December Update - 20 Months

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

We were lucky enough to have a white Christmas this year - the week before it started to snow and ended up being more than a foot over a few days. The temperature has mostly stayed below freezing and our street looks very pretty with all the Christmas lights and snow men on the front lawns, exactly what I picture a Canadian Christmas to be like. We took Liam out a few times but he did not seem to be overly enamored with the snow and mostly cried - the only place he would walk was the path way that Ian shovelled, other than that he would fall in the snow and cry until we took him back inside. We did manage to get some nice photos in the short period of time he did go out and inbetween cry sessions. We also tried skating for the first time at a children's Christmas party held by Grannys company - he seemed interested the first few laps and then had a meltdown - mostly because his giant Elmo bike helmet was covering his eyes. He definitely enjoys eating icy things more than he does playing with icy things.

Christmas morning we woke up, had our coffee and milk and headed upstairs to unwrap our gifts with the rest of the family. Liam got thoroughly spoiled and was entertained for hours with his new tow truck, yellow Tonka dump truck, yellow school bus, African animal drum set, animal farm and books to name a few. We saved his big present for last; a singing Elmo tricycle - he totally loved it! We hid it in my parents bedroom and brought it out with a big red bow on it. His face just lit up and he went straight for it. As soon as he sat on it he wanted to go "fast" and would yell out "fast!" up and down the passage. It was great! Ian and I both got spoiled too but it is so wonderful to watch your child's excitement when they open their presents. Granny got Liam practicing on how to unwrap presents by putting cookies in gift wrap for him to open. By the time he got to his real presents he was a pro! After presents we had a late brunch and then turkey dinner -yum! All in all a very relaxing day.

Our month started out with another bout of the flu - both Liam and I got quite ill but Liam ended up getting gastroenteritis (viral stomach bug) and after a nasty vomiting episode and 7 diarrhea diapers, we took him into the hospital to be assessed. He was a bit dehydrated but otherwise ok. We had to wait for 2.5 hours to see a doctor which was immensely challenging - although Liam was sick he was still active enough to not want to stay in the waiting room and so he proceeded to take off down the hallways in his Elmo pajamas and white socks while holding pedialyte popsicles that the nurse gave us to get him hydrated. By the time we left he had collected goodness knows what from the hospital floors and had a face covered in various popsicle colours - he ate 3 of them while we waited. The nurse was really nice and did his best to keep him occupied with gadgets - Liam particularly liked the ear thermometer. Most of the other patients were older so Liam was definitely the minority but old folks loved him and didn't seem to mind his outbursts when we tried to keep him contained. Good thing too - the kid has lung! A few days after the hospital visit he had another vomiting episode and while he was in the bath told us his tummy was "tight" and then said "poo" after which he shot diarrhea into the bath water. That was fun to clean up. It seems that his system was doing it's final clean up since he has been healthy & happy again. Till the next flu bug hits of course. Stay tuned: As the World Turns with the Wards Health will continue.

We are on another verbal & mental growth spurt - Liam can now count from 1 to 14 and knows when he has two objects in his hands (e.g. says "two sucky's"). He also knows the shapes rectangle, square, circle, oval, diamond, star and triangle. He has also expanded his colours to red, green, orange, yellow and blue. He had an aptitude for wooden puzzles and puts all the shapes, animals and objects into their respective slots at lightening speed. Time to move onto something more difficult to keep his brain stimulated. We are reading like crazy and the length of the books are now increasing - he still loved flap books, but has moved on from touch & feel type books to ones with longer sentences like "Red Fish Blue Fish". His two favourite books at the moment are "Digger Man" and "Big Fire Engine" - we read them every night before bed. It's nice to have reading as part of our bed time routine now - it relaxes all of us, especially Ian, the stories put him to sleep. Liam is still riding the late night party train and usually won't go to bed before 11:00pm - even then it's a huge struggle. The only saving grace is that he sleeps through the night and doesn't wake up before 8:30am. He is also still sleeping in our bed but we are trying to change that. We have become lazy since we are sleeping so much better, but 3 bodies in a queen sized bed is not very comfortable, especially when the middle body turns sideways and kicks you in the head!

Fire trucks are Liam's big passion this month - he still loved buses but is intensely interested in fire trucks. We bought him a fire truck and he plays with it constantly. Ambulances are also high on the list - he calls then "Neeners" - just like Ian did when he was little. Too cute. I can't even begin to tell you how many toys with wheels we have in our house. Little cars, big trucks, dump tricks, lego trucks, you name it. Everything and anything with wheels. Typical little boy.

