This is my first attempt at putting photos up on this blog. So this post will be short on words and hopefully full of photos.
Thanks to friends far and near who celebrated with us in body and spirit! We’ve had some good times of late. Now there’s some clean up to do before we get back to the daily grind.
Stay cool, this summer seems to be delivering lots of heat! Love, Faye
Liam’s Second Birthday Party in California
Constant Impressions
I’m back from the brink. It has been a while since I’ve posted here. Perhaps the longest gap since Liam joined us on planet earth. Spring is in the air and it would seem our hearts as well. For myself, I am not under the same rock that’s been holding me down for what seemed like forever. Liam was always fine. And I think that David is feeling better on account of me. But then I’m the one writing the update, so we’ll never know for sure how the guys are faring. I’ve got all sorts of cute Liam stories to share, so I’ll get right to it. He continues to be a constant source of fun for us. He is a friendly guy. Just in the past couple days he’s really gotten the hang of saying hello and goodbye (still more on the goodbye end). So that when he leaves somebody’s company even it if is just to go into the next room he says “bye bye.” It’s very cute and I must confess that it gives me a sense that he’s going to have good manners. But one thing at a time. No need to get ahead of myself, right? Correct.
I’ve managed to jot down some dates which I felt were significant so I’m including them for posterity’s sake (remember this is partly a record for Liam to read as he likes someday).
It would seem that Liam is working on putting together sentences. On Monday April 29 he said, “mama more agua.” How charming! (Although he clearly understands a good amount of Spanish, we are speaking Spanish around 12 hours a week with his caregivers, he speaks in English except for a couple words).
On Tuesday April 30 Liam met a bunch of dragonflies while he and David were at the park. It was apparently a very captivating experience for our little guy. Both David and I are careful to always demonstrate kindness toward living things. This has been important to both of us long before Liam came into our lives, and yet now with him it seems even more important to live with a sense of kindness toward even our smallest neighbors.
On Sunday May 5, Liam got his first scraped knee. Poor guy! It’s healing up well, although we are experiencing the scabbing process (gross). It doesn’t seem to hurt him, rather it’s a bit of a curiosity. It makes me wonder about how young people experience pain. The few times that we’ve been compelled to use a bandaid on Liam’s fingers (when I snipped his nails too closely – oh the guilt!), he’s been more concerned with getting the bandaid off than it seems anything else.
On March 22, Liam got up from his name and went directly to turn off the sound machine before leaving the room to come and find me. His interest in doing this has since waned, but it seemed significant to me that his first thought upon waking was not to find me.
One day Liam caught sight of my iphone which he loves to play with. (Thankfully we took the netflix app off our phones and ipad since he had developed a habit of finding it and searching around for his favorite show, Wallace and Gromit). I was in the midst of computing and so I asked him to take it over to David so that they could look at it together. David then traded phones with him at which point Liam took it upon himself to bring my phone back to me. I am so often impressed with this kid. It’s a lot of fun.
In the beginning of April Liam decided that it was best to emphasize his “no” with a head shake. Within the month he’d picked up a finger motion for no and yes from Irma, one of the gals who helps us with Liam-care. For about a day we were wondering where he’d learned to wag his finger while saying no no no and then Irma cleared up the mystery for us. The good news is that she’s taught him a wag for no and a little nod for yes. So there’s a bit of balance coming into the “terrible twos”. And while some might raise and eyebrow at teaching a little one a finger wag with no no no, it’s pretty difficult to watch him do it without smiling. I like a bit of mischievousness in a person. It keeps things interesting.
It would seem that Liam wants nothing to do with dust jackets. I resisted for a while but I finally gave it and removed them all (since he was taking to tearing them off anyway). It seems like a rather silly little thing to me, but we are finding that Liam tends to notice details. (I wonder where he got that from?)
Irma also helps us with cleaning. I have always been grateful for her help but lately I’ve been realizing all the more profoundly what a complete mess our house would be were it not for Irma. Put another way, I have Irma to thank for a fair portion of my sanity. Liam has always enjoyed being involved in the cleaning process. Back when he was a (not so) wee babe, I’d have him in the carrier as I dusted and vacuumed. It wasn’t the most pleasant experience, but we got the job done. Nowadays, he follows Irma around and monitors her. If she drops something – say and outlet plug or a vacuum cleaner attachment – he says, “uh oh”. Luckily his cuteness outweighs anything else that such behavior might be described as. And also lucky for us that he’s eager to lend a hand which presumably makes Irma’s job a little more enjoyable. He’s proved to be most interested in cleaning mirrors and mopping the floor. That is, of course, quite separate from his complete admiration for the vacuum cleaner. But that’s a different sort of fascination, more of the mechanical variety.
