For Thanksgiving this year we joined the family of Terry's best friend, Keith. They live in Louisville, KY and so were a pretty close drive for us. We were invited over to Keith's grandma's house for Thanksgiving dinner.
At the end of the meal, Liam entertained everyone with energetically banging spoons on the table.
Then Liam and Mr Karem watched football on television.
Liam loves seeing his Godfather Keith.
Keith's parents, the fantastic Karems, were wonderful hosts. They even watched Liam one night so we could go bowling with Keith, Emily and assorted Cousins. We thought Liam would just sleep, but apparently he made a fuss and wound up cozied up on the couch with Greg and Peggy Karem, sleeping while they watched TV (which was probably Liam's idea of heaven).
Liam also had fun interacting with their eager but skittish dog, Bailey. Bailey started to get a little jealous of all the attention Liam got, so while Greg was holding Liam on the couch, Bailey whined and crawled his way up onto Peggy's lap. From then on whenever someone picked up Liam, Bailey wanted to be held too. Here's a clip from just after Bailey whined his way up into Peggy's arms. Liam's having a great time. Bailey seem like he'd like nothing more than to crawl right up on top of Peggy's head and get away from this crazy kid who is invading his house.
The day after Thanksgiving instead of hitting the malls, we joined the Karems and Emily's family at Churchill downs for some horseracing (where I got to cash in a few tickets and wind up making a tiny profit on the day).
We had quite a fun Halloween with our little guy. We took him to the pumpkin farm to pick out a pumpkin. The day before Halloween we went to a kids Halloween party with the other moms and kids from my MOMs Club. Then the day of Halloween we went to his friend Cora's birthday party, and then tried (and failed) to go Trick or Treating with our little dragon.
Sitting with friend Cora at the MOMs Club Halloween party.
Posing with some other costumed baby friends.
Rar! Ferocious dragon.
Dragon on the move
Gragon and mommy
Liam's friend Cora turned one the day before Halloween, so she had a little Halloween themed birthday party on Halloween. Balloons were enjoyed by all the babies.
On the front porch, Halloween night. I wanted to carve a pumpkin that was somehow baby themed to celebrate Liam's first Halloween.
Our little dragon, sizing up the pumpkin.
Is there anybody in there?
We had wanted to go trick or treating with him, just to take him out in the pleasantly warm weather and let him see the fun sight of all the dressed up kids. There is a section of our neighborhood that is legendary for trick or treating, so it is apparently brimming with excited kids, and I thought it would be a fun sight. Alas, in the car halfway there Liam melted down and we turned around and took him home for bed.
As I have mentioned before, Liam seems to live to prove me wrong. Just like last time he went to his doctor's appointment and then rolled front to back for the first time on the doctor's table. This time at least he waited until we got home. After telling the doctor no, no he didn't crawl at his nine month well visit, we took him home. I put him down on the ground and he very competently crawled four "steps" in the upright standard crawl position, grabbed a toy, sat down and played with it.
And did I mention that the same day he first crawled he also cut his first tooth and started pulling up on furniture into a standing position by himself? Crazy kid.
Over the next couple of days I went nuts trying to capture him on camera crawling. I finally got him the next day, but I could only get him to do a military (belly) crawl.
And then four days later...as you can see he went from crawling to officially being "a crawler." He was zooming laps around the room like he'd been doing it forever.
I had the hardest time getting him to crawl on camera. I finally had to bribe him. You will see he looks super enthusiastic and is practically panting with joy as he crawls toward me. You will also see that I am not the target of all that baby excitement...
There are a flood of updates that are due. Cute Halloween updates. Thanksgiving updates. Updates on how Liam made his first crank call at 6:15 AM. Updates on Liam crawling. Cute Christmas pictures.
