did wake up a couple of times, but Allen was able to get him to settle back down fairly quickly. Actually, a couple of times he just went back to sleep by himself.

He did this a couple of times before Christmas, but apparently he was not really into the pattern when we went to Louisville because when we got back he was back to his old pattern of waking up every hour or two. Getting back to the longer times between nursing is a relief to me!

Of course he may just have been extra tired from our trip to Lima yesterday. We saw Granny at the hospital. She went in with a heart attack last week. We visited on Sunday and then Mary drove down with Liam and I yesterday. Granny was released (for the second time) before we left.

Liam has used the potty a couple of times now! I still don't think he really understands what he's supposed to do, but it's a start. So far it seems to be a fairly positive experience for him.

Living in the present

I'm reading a book that says it's good to be "in the present" when parenting. It seems that I'm pretty good at that, since I have much more trouble now keeping track of appointments than I used to. Instead of organizational skills, I have been working on the following skills:

• building train tracks
• finding library books with just the right amount of actions and not too many words
• changing poopy diapers without getting poop on myself, the baby, or our clothes
• teaching Liam to say "thank you" after I change his diaper
• teaching Liam to make a fish face
• moving around the kitchen without tripping over blocks or stories
• keeping things far enough from the edge of the counters
• mousing with my left hand while nursing
• getting Liam into bed without waking him up]
• anticipating head bonks and deflecting them
• interpreting Liam's new words
  

Bath!

I have been saying for a while that I will be glad when "Uh, uh, uh" while reaching for something is not a major part of Liam's communication repertoire. I am happy to say that I believe that we are well on our way to the extinction of "uh, uh, uh!"

My reason for thinking this is that Liam has started to use words and signs that he knows to request things he wants - like baths, cookies, stories, and nursing. With a little prompting he will also ask to be picked up, and sign please.

Speaking of baths, Liam asked for one last night and I told him he could have one tonight. Plus I need to take a shower and we should get to bed soon. Should be interesting when we get up tomorrow to see how much snow has fallen! Allen already shoveled the driveway twice today.

Repeat after me - or don't

I got a book about "dumb bunnies" out of the library. The bunnies in the story are truly dumb and Allen doesn't like the book very much. He just read it to Liam and when he finished reading Allen said, "That is a stupid, stupid book."

Liam said, "Tupid, tupid."

Obviously we need to be careful what we say around him these days.

At the library on Thursday we talked for a while with a couple of Chinese moms and their little ones. I told one mom that my dad thinks it would be a good idea if Liam could learn Chinese. She said that when her kids get into school they don't want to speak Chinese any more. One of the little boys got a little mad at his mother and screamed a few times. This made Liam nervous, but before they left the little boy gave Liam a hug and they were friends again.

In case you are not on Facebook, here are a few pictures of Liam getting his first haircut. This happened while we were in Louisville. Liam's Grammy went in with him so that I wouldn't have to risk getting a migraine from the chemicals in the beauty shop. Liam didn't like the haircut much.

New skill

Liam has mastered the skill of opening zippers. He loves to get into my purse. When he finds my keys or the cell phone he's pretty happy about it. Thankfully at the moment he usually opens the main big part instead of the pocket on the front which has my money and credit cards in it. Also, so far he leaves his coat zipped up.

Back in Business

After taking the month of January off from blogging I am back with more news and adorable pictures. The big news from January is:

• We had a nice family celebration of Christmas in Louisville at the beginning of January.
• Liam got his first haircut and first pair(s) of real shoes.
  
• Liam is now walking more than he is crawling.
• Liam is talking more and more all the time. His new words include "oops!" "bump!" and "no!" (He's big into exclamations at the moment.
• Allen started the spring semester. He is teaching one face-to-face class as well as his online classes.
• It seems that we've had lots of doctor's appointments in January. In a few weeks we have Liam's 18 month appointment.
  
• January was definitely cold and snowy. I know it's been cold for way too long because Allen walked home last night in 29 degree weather, with snow, and said, "It wasn't very cold."

Liam got some new bath toys for Christmas. He enjoys them both when he is in the tub and when he's hanging out in the bathroom with Mommy or Daddy.

Liam wants to do more things by himself these days. He still doesn't always understand how much to tip a glass in order to get a drink. We don't actually usually let him drink by himself from such a big glass!