August Update - 16 months

Happy BC Day everyone! For me I was happy simply because I had an extra day off to spend with the boys - there is no such thing as just a "day off" when you're a toddler mom. We walked downtown to join in the festivities which included live entertainment in front of the parliament buildings, food stands and craft stalls. The museum also had a free admission so we thought we would be cultural and take Liam for his first visit. Apparently the rest of Victoria had the same idea - there were so many people inside it was like a sardine tin - rather uncomfortable. The only thing that interested Liam was the giant woolly mammoth - he kept pointing at it and saying ooooohhhhhhhh everytime we went by. Other than that all he wanted to do was crawl around on the floor and was extremely put out that we wouldn't let him for fear of being trampled by the mobs of people. Despite the museum madness it was a rather hot but enjoyable day of strolling around - the best part being the parade of fire trucks which both fascinated Liam and made him cry at the same time when they got too close - everytime the horns beeped he would jump. Our neighbour had restored one of the original Victoria police paddy wagons from the early 1900's & it was parked outside our house early that morning - got a few pics before it was towed downtown to be a part of the parade. Took him 8 years to complete the restoration - now that's dedication!

On Tues Aug 5th Liam stood on his own at daycare for about 15 seconds in front of Ian and Emily (who he calls "Ammee" - he recognizes her street when we turn down it and yells "Ammee!!") - Ian let go of hand without thinking and Liam just stood there. He did it again for 10 seconds at my friend Natalie's house - Of course I missed it since I was digging around in my hand bag for a diaper. Darn it! Then he did it in again in front of Grandma Marg on Sat evening -what gives? I spend all this time with the kid and he decides to do a milestone moment three times and I miss them all! What I don't ever miss out on is things like teething - he finally cut his bottom two molars after weeks and weeks of drooling, biting and fussiness - those suckers are huge! God I hope that's it for the teething for a while - who am I kidding! It will be a snowball of chompers I just know it. I'll just have to hold onto my pearly whites hat and hang on for the ride.

The second week of August was Granparent week - Grandma Marg was visiting for the weekend and Great Granparents Maureen & John arrived from Scotland for a three week visit. They gave him two very cute t-shirts that say "small but loud" and "blame the parents" as well as a marshmallow Loch Ness Monster lolly and a gorgeous traditional Scottish knitted sweater that will be oh so cute in the Winter. Made me want to run out and get him the whole kilt, knee high socks and black boots but I think the other moms at playgroup would think I was nuts!Grandma Marg bought Liam two new books - a talking one with different pictures and corresponding buttons that name the item and an animal picture and sounds one. Between my parents, Granma Marg and the Great Grandparents our little monkey is definitely spoiled - suits our budget too!

Liam's word bank continue to grow. He loves poking Ian's nipple and since it usually hurts Ian and he says "ow" Liam pokes it and says "ow". He also has named my boob and calls it a "be-be". At least he isn't calling it a "booby" - YET. We've been hugely into watching the Olympics on TV and he says "pool" everytime the swimming events come on. His favourite word still is "apple" and will instantly call something an apple if you point at it and say "what's this?", especially if it's round. He can say "ball"or "bubble" but prefers saying "apple". I think he just like the sound of the word itself. Since he is so good with his words we have started teaching him the alphabet. He has a set of wooden blocks that we play with a lot and I've been working with him on recognizing A, B & C. I also sing the alphabet constantly and tickle him on "LMNOP" which he loves. He has a huge love of music too and has recently got a thing for the Wiggles - when he hears music on the radio or CD he starts dancing which involves moving up and down using his upper body while his legs stay still. It's hilarious. When we wake up in the morning he says "Hi mommy", gives me a kiss and then we turn on the stereo and start dancing. It's a great way to wake up in the morning no matter how tired you are!