It all exists, but right now it is all stuck on my camera because I know you people dont really read the blog for my thoughtful essays. That's like reading Playboy for the essays. No, you all are here for the addictingly cute pictures of the chubby baby. But my poor old computer (like my poor old brain) is running out of space and having trouble thinking. So I cant dump a bunch of megs of new pictures onto it or it may...I dunno...blow up? eat all my academic work? So I have finally taken over Terry's iPhoto and started downloading pics and vids to his computer and will soon begin the process of uploading and posting. I may even rope Terry into it to speed things up, so you could be getting a little Daddy perspective soon enough.
Liam has been learning a lot of new tricks from his favorite gal pal Cora. One of the first ones I got to enjoy was when I was reading him his pre-nap story about a week ago. We were sitting up in the rocking chair in his room reading "Brown Bear Brown Bear" a gift from our friends Lynn and Zack. And every time I would lift the board book page to prepare to turn it, he would lean forward and try to peek around the page to see the next picture. Then he started reaching out with his hands and pulling the page over to the far side.
And as we kept reading it became totally obvious that he wasn't just grabbing things randomly, he was actually performing an intentional action: he was turning pages. He would reach out to grab the page on the right and turn it until it was on the left. Then he'd look at the picture and then reach to turn the next page. What a little sponge. Without ever knowing he was learning, he had picked up the pattern of reading a book together! I know his friend Cora who he spends three afternoons a week with knows how to turn pages (she's a year old) and I think seeing another baby do it probably gave him the idea.
We've had lots of fun with books lately. Last week on tuesday we went with our playgroup to story time at the Library, which is a really fun event with singing and puppets and juggling and stories. And then when we got home from the library with a few new board books, I sat on the floor with Liam and held two out in front of him. He looked very seriously back and forth at the two covers for a while and then very purposefully put his hand out on one. I had never seen him so intentionally "choose" something before, show his preferences and his will with a gesture. It was wonderful fun to see.
But I almost couldn't believe it was on purpose. I read him his first choice book and when we finished again I held two different books up in front of him and again he looked back and forth before reaching out and touching the book on the right ("Whats the Matter Pookie?"). I switched the position of the two books so Pookie was on the left, and again he reached out and touched the Pookie book. The baby was making a choice! Super fun.
Since then every time we read I offer him the choice of two books, he picks one, and we read. He has some fairly consistent preferences. "Brown Bear" is his favorite book of all. Paired against almost any other book, he will pick Brown Bear to read. Beyond that he really loves a new Boynton book we picked up from the library about Hippos and their belly buttons, and a book called "Daddy Loves Me." He never ever picked "Moo Baa Lalala."
This is also a kid who lives to prove me wrong. We've been checking over and over for teeth and there were no signs of it. Likewise we've been working on helping him learn crawling with every means I could think of. I even played baby "wheel barrow" with him where he would lift and move his hands forward and I would shift his knees.
So on the way to his 9 month baby well visit with the pediatrician on friday I joked with Terry about how we were going to have to confess that he was a bit behind him milestones, unless he pulled another surprise and just started crawling on the doctor's table (remember the rolling incident?).
Well, one of the first questions I had was about teeth. He's been drooling and chewing on everything since he was 4 months old. When were those teeth coming? And the doctor looks in his mouth and says "There's one breaking through the gum right now" and sure enough you could see a little rupture in the gum. His first tooth!
Then, later that evening while we were getting dinner ready I put the baby down on all fours in the living room and sat down on the couch. Then like it was nothing, like he'd been practicing for months, he just took four crawling "steps" forward, grabbed his toy, and sat down to play with it. I practically stammered at Terry (who was in the kitchen looking at him) "Did I just imagine that? Did you see that? Did he just crawl?!"
But for the life of me, I cannot get the kid to do it on command. If I grab the camera and try to covertly catch him, no dice. He won't do it. If I stand over him and try to entice him to crawl by dragging a fun toy in front of him, no dice. If I walk away and pretend like I'm not watching, there he goes, crawling again. I have now seen him crawl six or seven times. It's adorable!
Ok, so this isn't Liam making ghost sounds. But Terry taught him to make funny noises and...well it is easier to watch than describe. But now he wants to do it all the time!
