Booogity booogity boo

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!

Pumpkin Farm

Ready to go to the pumpkin farm in a cute little outfit for the unusually chilly day.


Konked out on the way there.






In the corn maze.


Cute little baby with pumpkins


Ferocious dragon with pumpkins

Turning pages, sitting in crib, and reports of scooting

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.

Mom-onesty: On not crawling and preschool waiting lists

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.

Liam Learns to Work the Sink

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...

Liam plays peekaboo, with himself

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.

State Fair, Unhappy Baby

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.

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.

Giggling in Virginia


Daddy Play Time


Laughing with Grandma Schultz


Baby Drummer, Mostly Laughing

False Teeth!

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.




And here it is in action...

Grabbing Light

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.

8 month update and more coming soon!

8 month reflections

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?)