Liam has become increasingly insistent upon feeding himself which is great. For a while I harbored a mama-neurosis that he might not be able to feed himself since we’ve always fed him. But it would seem that he’s been very observant this whole time and now he is quite the tidy eater. When he drops a little bit, he let’s us know that he needs a wipe by saying “uh oh.” He watches us carefully to be sure that we get every little bit cleaned up.
Lucky for Liam he’s got some cool guys in his life who are teaching him the tricks of the trade. I’m thinking here of his Uncle Shark who has undoubtably taught him any number of things that I do not – nor want to – know about. (Morgan taught him high five which has proven to be a long standing form of greeting and parting.) But it was Mark who taught him the fist bump. And lucky for Liam’s friends at the park, he’s one to share what he knows. Cool toddlers all around!
It’s been a couple months at least that David and Liam have a usual routine of hitting the streets at 5:30p. The tour varies from week to week. On one recent occasion Liam had been deprived of his regular visits to the park (sometimes twice daily) because he just didn’t seem into leaving the house. But when David showed up, Liam took him by the hand and walked him all the way to the park. It’s about a twenty minute walk with a bit of an uphill climb. I guess that he’d been missing it after all, and what’s more, had stored up some energy for the trek. A while back they were heading over to the Avenue with a nightly stop into the pizza joint for a look around and a swing from the railing, followed by a visit to the put to check out the live musicians. This kid definitely knows where the fun is! Logically it follows that Liam is happy to take anybody who leads him and so he and Irma also began taking trips to the Avenue around this same time. He developed quite a circuit of store visitations.
Liam already has a few girlfriends. One is Sandra’s teenage daughter, Corina, who actually came today with her mom. Liam adores her just as much as she him. He always makes sure that she’s included in what he’s doing, from books, to lunch, to diaper changes. On one particular visit to the park, it was Liam who was smitten with an older girl. She was about six years old and he followed her around like a lost puppy. It’s such a funny thing to watch, the chemistry between kids!
Grandpa Twist called us to let us know that he’d like to get Liam some wheels for Easter. This made me quite happy since I’d been wanting to get Liam a skuut bike. (I also plan to get him a scooter sometime soon, he’s quite intrigued whenever he sees one). After some deliberation and investigation, we purchased ours from REI and waited for it to come into the store. When it was ready for pick up, David and Liam headed over one Saturday morning while I was in the studio. We figured that Liam would have just as much fun putting it together as he would riding it. Liam really enjoyed walking through REI, but the only thing that made him stop in his tracks was the floor model of the very same bike that they’d gone to pick up (score one for mama’s choice making skills). He was quite interested in helping to carry the box out of the store as well. When the time came to assemble the bike, Liam did his fair share and placed the seat right where it needed to go without any prompting from David. Two peas in a pod those guys are! Since then Liam’s been hot and cold with riding the bike which we understand. But he’s always keen to point out when he sees one with his unique word for bicycles: “get”. Needless to say we are all grateful for Grandpa Twist’s thoughtfulness and generosity.
Given my limited exposure to television in my early years (thanks mom and dad), I have always been keen to do the same with my kids. David has a slightly different take on the exposure to television which means that Liam is now a devoted fan of Wallace and Gromit and says “cheese” in perfect imitation of that lovable daffy inventor. For now I’ve made peace with the whole thing. But there is another screen in Liam’s life: the iphone. Yikes! He is so interested in looking at the pictures that for a while we couldn’t take a picture because he’d just want to look at it. Now it seems he’s got the idea that he has to first be in the photo or video. But the next thing is certainly to review it. At first I thought that I was encouraging narcissism, then I thought that perhaps I was nurturing the skills of a future hollywood director. Who knows?! It is impossible to know how and experience will affect another person. One thing is for certain, Liam loves to watch videos of himself. Some he’s seen so many times that he can re-enact them. And he does. It’s quite charming.