So it seems my baby lives to prove me wrong. I thought that wasn't supposed to start until high school. First there was taking him to the doctor at 8 months and saying that he was only rolling in one direction and having the kid roll forward and then backward on the doc's table 45 seconds later.
Now it appears he may have been practicing scooting forward on his belly while no one was watching. Terry swears he saw him do it this morning. "Scooting? forward? not rolling?" I ask. He swears it was so. I've yet to see it, and rolling still seems the preferred method of locomotion.
Two other firsts happened this morning. I was reading him "Brown Bear" board book just before his morning nap. And as I was getting ready to turn a page, I would put my finger behind the page. When I did that, he would lean over and try to peek behind the page, then he would grab it with his hand and turn it. At first I thought it was just an accident, but with each and every page, as soon as I picked the next page off the stack of other pages, he'd reach out, grab it, and turn it from right to left. He never tried to turn the pages in the other direction, which seems like an indication that it isn't accidental, but a learned behavior. I was so excited about Brown Bear that I got out Pajama Time to see if he would do it again. Sure enough, the kid's a page turner!
(I am filing this behavior away in my brain next to "faucet turner" in "things that should keep you from worrying your kid is cognitively delayed" for the next time I'm tempted to go off the deep end of worry for my little guy).
After his story I put him in his crib to try to get a nap in and was cleaning up in the kitchen while Terry got ready for work. Liam had been quiet for a while, so I asked Terry to peek in on him and see if he was asleep. After a pause, Terry said, "Come here, you have to see this." I put my head into the room, and what do I see? Our kid has pulled himself up to a sitting position in the crib! He is happily holding onto the rail of his crib, with his little feet sticking out the slats. I lower my face down to his and smile at him. He gives me a gummy smile back and happily starts chewing on the rail.
Him pulling up to sitting by himself is exciting because it is a sign that he is learning to better manipulate his environment to help him get around. But it is really really going to suck for our backs. Because the safety guides say that when they can pull themselves to seated you have to lower the crib mattress so they don't fall out. That means we are going to be hauling 25lbs of baby fat from much farther down.
I might have to get one of those thick brown leather weight-lifter belts that the studly guys at the gym use.
My mother-in-law Denyse, a super mom in her own right, got me a book called "After Birth" and it is a hysterical collection of stories from moms and dads about dealing with the less glorious sides of parenthood. Reading it frequently made me snort with laughter, and occasionally cry, and from time to time gasp and recognize myself in the story.
So in the interest of that, of full disclosure and breaking down the wall of perfect motherhood that weighs so heavily on us that we should all probably get free samples of prozac when we take these kiddos home from the hospital:
Today is a crappy mom day. I feel wimpy and insecure about the whole works. I am tired and sick and that doesn't help. I feel insecure that Liam still isn't crawling. He gets himself around now, doing little laps of the living room and occasionally venturing into the kitchen or dining room. But he pushes himself up on his arms or on all fours, checks out the terrain, and then flops down into rolling position and steam rolls himself wherever he wants to go.
And I feel deeply deeply insecure about this. Maybe it is all okay. Maybe a flood of better people than I will write in with comments telling me to chill out and not worry.
But it is hard to watch other kids pass him by. There is a January baby in his playgroup who has been crawling since he was 6 months old. When I first saw that I was startled but reminded myself that it was okay if he was early. Now all the other January babies are crawling, and one kid born at the end of February is both crawling competently and pulling herself up to a standing position. Meanwhile there sits Liam, good natured and smiling as his playmates wiz by around him. He sits. He goes onto all fours and rocks, and then he sits again. or he rolls. But scooting forward? Nah. Nothing doing.
At the last playgroup there was another baby who was born within days of Liam's due date who is not crawling exactly, but is scooting himself forward in a sort of military crawl.
Today we toured a montessori that accepts babies. My heart just aches to give him that opportunity. I can still remember with startling clarity what my montessori was like, and I only went there through first grade. The rest of elementary school is a blur, but I have tons of memories of Montessori. When we toured the preschool they have beads for counting and learning multiples that are the same things we had in my classroom growing up. it is just such a rich exploratory environment, and I truly believe it is the seeds of self motivated learning that are still with me today.
