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Hello again world! Our micro-universe swallowed us whole this summer. Saturday around 7p, David hit a button and just like that we got spit back out. While he still has a few more months of hard work ahead, he and his colleagues have made it over the big hurdle: their website builder for law firms is now a stand alone product for sale on the internet. And now, slowly and surely we are going to get ourselves back together, calm our nerves, restore our bodies, enjoy ourselves a bit here and there. Normal has finally arrived, at least that’s what David tells me…

David has been working furiously and I’ve been trying to hold everything else together in the meantime. Obviously lots of people manage to do what we’ve been doing (having a toddler and two businesses while building another one) without the level of frustration and general emotional strain that we’ve experienced. Those people are a marvel to me. As I’ve had to face up to my own feelings a lot lately, I’ve come to realize the significance of expectations. I always expected that I’d have some time for myself as a mom and that I’d have a very participatory partner in life and parenting. The challenge of the past few months has been that I’ve had to navigate the disparity between my expectations and the temporary reality of David’s being under a tremendous amount of professional pressure. While I didn’t completely lose my mind, I think that I may have discarded some parts of it at certain moments of breakdown. Hopefully they were the less important bits.

But enough about our toils and tribulations. Given what I’ve been through personally and what I imagine that David has been through in the past few months, it’s hard to believe that somebody could have been more active and engaged than us (you know, the magic of relativity). But, of course, young Liam has been running circles around us. My oh my, has this little guy been on the move! There is always something happening with him. Just today tooth number five emerged. Which explains the rash on his cheek, his lack of interest in food the past couple days, his desire for lots of extra comfort, and a whole lot of nursing.

So here’s what’s hot in Liam’s little world.

Liam talks up a storm, but mostly we don’t really make out the words that he’s saying. Then one day, he very clearly said “hot” while looking at the stove. (We’ve been exposing him to the concept of hot for many months now for the obvious safety reasons, Liam is extremely interested in everything that happens atop the stove which makes cooking rather challenging). That was a while ago now, maybe one or two weeks from today. He lots to say “hot” and so he says it a lot. Which makes me wonder just what he thinks “hot” means. Then a few days ago my mom, Liam and I were talking via facetime and she asked him if he could say “mama” (he’s been babbling mamamamama for at least a couple months now), and he surprised me by doing it! Grammy followed up with “dada” and Liam obliged us again (he’s been babbling dadadadadadadada just about as long as mamamamamamama). So it would seem that we’ve had a linguistic breakthrough. It’s all very exciting. I’m sure most of all for Liam, since he definitely knows what he wants and talking will certainly help him to get it.

Liam has a couple shape sorting types of games. He’s started to dump things out of containers and then put them back in. This has prompted some coaching on the part of his caregivers and a new game soon emerged. With help, Liam puts a shape through the correct hole, and then he and his companion share a clap. It would seem that he understands the celebratory nature of clapping, but I guess that I can’t say that with complete certainty. He definitely understands the purpose of waving, although he often does it once the person has actually said goodbye.

One evening we took a family walk to put a few letters in the mail. Liam insisted upon walking himself which made for a much longer outing than we had planned. But boy was he happy to be out and about on his own two feet. It was quite a sight for us two parents to behold.

I think that I mentioned in my last post about Liam’s newfound interest in putting objects in containers and opening and closing the containers. This also applies to cooking with blocks, wooden spoons and pots, pans, and bowls. The repertoire of what he does with objects has expanded. He revels in pushing over dining room chairs and high chairs, pretty much anything that he can manipulate for that matter. I’m realizing as I write this that it’s a blessing we don’t have too much furniture. He’s very interested in moving things around. The bigger the object the stronger the desire and determination (and perhaps a bit of frustration too). Sometimes he’s very happy to dismantle a puzzle and then put the pieces one by one underneath the ottoman. The other day he decided that the back of the couch really ought to be down on the floor and on another occasion he decided that the couch pillows really ought to be between the cushion and the frame. Liam loves to play with the letter slot and the knocker on our front door. He will often try to put things through the letter slot. Most recently and most consistently, he’s attempted to put old CD’s through. That is when he’s not hiding them under the corners of the rugs. When Liam is particularly enthusiastic about something, he will carry it around the house. Somedays we’d have pots and pans in the bedroom and pillows in the bathroom if he had enough time to arrange things properly. Lucky for us there is so much to do and so little time. Part of this carrying things around involves throwing things down with great vigor. This is unnerving when the thing being thrown is a cast iron skillet and the surface that it hits in a nice wood floor. Lately Liam hasn’t been given as many pots and pans for that reason. Luckily nobody has suffered a broken toe yet! I was considering another example of Liam’s tendency to toss this morning. To his exuberant joy, Liam discovered Siegfried curled up on our bed and made fast work of pursuing him too the kitchen. A very common scenario then played out, Siegfried jumped the gate and made haste out his door while Liam shouted after him and tossed a tapas pan over the gate, presumably in a last ditch effort of pursuit. If my interpretation is accurate it would seem that Liam is expressing his determination in bigger and bolder ways. David and Liam still bathe together every night. Sadly this bath time is not always fun, my theory is that we are waiting a bit too long to get started and Liam is tired. Hopefully soon, we’ll be even better about our evening schedule. But I digress. On one recent occasion, Liam and David had a lovely time in the tub. Liam spent a considerable amount of time exploring his toys and the tub itself. He had a good look at the washcloth that we use to wash his face and after some, apparently, careful consideration, proceeded to give David’s face a wipe down. He indicated that his tub time was over by systematically putting all his toys up along the ledge of the tub where we store them. Only when that task was complete did he give us the go to remove him. So we know that he’s got tidying up skills, thank heavens!