As is somewhat common for boys of his age, Liam has become a fan of cars. He has quite a collection now and if you are in his company for any extended period of time you will be playing with cars at his friendly behest. David, thoughtful guy that he is, decided one evening that Liam could use a road for his cars. This was after Morgan had crafted him one out of cotton play-cloths that he loved. (Many mornings in that time began with a request for a road). So he and Liam set out to find the materials to craft a road. They spent a fair amount of time looking for a thick piece of paper under the bed where we – of course – store such things. Liam was very interested in all this. It’s pretty fun to watch how he goes about every project with such gusto. He is a picture of enthusiasm.
I suppose it does follow that Liam would get some whacky ideas in his head too. For a few days he thought that it was a good idea to throw his bath-time book into the filled tub. “Oh no!” would be the most appropriate response to such a move, yes? Luckily no book has met with complete damage from a quick submersion (I must say that I’m surprised.) One book seemed to be really affected though. David had a very good idea of rolling each page out with a rolling pin and a healthy amount of force. The book was as good as new. Way to go PapaDave!
I am very relieved that Liam actually does put things away after he’s done playing with them. I could emphasize this more in my modeling behavior, but I’m afraid that we are still in “survival mode” around here. And yet, there are times when he gets something out, plays with it and then puts it away. I’m always duly impressed. Liam is also interested in picking up little bits of things and putting them in the garbage. Another bonus for a mama who appreciates a tidy home!
Before he had figured out how to jump himself, Liam realized that he could get David to do it on command. I’m not sure what it is between these two guys that makes such silliness possible. But they do find all sorts of interesting ways to entertain themselves. Liam would look at David with a smile and stomp one food on the floor. Somehow David recognized that as a request to jump up as high as he could. And so for a while they played what I called the “jump monkey jump” game. Then Liam figured out how to jump himself. He does it when he’s really excited. It’s infectious. Not in that it makes you jump, but in that it makes you feel happy, just like him. To be exact, it was on March 29 that I observed Liam jumping for the first time. He was dancing which included turning and jumping alternately.
As I’ve already noted, Liam is keen to figure out how things go together and come apart. It would seem that he’s inherited David’s mechanical intuition. He proved this when he was equally excited about the allen wrench and the rocking horse that came all wrapped up for Christmas from Grandpa Twist. He plucked that comparatively small object out of the box and took it directly over to his high chair and stuck it in the appropriate hole. He’s also keen to dismantle my chair (while I’m sitting on it no less) thanks to a tutorial from his father. Lucky for me, this is not at dangerous as it sounds.
So there it all is. A lot to report. Keeping up with our little bundle of energy is an ever-stimulating venture. Liam enjoys sitting on the sofa (hoho) and reading a good book as well. So we do have some down time regularly to balance out all the action that makes up our days. We’d love to get the photos up to date on this little blog of ours. Hopefully that will happen soon. For now, we keep our focus on enjoying each and every moment with our favorite impressionist.
I wrote this post in entirety while Liam slept up in the air and yet, only now am I grabbing the requisite moment to post it. We have had a very busy time here in Michigan for obvious reasons. But tomorrow is our last day and so we are winding down with our duties and once again my attention turns toward our life back home. Given my pitiful rate of blog entries I figured that I’d better go ahead and add Liam’s new games to the record. He’s now attempted to trick David three times in the course of the last two days. So it would seem that he is living up to his surname. (Heaven help me. David, by the way, completely deserves whatever Liam can throw at him if you ask me). First, he pretended to request David’s help while climbing the stairs, only to swipe away his outstretched hand with a foxy chuckle once David extended his own. Then, in the midst of a game involving passing cars back and forth, he pretended to have lost the car in a series of moves which ended with him slipping the car (rather loudly) under the couch and giving David the standard “where did it go?” shrug. Bear in mind that David quite recently used this technique successfully on Liam, so it would seem that Papa Dave is in need of a newer, more sophisticated strategy. And finally, tonight at dinner Liam pined after the fork that David was using to feed him and then, when he was at last offered the prize, he rejected it with what is fast becoming his signature tricky chuckle.