Aug 11th (Mon) - I left Liam unattended in the bathroom to quickly check emails which of course was asking for trouble. After a few minutes I realised that he was being extremely quiet - never a good sign - so I went into the bathroom to see what he was up to and was met with toilet paper world war III and a baby in the middle of it. Due to my lack of supervision, Liam had managed to get a hold of the toilet paper roll, unravel the entire thing, shred it to bits and create a toilet paper fort for himself. So I waded myself through the mess and suddenly realised that our white bathroom floor was not supposed to be red - apparently the fort floor had been interior decorated with red bathtub crayon that Liam managed to grab from on top of the toilet. The toilet had been interior decorated too. Thank God for porcelin, laminate and easy wash off crayons. I could see the "never leave child unattended" signs flashing in my head while I scrubbed on my hands and knees - I really need to pay more attention those!

To encourage the walking process (nuts I know but my back is breaking) we got a pair of shoes that have squeakers in the heel - Laim was fussing while we were trying on various pairs in the store but as soon as we put the squeakers on his face lit up and he did about 10 laps around the store at top speed. Worth every penny for the reaction we got. The squeakers come out in case we start going crazy from the noise. We were so pleased we also bought him a miniture vacuumn cleaner - the Dirt Devil Junior - it looks exactly like a real vacuumn cleaner, just a smaller version and even turns on. Since Liam loves to pretend to vacuumn and sweep he thought Christmas had come early when he spotted it in the store. There was no way we were leaving without it, the screaming tantrums just wouldn't have been worth it!

Aug 24th was my birthday and I had a really fun day - the girls at work decorated my chair and computer with balloons and brought lots of treats - didn't feel like work at all. Later that evening we celebrated with dinner at the grandparents and I got thoroughly spoiled with manicures, clothes, a diary (pocket sized so I can carry it around in my purse and attempt to keep my life in order) and a beautiful gold necklace with an "L" on it that I really wanted. That and a few glasses of wine and I was a happy mama!

At the moment we are in a packing frenzy since we move into our new house the last weekend of August - so far Liam has not been affected but we'll see how he does when we're in our new home. Since he likes things that are new and exciting I don't think he'll have a problem with it - plus there's the added bonus of having the grandparents a.k.a "built in babysitters" upstairs - woohoo!

July Update - 15 months

We are finally iinto Summer and the weather has been hot and sunny - the perks of working evenings is that I get to spend my days with Liam at the beach & parks so I have that "relaxed" tanned look. Even Liam with his factor 55 baby sunscreen has a nice bronze glow to his hands and arms. We are still doing playgroups every week but most of our time is spent enjoying the outdoors. Liam loves the beach and it's nice watching him play with his bucket & beach toys while sipping my morning coffee. It's not California but Summer in Victoria is stilll pleasant once it arrives.

Liam's vocabulary has sky rocketed. He now has a consistent set of about 30 words and is like a small parrot - he likes to repeat things we say so we have to be extremely careful with the swear words. He's very intersted in learning body parts and can say "eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair and toes". If you ask him what a body part is he'll point to it and name it. He also calls his u-know-wot his "pee pee". Yesterday he strung together his first sentence while pointing at Ian's feet and said "it's a toe". We have been upgraded from "mama" and "dada" to "mommy" and "daddy" - if I say "mama" to him he says "mommy" back. Clever boy. His favourite words of the month however are "beep beep" and "hot". Whenever he hears our keys rattle or sees the car he instantly says "beep beep". "Beep Beep" also refers to the car being locked or to the horn being honked. Even toy cars are "Beep Beeps". Whenever I am holding tea or coffee he points to it and says "hot". He also uses "hot" if he finds the play ground to be too warm or if the inside of the car is roasting when we get inside it. I constantly say "hot tea" when he comes too close to my mug and a few days ago he actually said "hot tea". We still read an average of six books a day and it's starting to show - if you pojnt to an item like an apple and ask him what it is he'll say apple. I've taken him to the grocery store and shown him different coloured apples and he still gets it right so he seems to understand what it is as opposed to it just being a word he likes to say. I have now started to teach him "ABC" using his wooden alphabet blocks. If he's anything like Ian he'll be reading by the time he's three. He is getting pretty good at his animal sounds and can do "Baa", "Moo", "SSSS" (for a snake), "Twoo Twoo" (for an owl), "Meow" and some his own variation of "Woof". When we read books I ask him to turn the pages or open the flaps which he does himself. He's going to be a book worm when he's older for sure.

