Easter Fun
Liam was quite pleased to acquire a new set of cars and street signs thanks to Grammy.  Indeed, he is memorizing what each sign says and taking note when we are out and about.  The most common sighting is the U turn sign.  We also had a lot of fun dying eggs with all- natural dyes.  It made for a couple pretty pictures and some tasty egg salad afterward.

The pronoun update
Liam has continued to sort these matters out.  Recently he’s taken to confirming what he knows.  He’ll point to the person he’s addressing and say “that’s you”, point to himself and say “this is me,” and point to another person and say “that’s a friend.”  He’s always right.  But sometimes he still gets things confused.  Now if we can just get David to quit speaking in the third person when talking to Liam, I’m pretty sure that we’d seal the deal.  I’ll bet that folks who knew me back in my younger days will find such a notion funny since I used to employ the third person quite a lot.  What goes around comes around.

Material Acquisitions
Liam’s begun his consumer training and he’s a quick study.  Here are a couple examples.

I don’t do too much shopping, mostly Liam is with me when I’m buying groceries.  At this point, he knows how to get to the bananas, coconut water, and chocolate macaroons at Whole Foods.  So those items pretty much always end up in the cart.

On one occasion though, I needed to go to Target to get David a new pair of jeans since one of his two pairs got a hole.  I figured that Liam and I would go together and we’d get a toy that I was pretty sure was available at Target.  (Now he knows that Target has toys and will periodically request to go and get more – especially when we pass by the telltale bullseye, he’s very observant).  We talked as we looked through the men’s department.  As we were leaving Liam suggested that we get Papa a pair of shorts.  I commended his idea since David had only one pair of shorts.  I love a shopping companion with practical ideas and now I’ve got one!

Liam found a picture of 20-odd automoblox cars that the manufacturer puts in the box to entice more purchases.  Liam’s already familiar with these enticements thanks to the pictures in the lego instruction booklets.  Here’s how the conversation went.
Liam:  I have a poster, I want all these cars
mom:  It will cost a lot of money
Liam:  I want get lots of money
mom:  Me too, can you get us some?
Liam:  Yes (as he walks to my wallet accompanied by Irma).  I want mama’s wallet.
Mom:  Liam, there’s no money in there.
Liam:  I want get lots of money at the bank.

We’ll keep working on his strategies for capital acquisition.  Who knows, maybe he’ll strike us all rich.

The Orchestrations Continue
As I’ve already noted here, Liam has a sense of vision when it comes to how things should look and go.  Recently he’s taken to feeding us our lines to create a more dramatic effect.  It’s clear that he gets a thrill out of creating a reaction and so he’s often instructing something like this:  “How ’bout you say “Oh My Gosh!” and I say “Look at this.”  When my mom was here for a visit, this became particularly fun at the turn of certain pages in books.

As far as my hair goes, I’ve determined to make some improvements to my daily “do”.  I’m now setting my hair with some twirls and a roller.  Liam does not like the roller and we have an agreement that the roller goes after the post-shower nurse.  He make sure that we follow the plan each and every time.

Beauty Comes From Within
I don’t know how he knows that, but he does.  When paid a compliment such as “you’re so handsome”, Liam’s common response is “no I’m happy”.  Such a smart boy.

Threading the Needle
My mom visited over the Easter weekend and David and I decided to attempt an outing one day while Liam napped.  As every day goes in our busy life, getting out the door in order to make the movie showtime required that many actions be timed just right.  I’ve come to realize that part of the art of getting Liam to nap at a given time involves giving him enough stimulation to sufficiently tire him out.  David, my mom, and I managed to orchestrate the many and fully scheduled hours leading up to the ideal nap time perfectly – to the point that David and I marveled.  Such moments feel like such a parting of the clouds after years of struggling with the balance of everything that we do in our little family.  It’s worth celebrating:  sometimes we get it right.

Perhaps in response to the exertions of getting it all right, David, my mom, and Liam all fell at the mercy of a persistent and nasty virus.  That required that we lay low and take care.  We did and all’s better now.

Polite Conversation.
I continue to be grateful that Liam’s interest in the social graces seems to be growing.  He’s now taken to asking David and me, “How’s your day going Papa / Mommy?”  When we respond and ask him the same, his answer is most often, “It’s looking pretty good.”