We were told chances are close to nothing that he will get in until about 2 years from now, but we're on the waiting list. The reason for this was in evidence: the other parents on our tours were women who looked scarcely pregnant. And it was the first taste of the effort to secure your schild every advantage. If I really wanted to get Liam into this Montessori I would have had to call to get on the waiting list as soon as I saw that second pink line on the pregnancy test. They actually told us that there is a better chance we could get our as-yet-imagined-nonexistent second child into the program before Liam gets in, and then Liam would have an advantage as a sibling of scooting up the waiting list. Sigh.
But when talking about the infant room and cruiser room and when they move, the director told us that they move when each child is ready. And then she told an anecdote where a third child with lots of siblings to carry him who never got any tummy time didn't crawl until he was 8 months old, so he was in the infant room until then. And my heart sank and I thought "oh please dont ask me if my big giant 18-month clothes wearing baby can crawl, because the answer is still no."
It isn't so much that I think he will never learn to crawl before he goes to college. Its more that in my heart I worry that his inability to figure it out reflects some deeper cognitive issue, and dredges up a host of sadness and guilt about his early birth that seems to be always available just beneath the surface. I just want him to be totally okay. I hope and believe this worry will go away, or diminish at least, but somehow I need more tangible evidence to banish it...like seeing him do linear algebra.
As I've mentioned before, now that Liam gets messier when he eats his dinner, we have started a habit of taking him to the bathroom sink after dinner to wash him up. I rinse off his hands and face, and then he likes to play in the water in the sink for a little while.
For the past few days every time I turn off the water he looks up, puzzled, and starts grabbing parts of the sink. For a while, logically, he would grab the actual faucet nozzle itself and sort of pull on it. You could almost hear his little gears turning, trying to figure out how to make the water come back.
Well, last night, he worked it out. And you can see the results. Perhaps a little engineer in training here...
This weekend we got to see Liam's buddy Davis, who is now over a year old. When Davis plays peekaboo, he clearly understands the spoken cues. When his dad says "where's Davis?" he hides his eyes behind his hands.
Liam does not do that. But he does love to look at himself in the mirror, and he will laugh if you play a game with him where you appear and disappear. Sometimes I'll duck behind a wall and then pop out.
But here he is playing peekaboo with himself (with the help of his babysitter Eliza) in the little mirror on his playmat.
Our friend Rebecca stayed with us for a few days, and before she left she said to me that when she saw all those happy pictures of Liam, she always wondered if I was just being really selective about what I put up for everyone to see. But after staying with us for a few days she said she realized that he really was that happy. And, in perhaps one of the sweetest compliments ever, she said that she hopes the baby she is now pregnant with is as sweet and happy as Liam.
And really for the most part that is completely true.
But just in case you were wondering, sometimes he gets tired and overstimulated and fed up and well, cries like a baby. We took him to the Tennessee State Fair. I thought maybe he would be old enough to be interested in seeing some of the animals. We walked around with him for a while. The thing he seemed to like best were the colorful quilts. While walking through the quilt exhibition we accidentally wandered through a tiny tykes beauty show, where toddlers barely older than Liam toddled across the stage in tutus and tiaras. It walked that fine line between cute and creepy. And Liam really worked the room, winking at all the ladies.
He was pretty indifferent to the animals. But by that time he was probably getting a little tired. After the animal barns we stopped to get some super greasy traditional fair food. I got a corn dog and a lemonade. For the first time, Liam was emphatic and insistent about wanting to drink from the same cup I was. I let him chew on the straw and he seemed super excited about that. As Terry put him back in the carrier and walked him out of the fairgrounds, Liam would from time to time lean dramatically in my direction to grab the straw to put it in his mouth.
I was disappointed I had forgotten the camera in the car, because I wanted a picture of the baby at the fair. As we got to the parking lot I grabbed the camera and the baby just lost it. I snapped a quick picture (in the larger picture there are some cars and a peek at carnival rides in the background), and then we put him in the carseat.