Another thing Liam is good at is his hand-eye coordination, in particular with balls (he mostly calls balls and balloons "bubbles" but will say the correct word if he feels like it). He will throw or roll a ball back to me very accurately. I also discovered at one of the play groups that he loves hockey so I bought him a minature set of plastic hockey sticks, nets and a soft ball. Ian taught him how to say "hockey" and everytime he hits the ball into the net he shouts "goal!!!!!". He understands that the ball goes into the net and it's amazing how he can do it over and over again, especially since holding the stick is a bit awkward being a bit big for him.

The obsession with buttons continues - our TV has been completely reprogrammed (we have no idea how it works now) and Mr. Nimble Fingers has figured out how to lift the tape on the contraption we used to protect the power button on the computer. The computer has been turned on and off so many times it keeps crashing. Even the microwave buttons are interesting if we let him near it - he likes to cook imaginary frozen vegetables. It's rather different taking Liam to play groups since toys don't really interest him that much - he's far more interested in things that are mechanical - like doors. He loves doors. While all the other kids play with the gazillion fun toys around them, Liam will crawl for the nearest exit door or better still; the washroom doors. He'll sit and point at the male/female signs for ages and babble at the top of his voice. It's plain weird. If anything play groups are good for tiring him out from crawling around inspecting doors, not from playing with toys.

There are only a couple of other toys that I have recently bought that interest Liam other than his hockey net and that is his new corn popper (you push the handle and the balls make a popping sound inside the attached bubble) and his magna doodle. At Ian's company picnic his bosses kids had a magna doodle and he spent ages drawing with it. The magna doodle is a magnetic white board that wipes clear once you're done "doodling" with the magnetic pen - no mess, no fuss. Since we bought it last week Liam has played with it every day. I also bought some finger paints and construction paper for him to do some art work - unfortunately he put his fingers in his mouth to taste the paints and barfed everywhere. So finger paints are on hold for a little while longer. We've had more success with the bath tub crayons Ian found - provides Liam with tons of entertainment and makes the bath tub look very colourful with all the scribbles. Plus for now they seem to be barf proof since he mainly draws on himself or the sides of the tub & does not seem to feel the need to stick them in his mouth and induce vomiting.

In the mobility department crawling has progressed from high speed to warp speed. Liam crawls so fast that he lowers his head to streamline himself. If I dressed him in an aerodynamic suit he'd leave smoke behind him. He is spending a lot more time standing and furniture surfing. He can hold onto things himself with one hand or walks around holding onto our fingers - actually he literally runs when we're holding on to him. We are getting very close to walking, it's just a matter of time.

So the sleep issues continued on from the moment we got back from San Diego. After two months of battling with trying to get Liam to sleep in his crib and him refusing to the point of screaming tantrums, we finally gave up and had him sleep between us in our bed just to keep our sanity. Even a brand new mattress didn't work. After weeks of co-sleeping we were getting really tired of interupted sleep every night so we decided to retire the crib and get a "big boy" racing car bed. So as it stands we are in the process of transitioning starting with having him sleep on his mattress next to our bed until we are comfortable enough to move him to the racing car. He still wakes up at night but the combination of a bed time snack and the lack of confinement seems to be helping. Guess being a crib jail bird wan't working for our freedom baby. I should have figured this all out when he started napping on the couches - I'll blame it on the exhaustion from lack of sleep for 2 months straight. Plus the recent appearance of two molars explains a lot. It seems that the teethings phase lasted forever this time round. Thank God for those calming teething tablets - Liam says "yum-yum" every time we go near him with them. 10 teeth down, 20 more to go. Good times!