The Legocy Has Begun
It started in January with a gift to Reggie and a date to assemble his newest Lego kit.  David realized that Liam would need his own kit.  Of course.  Since then (I believe) seven more kits have been purchased and assembled countless times.  That’s an average of two kits a month.  I pointed this out to David and he was a bit surprised.  When I was pregnant, David confessed that he was hoping for a boy since he’d been fantasizing about having a boy to play Legos with for many years.  He got his wish.  And Liam could not have an easier target for his constant quest to acquire more Legos.  We keep all the Lego boxes in the basement.  This is mostly because I have a strange penchant for keeping boxes.  Given the rapid pace at which the Lego boxes are multiplying in our house, I’d now be happy to send the boxes to the recycling.  But Liam and Irma have a box tossing game that they play so we’re stuck with them.  Last week, Liam and I were sitting on the steps looking at all the sets advertised on the box.  He pointed out the garbage truck and I mentioned that I was eager to get that one ever since we’d watched a video about it.  “Soon, but not today,” we agreed while talking.  Then David came home and within ten minutes the two of them were sitting in front of the computer trying to locate the set in question.  Then they left with the plan to visit two or three stores.  They came home with another set, the garbage truck has been discontinued.

Nearly every day includes a request from Liam to work with one of his sets.  Here’s what he says:  “I want to take it all apart and put it back together and use instructions.”  He means every word.  And so that’s what we do.  It’s remarkably soothing.  It’s also quite fun to see how quickly Liam remembers each step required to put the various vehicles together.  I’d never had any exposure to Lego before this, neither had my mom, but now I’ve come to see them as a three dimensional puzzle.  In one visit, my mom’s become quite the fan, she’s already visited the Lego store in Michigan.  Game on.

Keeping me on my Toes
I’ve generally come to trust Liam when we are out in the world although recently I had to check myself because I got a little too lax.  We were at the library and in his eagerness to get home and read the books we’d just checked out, Liam ran ahead to the door.  And down the two ramps.  And to the curb.  He was attempting to cross the street when a kindly passerby stopped him.  Luckily he was inclined to listen to her.  Next time I’ll leave the books and run after him.  I will always be grateful for the kindness of strangers.  Even in the big anonymous city, folks look out for each other.

Cozy Up
This is what Liam means when he says he wants to cozy up and read a book on the sofa.  It’s a fairly common request and always welcome.
All in all, as Liam is oft to observe, life’s looking pretty good.

My lists of fun Liam stories are growing quite long which is my fail-proof indicator that the time for a blog post has arrived.  For David and I, Liam is a continuous fountain of fun so that over the past few months my feeble mind has only managed to hold on to a fraction of the tales of cuteness that make up our days.    I console myself with the notion, that some is better than none and that it will be just a enjoyable to read these stories as it will be to suddenly remember others out of the blue in some future moment.  I’m sorry about the dearth of pictures.  Clearly, I lack my husband’s technical savvy.  And clearly, he is occupied with other more pressing tasks.  Because I’m pretty sure that he’d be quite content to snap, edit, and post photos of Liam ad nauseam were it not for his other duties.  Perhaps the lack of pictorial evidence of all our fun will give somebody the notion that an in-person visit is in order.  Our doors are always open, and the weather ’round here is pretty spectacular these days.  California beckons you, do you feel it?  I encourage you to follow the feeling!

I’ll Be You and You’ll Be Me, Oh What Fun It Will Be!
(This was one of the first items on my list, and since Liam has made great strides toward proper pronoun usage – what a smart cookie!)  We are in the thick of language acquisition – Liam is working on pronouns.  Currently in Liam’s language, you is Liam and I is the person to whom he is speaking.  It makes for interesting conversations especially when we who are in the know are called upon to translate.  Since Liam is so often one-on-one with people, it makes sense.  It’s when we are in groups of three or more that we have a chance to see the full range of pronoun usage.  At least that’s how I’ve made sense of this particular period in Liam’s language development.

The Stutter
This passed within a couple months, but I wanted to note here that Liam was consistently stuttering with certain sounds (s, z, ch, c, etc).  Both David and I refrained from correcting him and practiced our patience while he worked to get the words out.

