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.
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