It has been a while and I still havent even posted all the Christmas photos. And now there are a mountain of photos to go through from my 30th birthday and LIam's first birthday. But before the little bits of information are out of my head, here are a few details from the life of Liam.
While we were staying at the cabin for my birthday, Liam discovered toilet paper. Oh what fun to unroll it all over the floor and then toss it around!
For the entire middle of January he was busy standing on his own without support. We would put him down, say "stand" and he would stand for anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds before he would slowly crouch down and go off crawling. But this past week it is as though he is willfully resisting. If I try to put him down to stand he either goes straight down onto his knees, or he leans backwards into my hands so heavily that he is more inclined than perpendicular, so if I let him go he will fall immediately. Unclear why he is resisting it. But he can clearly still stand on his own, because when he forgets to resist he will let go of whatever he is holding onto in order to use both his hands to manipulate some little thing he finds interesting, and there he is standing.
He has also been fascinated this past week with spinning things. He goes through all his toys to see which ones will spin. He bats them back and forth between his chubby baby hands on the coffee table, watching his toy spin in circles between his hands. He LOVES to take the pot tops out of the cupboards and try spinning those around.
He has also developed a wide range of fascinating facial expressions. He already seems capable of expressing a complicated array of human emotion, including disbelief, incredulity, vaguely manipulative sorrow etc. He has become a master of the lower lip all sad and trembly. Woe woe to us if we cannot learn to resist that cute little face.
He has also started shaking his head back and forth, a gesture regular adults might recognize as "no." I'm not sure where he got this from, because I dont believe Terry or I shake our heads no with any frequency. But Liam picked it up or discovered it and now it is in his repertoire. The only thing is that it doesnt seem to actually mean "no." In the morning after he wakes up and I change him and sing his little morning song to him ("good morning to you, my little magoo, you look like a monkey and you smell like one too") I take him out into the living room. And there he sits, beaming smiles at me, sitting on my lap doing nothing in particular, and he starts shaking his head back and forth. It is almost as though he just enjoys the sensation of his brains sloshing around. Or while in his high chair he will sometimes shake his head with a big smile and a wide open mouth as he puts food in his mouth. Other times he will look at me very sternly and shake his head.
I'm clueless. It is a good thing that I have not been entrusted with deciphering and translating some important alien communications. Because my baby's use of a seemingly simple gesture baffles me.
We've been doing baby signs with him for eons now it seems and still he does not sign back. Or at the very least, he does nothing the baby sign guide books suggest, like doing some poor immitation of the sign or repeating the sign back to me when I do it, or trying to make the sign at any appropriate time. For example: the sign for more is tapping the fingers of your two hands together in the center. If made messily, it sort of looks like bumping your own fists together or clasping hands. I do more with liam while he is eating (do you want MORE food?), after one book (do you want MORE reading?) or in the tub (do you want MORE water?). But he only seems to grasp his hands together while laying on his back having his diaper changed. And it seems more introspective (hey look, hand, other hand. wow) than communicative (hey mom! i'm looking at you, I want you to do something). And if it were to mean more, what in heavens name would he want? more diaper cream? more diapers, one isn't enough?
He has been having a grand time playing with his birthday presents. Terry and I got him a little cozy coup walker, so he pushes it around and around the island in our kitchen, smiling broadly, and occasionally taking breaks to open cabinets. He also loves the Learn and Groove table that he got from Grandma and Grandpa McDonnell (it was a Christmas present that we just got down here because we couldnt bring it back with us from Carolina in our luggage).
Thats all for now. Hopefully some more photos soon!
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