In cute little overalls in honor of the State Fair, this baby has finally had too much.
Approximately 35 seconds later. Sleeping like a log.
If you are traumatized by that crying picture, go ahead and treat yourself to a little Gratuitous Baby Laughter.
Some folks have told me that they like to pop on and watch Liam being silly and happy for a little mid-afternoon pick-me-up. Cast off your prozac! Here's your daily fix and then some.
No, he still doesn't have any teeth yet, though there have been signs of teething seemingly forever. There are some swollen bumps on his gums, so we think any time now.
These aren't real teeth. We've worked our way up to very thickly pureed foods, so to start working towards different textures of solids, and help him develop more skills at self-feeding, we started to offer him some of those baby puffs cereals.
And, well, you can see the results for yourself. I don't know about you, but I found this screamingly funny. So in the video that guffawing sound is me and my mom dying of laughter.
The baby has, once again, rolled off his comfy play area and onto the hardwood floor. He seems to prefer it because it allows him to scoot and pivot a little better because it is slippery, so I've stopped trying to rescue him and return him to his mat. Although he still isnt crawling, his rolling and wiggling now routinely takes him in a 8 foot radius survey of the living room.
Yesterday he discovered the book shelves. He rolled on up to them, got himself onto his tummy and explored the books by pushing them back.
Right now he is on the hardwood floor staring intently at a patch of sunshine. He keeps trying to pick it up. It's adorable. So I thought I would share.
There is almost too much to say, but I feel like there are a thousand little precious moments and observations that somehow make up the mosaic of reflecting on the last month of Liam's life. Hard to believe he is now 8 months old. Somehow I saw 6 months coming, I was even ready for 7 months, but 8 months arrived in a flash.
September 15, 2009
Crawling Prep One morning I went to put him down for tummy time and instead of going down on his belly, he put his knees down and stayed up on all fours like he'd been doing it his whole life. I was shocked and excited. I clapped for him and just generally enthused as only a mother can at 5:30 am.
I was amazed at how comfortable he seemed in that position, and it called to mind my ongoing suspicion that he secretly practices all his developmental moves in the privacy of his crib before rolling them out for public performance. And my suspicions were confirmed, because several times since I've gone into his room in the morning to find him up on all fours.
He's been on all fours for about two weeks now. He's gotten more comfortable transitioning from sitting to all fours, and he has started doing a lot more rocking while on all fours, but still no actual crawling. Within the last two days he has taken to rolling himself off his brightly colored, carefully padded play area and onto the wooden floor. This morning he was wearing his fleece sleeper (finally cold nights in Nashville) and he was trying to reach a big cloth block. Somehow his trying to push up on his hands, combined with his slippery fleece sleeper, made him keep slipping/scooting backwards. Like moonwalking, only scooting on his tummy and rotating a bit. This sort of behavior is apparently a precursor to crawling as well, because it gets him accustomed to the idea that he can make himself move around.
Observing him through some of these moments has given me a sense of what may be his emerging personality. The books (and personal observation) say that some kids are just more bold and active. That they will see a toy in front of them but out of reach and fling themselves at it, and over successive efforts of flopping forward, they somehow learn to catch themselves and scoot forward. Liam is more calculating. He quickly developed a sense of what he could reach when fully extended, and rarely if ever falls over from over reaching. Sometimes when I try to tempt him into scooting forward by putting a loved toy just out of reach he seems to cock his head to the side and solemnly consider the toy, as if calculating distance. When he decides it is just too far he turns his attention to something else.
He seems to have an approach to life that involves considering and observing for a while first until he is sure of himself. This reminds me of a long ago conversation on a road trip. So Ian, if you are reading this, I think Liam is a "line" who likes to take things slow and steady, rather than a crazy "spiral" like his mom.