We Love  (fill in the blank)
Now that Liam is repeating them, it is pretty fun to see what things I often say, and quite a relief to see what things he hasn’t yet been inclined to repeat (ahem).  Apparently, I’m oft to declare our affection for certain things like cookies, particular books and songs, pudding, pizza, etc.  So now Liam is prone to saying “we love cookies” or “we love this book”, with real conviction too.  It is one of life’s simple pleasures to revel in enjoyment of everyday things, and it’s even more fun to have company in doing so.

Another frequent declaration of Liam’s is “it’s a beautiful day!” I always appreciate that one, because he’s inevitably correct, and it’s always a welcome reminder of all that’s going right given my slight propensity for focusing on other matters.

Music Baby
Liam has begun to request music.  Apart from a few favorite songs (ba ba black sheep, row row row your boat to be sung by us, the wheels on the bus to be sung by Liam, and Borneo to be played for dancing), Liam’s genre request has lately been rock n’ roll.  I’m sure that David is pleased with this given his love for classic rock, for my part I’m pleased that what passes for rock n’ roll in his mind is, jazz, motown, and old school soul or r&b.

And then one day he asked for music and a particular song:  “jumping on head”.  I didn’t know what he meant, but he was quite certain so I eventually started with his favorite (Borneo) and went down the playlist until I realized what he’d been trying to convey:  Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.  Shortly after enjoying that one a couple times, he requested his “favorite song” which I, of course, could oblige.  Within the week, he requested “raindrops” again, and this time I could hear him singing the lyrics a few counts behind the recording.  It would seem that soon he’ll be able to serenade us a classic pick-me-up.

Driving Lessons
Unfortunately David is often at his wits end with driving around the busy streets of our neighborhood.  It’s understandable, at many points in the course of a day, there is too much congestion for things to run smoothly and other people in transit are prone to committing errors in judgement (I can say this based on the personal experience of making such errors).  Detail oriented folks like David are inevitably frustrated by such momentary lapses of order.  On one such occasion David was attempting to do the right thing and give other drivers their right of way.  Presumably they were confused because they were not taking it.  David finally erupted:  “THERE ISN’T A STOP SIGN, PEOPLE!”  (Of course the only people to hear him were Liam and I).  And of course, Liam repeated the statement with a gleeful conviction.  (He is quite good at repeating things until we acknowledge him).  Much later, Liam and I were driving in downtown Berkeley and we were waiting behind a car that was waiting for some pedestrians.  Liam exclaimed repeatedly, “there’s not a stop sign people!”

Liam is also quick to note that we need gas when the little ding announces the illumination of the fuel light.

And when we are stopped amongst other cars, he declares that we are in a traffic jam.  And within a minute or two proclaims that it’s time to be done with said traffic jam.  If only it were that easy.

When we head out and about in the car, Liam has taken to rattling off a list of vehicles that he hopes to see in the course of our journey.  He then proceeds to look for them for the duration of the trip.  Sometimes he only sees the top of an ambulance but still points it out.  Given that we live in such a populated area, he is usually lucky enough to see at least a couple of the vehicles on his list and he’s quick to point them out.  It’s become such a common practice that now I tend to shout out the names of interesting vehicles even when driving alone – well I usually catch myself before the thought becomes actual words, but not always.

By the way, in Liam’s vehicular taxonomy any car with a spoiler is a “race car.”  And yes, they are always worth pointing out.

Just a couple days ago Liam noticed some garbage on the curb as we got into the car (he’s quite observant).  A discussion followed.  He suggested that the garbage truck would come around to pick up the trash, and I countered that it would probably be the street sweeper and talked about how they do the same task at different scales.  About ten minutes later he kept saying something that I struggled to understand until I finally did, “The garbage truck and the street sweeper are similar mommy!”

A Momentous Occasion!
It was on Thursday November 21st (gosh it has been a while since I posted), that Liam demonstrated his new skill of memorizing a favorite book.  We checked it out from the library on Monday.  He asked me to read it over and over again.  On Thursday he picked it up and read it cover to cover, all by himself.  Needless to say, I was impressed.  So I took a picture:

We Love Pizza!
Every time I go to the cheeseboard I am grateful that such a place is within driving distance.  Put together live jazz, affordable and high quality food immediately (after you wait in a fast moving line), and friendly folks, and you’ve pretty much got my dream of a restaurant.  In the last several months of 2013, David was working one evening a week to catch up and so Liam and I made a routine of visiting the cheeseboard.  We’d get in the car and Liam would say, “we’re going for pizza, cookie, and soda.”  And I would answer “we love pizza!”  Sometimes we happen to drive by when we are out and about and Liam recognizes it, so of course we have to stop.