Well here we are again, up in the air, en route to Michigan. We are greatly saddened by the reason for our trip although I must say that making the same voyage so close together offers me some interesting opportunities for reflection. Despite our heavy hearts, our day to day life is going along rather differently than when we last flew to Michigan. Upon our return to California in early November, what with David’s work imperatives and my lack of reserves we opted to hire more help than we ever have before. Lucky for us, we found a couple people easily and with two meetings, I had myself a whole lot of helping hands. The first week was rather awkward as I adjusted to nearly constant companionship and no longer being Liam’s primary companion. I marveled at how I could simultaneously feel relieved and guilty, and indulgent and perfectly reasonable. Getting ready to go, with the stressful circumstances driving us forward, it seems that we have had the opportunity to test our theory and that indeed our choice to get help was a good one. While I still have a mountain of self-imposed to do’s, I am calmer on a regular basis and more able to take on whatever challenge presents itself without loosing my cookies. I’m gaining momentum with my personal blog which is affording me a remendous quantity of satisfaction. Things are looking brighter at David’s work too. So it would seem that we have finally reached the turning point and that instead of digging ourselves a deeper hole, we are now making the long climb back up to the surface. And now, on to the good news, for Liam is a nearly constant bearer of glad tidings. And isn’t that a lovely thing to celebrate?
In the past few months we’ve joined the welcome train as many of our friends welcome new additions to their families. In nearly all cases the little bundles of joy are girls which is fun for me since I harbor hopes that Liam will someday have a baby sister of his own to welcome with his sweet, gentle caresses. Sadly, the busyness of our days has kept us from meeting everybody, we’ll get there soon to be sure, but we did manage at least one visit to see Morgan who was caring for Liam up until a little over 24-hours before her sweet little baby Sienna was born (very reminiscent of Liam’s birth story which was fun for me to remember). When Liam and I visited, he gave Sienna lots and lots of gentle hugs, it was so amazing to see how his instinct guided him to be gentle and so caring. I’m really happy that soon Morgan and Sienna will be a regular part of his life. When he sees the picture that I snapped of them (one of his favorite activities is looking at photos on our iphones – sigh, I’m afraid that following the Waldorf approach to the letter isn’t in the cards for us), he always pauses, smiles, and makes a point of flipping back a couple times before continuing. Given the level of challenge that I’ve experienced with my daily duties, the possibility of having a second baby remains distant. I’m still intent on taking a second journey into motherhood, but not quite yet. And so the fact that so many of our friends are taking on the joyful and relentless work is inspiring and worthy of applause.
I have had regular library trips on my to do list for a long time and I finally got there this past weekend. Given that Liam currently has Spanish speaking caregiver for nearly all the hours that we have help, I decided to check out a bunch of Spanish language books so that they could read with him. That proved to be a very good idea and I’m really excited about making that a routine. It would seem that we have at least given him a good foundation as far as Spanish goes, now it is a matter of consistency for the next two years (at which time I plan to switch to French). A few months ago I was lamenting how little reading we were doing each day. I’m relieved to report that in the past month, Liam’s interest in books has skyrocketed. At least once a day, he very insistently requests to sit on the sofa with me to read several books. He’s been battling a runny nose for the past few days and I’m really happy that books offer him so much pleasure because an ailing baby must rest.
We’ve had our frustrations with a few habits of Liam’s that we really wish he didn’t have: swiping David’s glasses off his face, turning the power strip in the Pilates studio off, and hitting people in the face. We have found our conveyance of dissatisfaction to be received with a complete lack of understanding, which we figure is completely understandable from a developmental perspective, and yet the idea of being subject to such distressing behaviors for the foreseeable future seems like a bad idea. We do our best to honestly express our feelings to Liam and to listen when he does the same. According to a TED talk that we watched, we are within a month of empathy being within Liam’s grasp, and we have every intention of putting that theory to the test.
A while back, Liam figure out how to open the doors of our wardrobes, get inside, close them back up, and play peek-a-boo with us. We were, of course, duly impressed. Given the ever-expanding list of games that David invents and then introduces to Liam, I suppose that I should expect nothing less than to share my days with an imaginative and creative young boy. It’s a lot of fun. Since David has been in the studio with us on Sunday’s for a while now, he’s come up with all sorts of fun things to do with Pilates equipment. Now Liam doesn’t see a Pilates mat, he sees a bouncer or a slide. Nor does he see a simple wooden stool, but rather a carousel ride. I was pretty sure that it was a bit too early to teach Liam how to snap the rubber bands so that they fly to the ceiling quicker than a blink of the eye. And sure enough, Liam came along and snapped a band while it was stretched between my client’s toes, much to my dismay and her discomfort. So we had an opportunity to explore empathy and cause and effect.