Foods He is making great headway on solid foods, and is now working with soft mashed (rather than blended) foods, like pieces of avocado, sweet potato, or well cooked white beans. To date he has tried: peas, zucchini, sweet potato, rice, quinoa, green beans, broccoli, butternut squash, lamb, turkey, white beans, prunes, blueberries, yogurt, carrots, apples, pears. He has also had a few spices, including the nutrient packed oregano and cumin. He seems to really like his beans flavored with oregano and cumin and mixed with rice or quinoa. But his all time favorites are broccoli and sweet potato, and yogurt (especially blueberry flavor). The kid just can't get enough of it. He tends to have broccoli at almost every meal. After looking up the nutritional content of broccoli (it really is a powerhouse!) it seems hard not to give him all he wants. When eating one of his favorites, he is like an impatient little bird, always with his beak open, leaning forward. If I take too long to deliver the next mouthful he gets impatient and starts reaching for the bowl himself.
This is another developmental moment: he is showing so much more interest in food. Now, whenever Terry or I eat or drink something, he is right there, staring at us like a hawk. If it is even remotely in reach, his little chubby baby fingers are insistently trying to get at whatever were eating.
But this increased interest in food is also a bit ironic. This is a kid who will put ANYTHING in his mouth. Sock? yup, in the mouth. Blocks, stuffed animals, my clothes, his play mat. Anything. Except food. When I put bits of food on his eating tray, all he wants to do is bang it with his hands or possibly grab it in tiny fists and clutch it. Anything really, except bring it to his mouth.
When the food isn't too staining I will let him mash his hands into the dish if he wants while I feed him. The only cost of this is that I sort of have to squeegie him down at the end because a quarter of his food is spread on his hands or face.
We've started giving him a few of those infant puffs cereal at the end of meals (they sort of melt in your mouth), to help him develop interest and confidence in self-feeding, to explore different textures including more solid foods, and to practice the pincer grip. He will bang on them or grab them in his fist. He will occasionally toss them over the side. But I have never seen him try to raise one to his mouth. (for very amusing pictures, click here).
Should I be concerned? Is that normal?
Who knows. But he's having a good time.
After these food baths, thanks to his increased interest in mucking about in his food, he is usually exceptionally messy. When eating carrots before the UVa game in September, I swear he looked like one of those college boys painting their face bright orange in support of the team colors. It is not unusual to find stray bits of food dried behind his ears, in his ears, in his hair, up a nostril, or in his eyebrows. So after dinner I've taken to giving him a more thorough washing off than just a simple cloth wipe down can provide.
So I strap him out of his little chair and we go into the bathroom. I run a little stream of warm water and wash his hands and face off. After a few times I noticed how incredibly interested in the water he was. He also really liked to touch the faucet and handles. He didn't seem particularly fascinated by the falling stream of water, which I thought might be interesting. Rather, he was interested in how it pooled up in the basin.
I let him pat his hands and feet into the water and he wriggled and splashed water everywhere and squealed with delight. Every few seconds he would look up into the mirror and give me the hugest grin, his mouth wide with pleasure and his eyes little crescents of baby joy. And the look on his face seemed to say "Are you seeing this?! This is incredible. Amazing!!" And then he'd go back to splashing.
I have so enjoyed these little moments of pure baby joy that an after-dinner foray to the sink has become a part of our bedtime routine. And no matter how long I let him play there, he is never tired of it. So finally when I lift him to take him away he always wriggles his whole body back in the direction of the sink, his little arms flailing and reaching out for it.
Temporary Cosleeping For the last week he's been sick and snotty. Lucky me, I also caught his cold and it knocked me for a doosey. The upside is that I get a ringside seat to all the symptoms that he doesn't have the words to tell me about (like the sore throat and pressure headaches). The downside is that he now sleeps terribly. Generally he goes down okay, but then he wakes up crying every hour. Every. Hour. Ugh.
So for the last three nights or so we have taken him into our bed to sleep with us. This is the first time we've tried sleeping with him since he was a tiny newborn. On one hand, it is one of the sweetest, tenderest experiences. The first night he settled in quietly between us and just stared at me, placidly open eyed. I stared back, just taking in those sweet little baby cheeks, soft baby eyes and delicate baby lashes. Slowly his eyelids got heavier and heavier and went gently to sleep. But before he drifted off, he reached one hand out in each direction and patted around until he had one hand resting on me and one on Terry.