We are still into Wheels On The Bus - I have resided myself to the fact that this phase will not be over anytime soon. Liam now sings lyrics from the song in his tiny high pitched voice - it's dead cute. He also sings the alphabet and can do the whole thing except for "QRSTUV" - he does all the letters till that point and then skips to "WXYZ". I'm convinced we'll have him spelling out letters by the time he's two and maybe even starting to read.

We have become creative with having to listen to Wheels on The Bus all the time in the car and have now downloaded various songs interspersed with Wheels On The Bus. Makes us a little more sane while driving and Liam doesn't seem to mind. As long as we can get him into his car seat we're golden. You Tube has also expanded to include videos of fire trucks and diggers so we are not always listening to nursery rhymes. Bonus!

It is hard to believe that another year has gone by and we are into a new year. I finally completed a DVD of Liam's life from birth to now for all of my family for Christmas. It made me cry the first time I saw it completely done with music. It's hard to believe I was once pregnant, gave birth to a beautiful little boy and have watched him grow up from a tiny baby to a gorgeous, bright, wonderful toddler. I cannot wait to see what adventures lie ahead for the Ward family in 2009.

Happy New Year!

November Update - 19 Months

Liam is going through an immensely cute phase. We’ve always thought he was cute but right now everything he says and does seems so sweet. We hit a big moment this month when he suddenly started to count and went all the way from 1 to 10 in one go. Since then he’s been counting things like the number of circles on our bed spread or the number of wheels on his cars. We’ve also been working on colours of which he recognizes red & green. He has developed an interest in Curious George so we got him a Curious George shapes and colours book that he really likes. In the morning we wake up and watch Curious George on TV while he has his juice and I have my coffee. It’s become our ritual and is quite relaxing. Liam’s attention span only lasts till the end of my coffee so I take advantage of the relax time before we kick into high gear and get our day started.

Liam is walking much more than crawling which is such a relief – now that I look back on how much I worried about him never walking it seems so silly. He is still a little unbalanced but has made huge progress and I’m sure he’ll be running around before we know it.

We are back to reading tons of books again which is definitely boosting Liam’s word power – one of Liam’s cute phases is to say “Bless You’ when we sneeze in his little high pitched voice. He’s a walking, talking human sponge. I can see him analyzing everything I tell him and then he repeats it back to me so he remembers it later on. So far his longest sentence has been “Gabby I would like a cookie”. Pretty remarkable for a little boy of his age.

The You Tube novelty has definitely worn off by now – we can’t get within an inch of the computer without being spotted and then it’s a melt down if we don’t start playing Wheels on the Bus. We have expanded to alphabet songs, 5 Little Ducks, 5 Little Monkeys and Row Row Row Your boat which adds some variety to hearing Wheels On the Bus 50 times a day. The only way to get Liam into his car seat is to play Wheels On The Bus - as soon as he gets into his seat he starts asking for "Wheels" over and over again. If you ask him what the horn does he says "beep", the wipers he says "swish", the money he says "clink", the baby he says "wah-wah-wah" and the people he says "up and down". I'm eally not surprised considering how often he hears the song. Going on the real bus with Ian every Mon & Tues does not seem to be all that appealing anymore and has become very challenging - not only will Liam not sit still but he goes for the emergency brake and brought one bus to a halt after he successfully pulled hard enough to crack open the window. The highlight of his bus rides however was when him & Ian were the only ones on the bus and almost home - the lady bus driver had a nephew the same age and Ian told her how much Liam loved buses so she pulled over to one of the stops and let him sit on her lap while operating the door and steering wheel. He was super upset when it was time to go and cried the whole way home. Speaking of big vehicles - Liam's other highlight this month was the Santa Claus Truck Parade - he absolutely loved all the lights although the horns scared the heck out of him when they got too close. I am having visions of us spending our weekends in the future frequenting fire stations to stare at wheels, ladders and lights.

I am now into the whole play-doh phase and have been creating home made batches for Liam to play with - a co-worker gave me a bucket full of play-doh tools so we have been having a great time creating shapes. Liam does occasionally stuff some in his mouth but I figure a little play-doh ingestion is not a big deal since it's really only flour, salt, oil, water and food colouring. Doesn't taste pleasant but he's an "everything in the mouth" kind of child so it was bound to be taste tested sooner or later. In addition to the play-doh we have been collecting tons of art from daycare and our weekly play groups so I now have an art display board on the wall that I will update every few weeks with new pictures. My next thing to get will be an art scrapbook for all the artwork - it's collecting all over the house since he does something different every week. Artwork is currently flowing out of his closet, is all over the fridge, on the display board and in the cupboards. It's everywhere! I guess I have to let some of it go and some point - I do have years and years of more painting and crafts ahead!