Notes on Befriending Felines
So far Liam and Siegfried have arrived at a fairly peaceable coexistence.  Liam has begun to make a few moves toward a more engaged friendship though and I think that in some cases he might make some headway.  In other cases no.  I’m not sure why, but Liam seems to think that chasing Siegfried around while screaming or making monster noises is a good idea.  David and I are still working out the details of how to convey just what a bad idea this course of action is.
But when it comes to opening doors, Liam and Siegfried may have a match made in heaven.  Like any dignified feline, Siegfried prefers to pass through open doorways rather than pushing them open with his face or scratching his way through.  Liam is quite content to monitor the doors of our small household, to open them when needed and to keep them shut otherwise.  If only Siegfried can erase the increasing number of memories that involve a screaming Liam at his tail that seem to weigh heavily upon his mind when he sees that Liam has offered him a portal, we adults may enjoy the benefit no longer playing doorman to our feline friend.
Liam has also become quite vigilant about monitoring Siegfried’s food stores and providing him with nourishment.  He knows the magic word to beckon Siegfried to his num numbs.  On one occasion, he offered Siegfried raisins but then promptly ate them all himself.  (Siegfried’s utter nonchalance probably had something to do with it.)  But David pointed out Liam’s lapse in consideration all the same.  Liam responded by taking the empty bowl over to Siegfried, and leaning in to say, “I’m sorry Siegfried, I ate the raisins.”

The New Face of Mr. Entropy
Liam is playing around with his powers of destruction these days.  A week or two ago I was doing something in the kitchen while Liam was playing with his various vehicles on the living room rug.  When I came closer for a check in I realized that he’d been using his Blue Angel model to rip up the rug.  Luckily, it was the least expensive rug in our collection but it left me wondering how much of our home will remain intact for the duration of Liam’s youth (we have a fair number of chipped dishes and our home bears other such minor nicks and scrapes).  Around that same time Liam kicked over one of his cranes and ended up breaking it. He’s also drawn on the furniture and has demonstrated a rather consistent penchant for ripping books.  After one recent display of destructive behavior, my reaction was clearly one of upset.  Liam stood back from the scene of destruction, and bowed his head a bit as he said quietly, “I’m sorry Mommy”.  Of course, I said that I forgave him and gave him a hug.  It’s such fun to see him know just what to say, that is one of the skills that he picked up in February.  As far as the destructiveness goes, I figure that it’s a matter of evaluating and reflecting on a case by case basis.  My hope is that with our consistent attention and feedback Liam will learn how to care for things so that they last a good long while.

Which Leads Me to the Topic of Manners
It would seem that my idea of modeling good manners is paying off.  Liam has become quite adept at saying please and thank you which I really appreciate.  Not only because it imbues even our most mundane interactions with grace, but because I’m pretty sure that as he goes out into the world, our friendly guy will be well-received.

Posing the Rhetorical Question
True to his age, Liam is inquisitive.  Repetitively so.  To the point where I’ve started to think that he’s actually exploring the concept of the rhetorical question.  Now when Liam burrows into a line of inquiry, I turn it around after I’ve played the role of answerer enough times.  I’m not sure of course, but this new take on the age-old game of question and answer seems to suite us well enough.

It’s a Good Thing that Hollywood’s Close By…
because our son seems to have the makings of a movie director.  (I prefer that positive spin to the more anxiety-ridden theory that he’s a control-freak.)   Recently we met a friend at the park and Liam had a very definitive notion of what we all should be doing.  I was meant to be circulating and greeting all the other folks at the park, Liam was meant to be climbing up the ramp of the play structure and Deb was meant to be watching him.  We were meant to be standing at a very particular distance with respect to each other, and our conversation was meant to be dictated by Liam.  Apart from this fuller production episode, Liam is often directing others’ costume changes (mostly in the form of hats and jackets on or off with respect to his preferences about people staying or going).  And then there’s my hair, which clearly ought to be worn a certain way (down), except when it’s time to play with my hair clips.  Hey, if he can make us look a little better in the ragtag life that we are currently living, I’m all for it!

