Learning Shoe Work with Daddy

The shoes come off. The shoes go on. The shoes come off. The shoes go on. This is life with a toddler. Liam's Montessori program really emphasizes independence, so we have to work hard to find toddler shoes that fit him well and that he can put on and fasten entirely on his own.

Event date: June 6, 2011

Liam loves Hockey (and Elliott)

One day Liam went over to play at his friend Elliot's house and got to watch the Nashville Predators, our local hockey team. And from that day forward hockey has been among his favorite sports. He especially loves to go over to Elliot's house and play hockey with Elliot, complete with sticks and helmets.

The images are sort of blurry but there's something nice about that too, because when the boys are together, the boys are sort of a blur of activity as well. Though amazingly, they play really well together, and even though rowdy we've yet to have one of them get injured with the stick. Perhaps its because of those awesome helmets...

Liam learns to spit...

There's a funny little thing about kids. Every once in a while something happens that makes you remember that these crazy wonderful little creatures don't know how to do so many of the things we take for granted. Like spit. It seems like little boys should know how to spit from birth. That your primary problem as a parent would be teaching them NOT to spit.

But after Liam turned two he was eligible to move up to big boy toothpaste with actual floride in it, provided he could learn to spit instead of swallow it all. So we had to begin the lessons in spitting. The first couple times he just couldn't get the idea. He would chug down the water, swallow and then open his (empty) mouth wide.

Then the very next morning he tried again and voila! victory!





Event date: May 19, 2011

Liam helps read Goodnight Moon

We learned a while ago, thanks to Terry, that Liam was actually soaking up and retaining much more of his stories than we thought. Now we have fun by letting him "fill in the blank" while we read the stories.

In this reading of Goodnight Moon he got distracted by mom and the camera, and then halfway through he gets obsessed with finding the "elephant." Have any of you who know Goodnight Moon ever seen an elephant in there? I'm betting not. But our little eagle eyed reader found an elephant on the shelf in the last page and now hunts for it on all the pages of the room.

Who is that cool guy behind those aviators?

In a tragic accident, Liam's favorite froggy sunglasses were broken. Auntie Natasha to the rescue! Natasha found these super cool kid's aviators and they were quickly adopted as "mine sasses"

Event date: May 24, 2011

Liam and the Cicadas

Activity Date: May 23, 2011

This year Nashville saw the much heralded return of the cicadas. Liam was at first scared, and later fascinated by all the "buggies." After one particularly ferocious storm, leaves and buggies were strewn all over our back deck, along with some styrofoam from the recycling container.

I noticed Liam was crouched at the threshold and repeatedly picking up and putting down one of the pieces of styrofoam. It turns out he had constructed a little styrofoam lean-to house for one of the live-but-exhausted buggies.

Later Liam took his little Liam-sized broom outside with me and we both "swept the buggies" off the porch. This became a favorite activity and for nearly a week every morning he wanted to hand me my broom and lead me to the back door so we could "sweep a da buggies."


After he finally works up the courage to pick up one of the (dead) cicadas, he takes him on a little tour of the deck to find more of his buggy friends "C'mon cicada. Here cada. Where are you?" and later after I suggest that he throw the cicada over the railing, Liam thinks on this suggestion, looks at the cicada and makes the observation "Having wings. Fly."

Liam rides along with the Chincotague wild ponies

I just returned from a weekend away in Minneapolis while Terry and Liam stayed home in the bachelor pad. I missed him so much it was like my heart exploded when I walked out of the airport and saw him sitting in the back of the car. So we're celebrating mom's return with a little family movie night. Since seeing the Derby (and watching the Preakness on TV) Liam is obsessed with horses and horse movies.

Right now his golden curls are swinging as he rocks back and forth on his rocking horse, which is planted immediately in front of the TV. He occasionally chimes in, "horseys" or "neigh!" He's watching an old-school movie about Chincoteague Island's wild ponies. Every time the horses on the screen start running he starts rocking his horse as well, running along with them.

It is the sweetest thing. Somehow neither pictures, nor video, nor words really capture the soft happiness in my heart from watching him right now.