Liam makes at least one request for dancing per day which is, of course, heartening for me. He’s got quite a collection of moves and usually applauds at the end of a song. How he knows to do that is beyond me, but I’m duly pleased given my future plans for theater and all varieties of live music performances.
Trips to the playground are a nearly daily ritual, although I’m usually the one to stay behind and get stuff done which is sad for me. But the stories that Liam’s caregivers share always put a smile on my face. He’s quite the social guy. On one occasion he watched a mom pushing her little baby in the baby swing only to walk up and determinedly set her aside so that he could do the pushing. Presumably she welcomed the break. Liam continues to be a frequent hugger, and now he’s added kisses and high fives to his arsenal of affection. He’s fast becoming the kind of guy who bids others adieu with a big hug and a kiss, right on the mouth. It’s sweet and perhaps a bit alarming for some. If ever he is not tuned in to saying goodbye (I think that it’s important to instill good manners by facilitating hellos and goodbyes), I just ask him to give the other person a high five and he falls right into his routine. We’ve made progress with our bath time ritual which sadly was often not fun for our very tired boy, but sometimes still, Liam is ready to be out before we are done and so he spends the last few minutes of his water time crying. The funny thing is that even when he’s crying, when it’s time to get out David asks him for a kiss and he always pauses his tears to oblige the request. What a lover boy!
Given David’s history of climbing, we figured that we’d have a little mountain goat in our midst. One day a while back Liam proved us right by climbing up into his high chair and then up into the shelf of our dining room hutch on the very same day. He’s also figured out that one of our side tables offers him access to one set of shelves in our living room. So far, though, he exhibits a comforting degree of care in achieving his physical feats. When he made it halfway down the stairs at my mom and Roger’s place before Alexa found him, he was proceeding cautiously with his hand on the railing. Likewise, when he finds the gate open at our place, he pauses for us to catch up to him rather than barreling down the steps to our basement. I sincerely hope that this trend continues as his imagination and experience continue to widen his view of the world.
Liam returned from the motor city and our stay with car-loving-grandpa-Roger saying the word “car.” He’s also added “ooooos” which means shoes. Shoot, I’m pretty sure that he has a couple more words, and I know that he’s getting better at repeating words occasionally, but save for when he said clear as day “bear” while I was reading him a book on the topic, I can’t remember any other examples right now. Suffice it to say that his language development is moving right along and that as David frequently reminds me, it really is time for me to watch my tongue and get more creative in my expressions of upset. Perhaps the first time I hear him curse will do the trick….Anybody who knew me as a teenager knows that I’m capable of not swearing, I just find it strangely satisfying.
Aside from the inevitable repeating of our words, Liam is currently playing around with another, more wholesome version of imitation: walking around in our shoes. He tries to put his own shoes on for sure, but obviously ours are easier to slip into. He’s impressed us with how many steps he can take in our big shoes. He also works at getting his socks on to no avail – yet, and consistently tries to put his pants on from the bottom of the pant legs rather than the waist. It’s quite endearing. While he still mostly tolerates us feeding him, he regularly insists upon taking his turn with spoon or fork and he does quite well. I swear those bites must taste better to him knowing that he did it himself (or in most cases, with a just a little bit of a guiding hand). He’s evermore interested in cooking and more and more puts things away when he’s done. This morning he was quite pleased to help me load his diapers into the dryer and I was happy for the help. On Monday the same client who got her toes snapped had the pleasure of seeing Liam help Sandra gather up the leaves in the dustbin and put them in a bucket. (Now I’m even happier that I got him a pint-size broom).
And so we are nearly at the end of 2012, a year full of challenges, sadness, and celebration. With every goodbye, we turn toward a new hello. Such is the rhythm of life that keeps us moving forward even when we might want to duck our heads and stay put. Clearly, moving forward is the only way, and we have Liam to thank for reminding us of that every day.