It took a couple sessions of swinging at the park in the company of his contemporaries to convince Liam of the merits of his new horsey swing. He is now a convert and has at least one session of swinging a day. I know for certain that David is more entertaining than me when it comes to the swing. He’s got all sorts of games that he plays with Liam while he swings. Generally speaking, David is quite creative when he interacts with Liam to Liam’s total enjoyment. While I occasionally elicit a belly laugh from Liam, for David it is a daily event. When David lets him sit on his lap and use the keyboard and mouse, Liam is in heaven. David came up with all sorts of games on office chairs. Now sometimes Liam will climb up which is his request to sit and be spun. David is pretty certain that Liam is going to be a fan of amusement parks. Liam also likes to play with the floor swing that we used when he was little. He loves to turn it on and crawl in it. Irma, who also cares for Liam, found that he will climb in and wait to be rocked to sleep when he’s ready for a nap. I really appreciate the opportunities that Liam has to interact with different people, it’s so fun to see how he and each person figure out different games and activities.

It’s official, Liam dances to music. Step one in my quest to rear a white man who can dance has been accomplished. Clearly we have a long road ahead of us, but when I put on La Murga and Liam responds by bouncing up and down and spinning around till he’s dizzy, I know that we are on the right track.

Liam knows that shoes are part of going outside and so he’ll pick them up and bring them to us as if making a request. If he’s getting stir crazy and I put on his bonnet he calms down because he knows that next I’ll be opening the door and he’ll have the fresh Oakland air on his cheeks. He is also sometimes helpful with getting dressed. I suppose this depends on how compatible our priorities in the moment are. Sometimes he seems to know that he’s got to get dressed so that we can do something of interest, other times he’s much more interested in something else and getting dressed is still a nuisance. In those cases he’s not particularly helpful, go figure.

One of our attempts to help me with David’s seven day work week was to have Auntie Alexa visit. That was a lot of fun for all of us. Alexa is great with kids anyway, but she was particularly enthusiastic about Liam – the power of familial bonds are amazing. At some unfortunate moment in anticipation of her visit, I fantasized about all the items that I’d be able to check off my to do list with Alexa here to lend a hand. The reality of my limited productivity vis a vis, my aspirations led me to have a couple tantrums (while alone on errands) of frustration. Lucky for me, I had a really fun visit with my sister. Lucky for Liam he’s got an Auntie who thinks the world of him. As for the to do’s, I suppose that they’ll get done eventually. I really do hope so, because I do enjoy getting things done.

Liam also suffered his first cold since my last post. It was just bad enough to be a cold and lasted for several days, he was congested and then had a cough. He managed all right, took it easy for a few days with a lot of books and viewing of our wedding photos on the ipad, had a few nights of tossing and turning and then he was back to his usual self.

Another attempt at diversion in the face of David’s absence was a weekend visit to Pine Grove which is a lovely retreat up in lake county. Our friends recently became the grove’s custodians and owners and so I’ve been wanting to see it with my own eyes. Among other things, I think that our visit to nature was really an opportunity for me to make my peace with dirt. I’m still not completely comfortable with the notion, but necessity is the mother of invention and so little by little dirt and I are arriving at a new sort of agreement. But I draw the line at kitty poop and pee. So this morning when I saw Liam rolling around in the area of our back yard that I’ve oft seen our feline friends use as a litter box, I was pretty grossed out. The good news is that Liam’s immune system is getting regular exercise and for my part, I’m frequently presented with opportunities to whittle down my neuroses. Our drive home brought forth an opportunity to face old anxieties and worries. On a deserted stretch of road free of cell phone reception, Liam began to cry. I didn’t pull over for fear of losing my friend who I was following back to Oakland and so Liam ended up crying in the back seat for about 30 full minutes. By the time we’d reached a turn off to the closest town, I’d resolved to spend the night there and complete the trip the next day. I was pretty frazzled but David found us a place to stay and Liam and I settled in and had ourselves a rest and a peaceful ride home.

And so it goes around here. Despite our occasional upsets, we manage to return to a tranquil homeostasis in a reasonable amount of time.