Okay, not exactly a picture of all of us cosleeping, but we don't usually have a photographer around to document that. So here's a cute photo of him passed out on his playmat. Notice that adorable little butt up in the air.
So tonight, just moments ago, we heard him cry for the third time since we put him down. We tried to let him work his way through it, but he just kept crying and fussing. So finally (again) I went in there and picked him up. He settled a bit as soon as I picked him up. I took him into our bedroom where Terry had prepared the bed for him (a spot in the middle with our pillows as roll buffers on either side) and I gently put him down on our bed. Not kidding, the instant the kid hit the mattress he sighed contentedly and rolled over onto one side, fast asleep.
I now suspect he is using us for our tempurpedic mattress. How's that for a commercial?
Even still, although I will sleep less deeply tonight because he is in bed with us, I plan to enjoy it for all its worth. Last night, while I was watching him sleep peacefully in the dark, I caught myself doing the easy math. There are only 365 chances for me to sleep with my baby while he is still a baby and not yet a toddler. And already nearly three quarters of those chances are gone. So although it is a bad sleep habit according to all the experts, I am going to enjoy this brief little moment of snuggling with a warm, cuddly baby.
(Update, the following morning: Liam was a holy terror last night. I threatened several times to sell him on ebay. I figure that is an ok coping strategy until he starts understanding English. So this morning I am working on about four hours of shredded sleep. Anyone want a cute little baby?)
Terry's grandpa used to bounce him on his knee and sing an old nursery rhyme called "hop hop a horsey." So Terry loves to bounce Liam and sing the same song. And Liam loooooves bouncing (just remember the jumperoo).
So one afternoon Terry was playing with Liam on the couch, bouncing him and playing with him. And whenever Terry would stop their game, Liam would start bouncing himself up and down, as if eager to get back to playing again. I thought it was totally charming, so I grabbed the camera to capture his little eagerness.
Liam is a wonderful, laughing baby. When he really cracks a huge smile, or lets loose with a hearty giggle, it lights up my whole soul.
I've taken to calling the things that make him laugh "jokes." Often the things that make him laugh seem totally random, with no rhyme or reason. But I suspect there is an underlying logic to them.
For a while Terry would send him into gales of laughter by running his chin across his chest from shoulder to center, and then looking up at him. By accident I got him laughing by looking up and moving my head in a circle until I was looking at him. The theme seemed to be head movement, but it was more specific than that. After a little experimentation, I realized that what he was laughing at was the change in perspective from seeing our faces in profile to seeing them full on. Sure enough, he would repeatedly laugh hysterically simply if you looked left and then looked right at him.
While visiting Kerry and Sara in Virginia, Kerry babysat the baby while we went to the wedding of a friend. As we were leaving, Kerry took Liams little chicken toy and, quite reasonably, started moving it and making a clucking sound. The baby dissolved into crazy laughter. So on the road trip home whenever he got fussy I would repeatedly tell the chicken "joke."
The other day on the bed I was making goofy hand wiggles at him and he was giggling. We did this for nearly five minutes before we were all laughing. Terry got the video to capture the fun.
One of the things I love about this video is that you can see him anticipating the pattern...he knows when the punchline is coming.
Liam is kind of a predictable cut-up in the bath. He seems to love bath time, although it doesn't make him laugh. His face looks all serious, like he's all about getting down to the business of bathtime. And the business of bathtime involves kicking his legs to make waves and chasing one of two floating animals around his little tub. Every time it is the same ritual.
I really wish this video had subtitles. It would go something like "Aquasize. No, hippo. No, ducky. No, hippo again. Ok, aquasize. Wait, hippo. No, ducky. Back to aquasize."
Early in September we took a road trip from Tennessee to Virginia for the wedding of one of Terry's good college friends, Justin. We were lucky enough to stay at the home of one of our grad school friends Kerry. Kerry and his wife Sarah just moved to Virginia when he finished his PhD and took a position at James Madison University.