Here Comes the But
It’s become a thing in the negotiations that pepper our days.  Liam states a preference.  We acknowledge that preference and offer the specific scenario about how we think it can come about.  Liam turns both hands toward the ceiling, and says “but, I want to….”  It’s very endearing.  But not always effective.  You know life’s like that sometimes.

It’s been far too long since I’ve posted a family update here.  This is testimony to the amount of effort that has been going into other areas of our family life, namely getting my career back on track.  It’s been a busy few months and the results have been good.  As we wind down for the holiday season I’m looking forward to a simpler schedule before the high season of new year’s resolutions kicks into gear.

Liam continues to entertain and impress us in equal parts.  For the past couple weeks, I’ve repeatedly had the feeling that I should have taken note of particular instances of cuteness and impressiveness.  But alas, those moments will have to remain within my heart rather than here in cyber-space.  But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have stories to share, it has been a while since I last wrote….

Liam has proved himself to be one of us when it comes to being tidy.  On one occasion he and Irma came inside from an outing.  He rapidly stripped off his clothing and dropped it on the floor as he was rushing toward his next exploit.  But after a couple steps in that direction, he paused, and turned back to put the discarded items up on the shelf.  He puts toys away a fair amount of the time, with proper motivation he’ll even do it all on his own!  On one such occasion, Liam was putting away two sets of wooden blocks (one with the Spanish alphabet and the other with the English one).  David pointed out that he’d put a couple blocks in the wrong container.  Liam said, “oh!” and quickly rectified the error.  Liam has also become a fan of helping Irma clean which he does with a remarkable precision.  This past week I watched as he wiped down every handle and knob in the kitchen.  He was especially pleased when I finally took a hint and filmed him.  It would seem that I’m not completely unreasonable in anticipating a tidy home some day in the distant future.

Liam also prefers to eat in an orderly fashion.  While at his 2nd birthday party he realized that his “smash” cake was meant to be eaten, he waited patiently until the fork that he requested was in hand before tucking in.  So it would seem that a smash cake is no longer required, nor was it ever.  We do have to remind him to wipe his hands on a napkin rather than his shirt.  But he is very fastidious about monitoring dropped bits as he eats.  He prefers messes to be cleaned up sooner rather than later, unless the food is really good.

Generally Liam exhibits a level of caution that lays mama-worries to rest.  But sometimes, mostly in the company of his father, he gets a little wild.  On one such occasion, he took a superman dive into the headboard of our bed.  Tears were shed, photos were taken, the doctor was seen.  Strangely enough she didn’t wag her finger while saying “no more monkeys jumping on the bed,”  but the three of us did.  An awful lot.    Liam still has a dent between his eyes.  (I ought to be rubbing that more often, come to think of it).

I’m pleased to report that one of my original ideas for Liam’s education is being realized.  Since the three lovely ladies who help with his care are all Spanish speaking, he is learning to understand and speak Spanish.  Often I will hear them practicing vocabulary and reading together.  And I must say that I feel quite pleased about it!

So far, Liam has remained true to his friendly, sociable nature.  His California birthday party was a testament to how much pleasure he takes in spending time with the people that he knows and loves.  But it has become increasingly obvious that he favors girls.  Today in the check-out line at Whole Foods he started acting all goofy and I didn’t understand why until I realized that he’d locked eyes with the pretty lady standing behind us.  Oh boy, here we go….

Every day ushers in new words for Liam right now.  His pronunciation is getting clearer and clearer and he works at repeating just about everything that he hears.  (Yes, I am trying to cut back on the cursing).  A while back though, he was using “bye bye”  for many purposes.  To say goodnight to everything in sight a la “Goodnight Moon”, to bid fellow passengers at the Tilden Steam Trains adieu,  to tell a friendly and very large dog that he’d had enough face kisses, and to tell me to steer clear when he wants free reign to explore each and every button on the CD player.

At one point a couple months ago I wasn’t sleeping well which made me crabby (more worrying about, than actually feeling, the effects of sleep deprivation).  On the morning in question though, Liam managed to instantly cheer me up by picking out the most adorable outfit for himself.  According to David, he not only insisted on the shirt / pant combo, but on wearing the body suit over the pants.  Of course!  Why didn’t we think of that?!  Perhaps because it’s not 1982…

On August 6th, I heard Liam say his name for the first time.  It’s still his own version of it to date.  And he’s still figuring out his pronouns.  But progress is being made inside that brain of his.  I’m convinced that he inherited David’s brain by the way.  And my skin.

