Da Da Da Da Da Da Da

I can't believe that the last day of school is in three weeks. I am very much looking forward to spending the summer with Liam. I love watching that personality of his come through. Although he is starting to look more like Mike, the poor thing has my stubbornness and impatience. He has spent the last few days trying to conquer the slide. As soon as he started to get it, he had to find ways to get up it quicker. He started skipping the middle step, spending more time that it would take to do it the right way trying to go right to the top step.
"Think he might be me?" I asked Mike tonight.
"Trying to skip a step then getting frustrated when it doesn't work? He's your kid."

A few weeks ago, Liam began clapping at the right times of "If You're Happy and You Know It." I've sang that song more in the past month than I have in my entire life. The first time he did it was after his Little People school bus hummed the tune. I sang the song and he clapped. Daycare confirmed that they sing the song everyday and suggested I also sing the "Stomp you feet" and "Shout hurray" verses. It is one of my favorite things to do with Liam.

When I am playing with Liam, there are two tunes I "sing." One is the tune from Pulp Fiction that plays before Vincent and Jules were about to off someone. (No clue how that started.) The other is the Chicken Dance. I have no clue how this started, either. I hate the Chicken Dance more than I hate most things in life. My mom and I had a somewhat mock battle over the Chicken Dance while I was planning my wedding. She was beyond upset that her oldest daughter was denying her the opportunity to do her favorite dance. I made it very clear to the DJ that there would be no Chicken Dance. My mother could not have been more devastated if I told her there would be no cake or kissing of the bride.
Fast forward a few years. When she died, Liam was four months old. However, he started blowing raspberries the following day, quite a few months ahead of when most kids reach this milestone. Mike and I knew it was my mom. It was the sort of silly thing she reveled in teaching babies to do. This morning I randomly started humming the Chicken Dance tune. At the time when you're supposed to clap, Liam clapped five times. That was the only time in the song that he would clap. On the drive to school, I sang it a few mores times. Each time, I'd watch him clap in the rear view mirror. Assuming it was the work of daycare, I let his teacher know the Chicken Dance had also caught on in our house. She looked at me confused. "We don't do the Chicken Dance. I'm not sure where he picked that up." It is nice to know, two weeks away from the one year anniversary of Mom's passing, that she won the battle of over the Chicken Dance. I've sang it more times today than I care to admit.

Liam loved being mikes helper. I love that he also sticks his tongue out when concentrating.

Boy oh boy

This boy gets messy.



Hopefully my first entry from the iPhone.

Confessions of an Accidental TV Watching, Co Sleeping Family

When I was pregnant, I had this ideal set of principles that would guide Mike and I into creating a wonderful, well adjusted child and happy parents. A few of them have gone to the waste side. The first to go away was co sleeping. Liam was a parents dream when it came to sleeping until the ear infections began. When he would wake up screaming, we eventually started snuggling him until he went back to sleep in our bed. It was the lesser of two evils, the first evil being trying to effectively teach with three hours sleep. We used CIO to get him to sleep through the night in his crib in January. It worked until the next ear infection came. We were hoping to get him back to his crib over night after his tubes were put in and his molars arrived. Back to our bed he would come each night. Liam sleeps in his crib until anytime between 2-5 am. Everyone sleeps better and I know I am supposed to fix it but it is working for us right now. I still get to fall asleep in Mike's arms. I know over the summer I will have to get Liam to stay in his own crib but for now it is working.

My second confession involves TV. For the first 13 or 14 months of Liam's life, I was the TV hater. No TV for the Booba. Turn off the TV if he keeps fixating on it. He doesn't need TV. Then diaper changing and getting dressed became Olympic events in our house. Only one person could help us: Sid the Science Kid. Five minutes of Sid allowed Liam to get ready for the day tear free. Mike and I take turns in the morning getting up with Liam so we each get one morning to sleep in. At 6:30 Saturday morning, I bring Liam downstairs, snuggle on the couch under a fleecy blanket, and watch Sesame Street. We bop our heads when Elmo sings and clap when they cheer something. My hatred of TV is less than my love of snuggling my usually nonstop toddler.

Random Catch Up

It has been raining here for the last six days.I am amazed that the kids are handling it better than I am. Liam, who loves outside, has accepted staying in the house and tormenting the dog and throwing random items inthe bath tub. I did allow him to do something I usually don't so I could get the living room picked up.

I really don't want him playing in the picture window but how can you say no to that face?

I finally decided to suck it up and get a smartphone. Liam has been using our home computer as a stepstool so I need to put it back int he basement before he breaks it and I lose all of my pictures and lesson plans (again). Since I don't use the computer for much more than email checking and a little surfing, the smartphone will let me keep the computer downstairs but not have to be disconnected. It will be nice to have over hte summer when we are out and about. I wasted my free period playing with it and know that I have barely figured it out. The part that got to me was when the sales girl told me I'd lose my voicemails. I had two messages from my mom saved. I have only listened to them once in the past eleven months, but it was comforting to know they were there if I needed them. I had to listen to the entire message to get to the option to forward them to Mike's phone. It is weird that I am usually so strong about this but I stood there with tears running down my face in the middle of the Verizon store.

I had some technical difficulties trying to post this picture from Mystic on Mother's Day. It is such a favorite of mine.

Mother's Day

Frist a few random things:
It was amazing how quickly Liam's tubes procedure was. We were out of the ENT Center in an hour and he played with the dog as soon as he got home. We are already noticing Liam is talking more and understanding more. When we get out of the tub, we ask him where things are in the bathroom and he can find the light, clock, and seashell. He is back to sleeping through the night. I wish we could've had it done months ago.
Liam is still becoming his own little person. He loves to sort things and help us clean. He and his boys at school do a dance party every morning. They dance to the music from a Fisher Price rainforest toy. They totally look like the Night at the Roxybury guys.

Mother's Day was a great day. It was bittersweet that it completed the year of "First Holidays Without Mom."

Operation MILF

Spring is here, my thyroid is finally under control, and I no longer have any excuses to keep the last ten pounds of post baby weight. I've been taking Liam for bike rides around the neighborhood and to the park. As you can see, he manages to relax.