They have a lovely home in hilly and rustic Staunton, VA. We enjoyed coffee in the homey downtown area, pizza from the local "it" spot (rosemary and grapes!), and capped off the visit at the semi-famous Mrs. Rowe's Restaurant and Bakery. A no-nonsense waitress takes our order and gently tolerates our requests for some substitutions (you can almost see her thinking "y'all aren't from around here"). We all take her advice and order the biscuits and gravy. It does not come served with a Lipitor, but probably should. Terry and I each get a piece of pie to go, because the pie is, after all, what this place is really famous for (see the cookbook).
Apart from galavanting around darling Staunton, we went to the wedding at the University of Virginia chapel, and then the reception at a stunning Virginia vineyard. While we were out at the wedding, Kerry and Sarah watched Liam. Both of them were totally charmed by the little man's magic. He, in turn, was a big fan of the chicken noises Kerry could make. That one was good for silly giggles for several days after we got home.
On Saturday we went to a tailgate in one of the historic UVa gardens, and then a football game. A good time was had by all, and when we got back, it was the first time I'd walked into our house in Nashville and had that gut reaction, "ahh, it's good to be home."
Wearing Dad's Vandy hat to keep the sun out of Liam's face, eating on the drive to Virginia.
Erin & Terry take on the wedding reception at a gorgeous Virginia vineyard, while grad school friends Sarah and Kerry watch Liam.
Erin with her best friend from childhood, Jenni
Terry gets funky with the man of the hour, Justin
All decked out in UVa gear, in front of the historic Rotunda
We stop off for tomato soup at one of Terry's college haunts.
Father and son kick back at the pregame tailgate hosted by the bride and groom. We take the opportunity to pose a sleepy Liam. No babies were actually harmed in the making of this photo.
The McDonnell fam joined the YMCA of East Nashville, which apparently has an outdoor pool that is quite the place to be in the summer. Not only do they have a separate kiddie pool, but the main pool has a "zero entry" portion (where you can walk in and it gradually deepens from nothing to pool depth). The main pool also has a cute water fall that looks like a giant mushroom from Mario brothers. The outdoor pool was only open until the end of Labor Day weekend. So we suited up, bought some swim diapers, and headed out to the pool. Thanks to Terry's aunt, he was also outfitted in some awesome swim trunks with matching SPF hat.
Terry's colleague and friend Elizabeth was kind enough to offer us her Exersaucer, which her kids were now too old to use. An Exersaucer seems to be a sort of gold standard toy that, as a parent, you hear about everywhere. We didn't get one before we moved because they are sort of big (as you'll see) and moving it from Chicago just seemed silly.
The one Liam inherited has a circus theme with lots of bells and whistles and fun things to chew on. He loves rocking out in it. And by rocking, I mean that literally. The Exersaucer is intentionally designed to rock a bit to help babies practice balance while standing.
He coos like crazy in this video, and you'll also hear me try to coo back at him. The whole exchange sounds like some crazy foreigner trying to mimic an intricate tonal tribal language...or beluga whales communicating.
It may take a little while for the video to load. Terry got me a new camera that takes great digital videos. The only problem is that the blog has some issues with big file sizes, so I'm trying the youtube route. We'll see how it goes.
This video really captures his developmental moment. Within the space of about three days he went from a hesitant sitter who flopped over a lot to a really great independent sitter who only occasionally falls when he over-reaches himself.
This video also shows him reaching further and further and really intentionally grabbing for particular toys. I love that the new independence of sitting is also allowing him to express more of his own emerging preferences.
That over-reaching and flopping is supposedly the middle step towards kids learning how to crawl. The flopping transforms into more purposive belly flops, that eventually morph into him realizing he can tuck his feet under himself and support himself more on his hands. So that is the direction we're heading, but so far no action on the crawling yet.
PS-What Terry didn't mention is that this ducky bathrobe is the very first thing we ever bought for the baby. I bought it right after I took the pregnancy test and before I even told Terry. It was on the breakfast tray the morning I told him we were having a baby.