Another insight into Liam’s particular take on the English language.  Lego figures are characterized as “papa men” and “mama men”.  Most women of the world, take for example the gal who picks up our garbage every week, are “mama”s.

When anybody comes to the door, or the studio for that matter, Liam is eager to great them.  He’d be happiest if each and every person came on in, sat on the floor, and joined him in a rousing session of making automotive sounds while pushing cars around on the floor.  Alas, more frequently than not, his hopes are dashed.

When Aunt Joan sent Liam a new jacket for the upcoming cold season, he was very excited.  Upon seeing what was in the box, he insisted upon putting it on straight away and was very happy to pose for a photo (and then immediately look at the photo, of course).

Liam and David were frequenting the zoo for a while which led to Liam asking on many occasions to go see the animals.  But he’s mostly into domestic ones that aren’t at the zoo.

Our morning routine of preparing scrambled eggs together was going strong for a while, but Liam has begun to lose interest.  I think that this is because he’s reached the limit of what I’ll allow him to do.  But I’m still confident that he’ll be preparing our breakfast by the time he’s four.

Along with his friendliness, Liam’s sense of determination has remained thus far.  As he’s moving through the standard developmental stages of year three there’s a fair amount of negotiation going on.  Temper tantrums are happening as are avid debates about just how such and such a thing should happen.  These days, we’re all working on getting Liam to speak before crying.  He seems to be picking up the concept (thank goodness!).

I believe that I already mentioned that Liam’s grandpa Twist (although grandpa likes to credit the Easter Bunny) gave him his first set of wheels.  In spite of logging a rather slim number of hours on his balance bike, it should come as no surprise that Liam has become something of a speed demon.  (He thrills when David accelerates on the freeway which has the duel effect of encouraging David and worrying me).  Which all goes to say that if you find yourself in our neighborhood, you may catch a glimpse of Liam gliding along and David or I running after him.  What a thrill for each of us!

Anybody who knows David well knows that he’s not a morning person and that coffee is part of his formula for managing to remain upright for any amount of time before noon.  Given that the boys are on their own Saturday mornings while I’m in the studio, Liam has learned about brewing coffee.  He and David now have a ritual of brewing the coffee and enjoying it together.  Liam insists upon sitting in the same type of chair as David which means that they sit across from each other at our rather large square-shaped table.  Once they return from David’s office where the brewing takes place, Liam asks for his “own cup”, gets right into his chair and waits patiently with his hands folded on the table.  Meanwhile, David gets a cup for Liam, has a seat and pours him abut a half teaspoon worth of coffee.  Once Liam finally partakes of the morning beverage, he puts down his cup and says “ahhhh” with a smile of satisfaction.

We recently visited grandpa Twist at his home in Lake County.  Liam enjoyed himself immensely and has been very happy to play with the toys of David’s that we brought back with us, especially the puzzles.  This is rather timely because a client of mine was just telling me about how her daughter was remarkably good at putting puzzles together when she was little.  As if on cue (I swear Liam never heard any talk of this though), Liam has started putting his firetruck puzzle together on his own.

Today, I was changing Liam’s diaper.  He was looking for something to do and started rubbing my arm.  He stuck his hand up my sleeve and it emerged out of the neck opening.  He was quite pleased at finding a “tunnel!” and requested multiple opportunities to repeat the satisfying experience.  I pointed out that he could do the same with his own shirt and he was equally satisfied.  But even still, he decided that it was better to move on to eating my elbow.  I have no idea why it’s so appealing, and I wish it weren’t, but he is often playing around with my elbow during diaper changes.  That’s when I call him a little weirdo.  And I mean it.  Liam is currently very interested in the three creams that we have for his bottom.  He insists on getting a bit on his finger and applying it himself.

I’m finishing up this post while Liam watches videos on the iPad.  I’m not that happy about it, but it’s become one of his favorite activities in recent months.  To counter my guilt over that situation, we’re about to begin a new schedule which will involve more mama-Liam time.  I’m really looking forward to this as I’ve been feeling remiss about my many educational goals for Liam.  Soon we’ll be devoting more time to dancing, listening to classical and jazz music, doing art projects, baking, and playing together out in the world.  I’m looking forward to this new phase of our life together, and to seeing all the new ways in which Liam impresses and entertains me.  The fun never ends!