Thursday, September 27, 2012

Liam's new tricks and favorite things

I cannot begin to tell you how much Liam has grown up in the past few months.  He's like a real little boy now.  I cannot get enough of him...he is just too much.  We are so blessed to be his parents.  He is smart as a whip, and beyond stubborn.  There isn't a blessed thing about our boy that is easy....but it keeps us on our toes.

Every step of his developmental process I have been absolutely certain that he can do something well before he does it.  I knew he could sit up, stand, and walk way before he ever did it (because I tested him...and the things he was doing instead were way more difficult than what he should have been doing...like throwing a ball with perfect balance while standing before he was ever walking).  We're in the same place now with talking....a few examples:

Last week, he walked over to his 100 First Words book and pointed at a picture of a sippy cup until I went and got him a sippy cup.  Getting him to say words is like pulling teeth...but then he pops off with something, and never repeats it again.  But he knows what is happening....when the fan blows his hair, and you ask him if it's blowing his hair, he touches his hair.  If you ask him to honk your nose, he does it...but he won't touch his own nose if you ask.  He said the word clap while clapping all of one time because I was praising a sweet friend of his for doing it.  He tried to baa like a goat once, but won't do it again.  He just does exactly what he wants when he wants, nothing more, nothing less.  I cannot even begin to imagine where his stubbornness comes from :)

As for his favorites right now, it's been interesting to see him develop a little personality of his own...and have likes and dislikes.

Food: He likes most food...but he has some dislikes.  He won't eat anything that isn't close to it's natural state or anything that is too mushy.  Examples: he won't eat peanut butter, hummus, applesauce or mashed potatoes.  He never ate baby food.  He won't eat fruit that is canned or jarred, only fresh.  I have been letting him use a fork and spoon, and he is eating better since then.  He doesn't care for the spoon...but he loves his fork.  If he can't get food stabbed on his fork, he'll pick it up, put it on his fork and then eat it off of his fork.  He tried to fork a Goldfish cracker yesterday. 

Books: He still loves board books and shred-the-flap books (oh, that's not what they're called?  that's what they are here :)), but he's starting to like longer books now too.  He LOVES Knuffle Bunny and Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems.  I'm excited to get his Elephant and Piggie books out of storage.  He also likes Kitten's First Full Moon and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  Those are the only longer books we have that aren't in storage right now....so I'm sure he'd like more if we had them here.  He also has a little board book that has cutouts in it called "Peek-a-Who" that he likes to sit down and leaf through for a long time.  And the board book "Llama Llama Nighty-Night"

Toys:  I should do this in parts.  He loves blocks (Megabloks and Duplos...probably regular blocks too, but we don't have any).  He will sit and pull apart and put together his Megabloks for a really long time.  He likes his Duplos a lot, but they are harder to manipulate  right now, so he doesn't use them for quite as long.

Stuffed animals and blankets.  Liam is a lovey kind of boy.  He has preferences for his blankets--the three that my mom made him with bright fabrics on one side, and minky fabric on the other...and satiny binding.  He carries them with him everywhere, he hides under them, he likes to cover his head with them and walk around (I think he thinks he's invisible.  He also loves stuffed animals.  He doesn't seem to have any preferences with those...he just wants to bite them in the nose and squeeze them tight.

Climbing/riding/pushing toys: Here he has a riding duck and he loves to ride it.  He likes climbing furniture, pushing things around, and scooting/rearranging things.

He is also really into kitchen containers.  He likes to stir spoons in cups, and he really wants to help stir pots and pans on the stove...but he can't.  I think I might get him some little pans/stirrers from IKEA for Christmas...but only if we have our own house by then.  The IKEA ones are metal, and Liam isn't allowed to throw or drop things that can scratch the hardwood floors here....so those wouldn't be a good choice.

He likes balls a lot too.  We don't currently have any (the no throwing thing plus the Ollie bit the last one and busted it), but he spent the entire weekend at my mom and dad's throwing, rolling, and chasing balls.  He loves anything outside.  That boy wants to be outside all the time.

Musical instruments: He likes anything that plays noise.  He has a dog guitar he got for his birthday that he wears around.  There is a cat piano that goes with it from Target that I had to pry from his hands in the toy aisle.  It was cute....it took self-control on my part not to buy it for him he wanted it so much.

TV: I hate to admit it, but I let him watch two tv shows a day.  I know it's bad...but I know that I have limits too...and not living in our own house is difficult.  There is a lot of stuff I have to keep him out of, and sometimes, we both need a break.  We watch an episode of Sesame Street in the morning when we wake up (because neither one of us is a morning person...so it gives both of us a chance to wake up slowly.  He usually only pays attention to the first 20 minutes or so (the street part with the people) and then to any songs.  I leave it on, but he is usually off and playing about halfway through.  And then sometime in the afternoon (usually in the "witching hour"...post nap, pre-dinner....mucho cranky) we will watch an episode of Chuggington.  I actually bought a season of Chuggington on Amazon on Demand...Liam liked the videos that were on Andy's parents' cable on demand...and Andy likes it too...so I went for it because I had watched the five on demand episodes 5 or so times each.

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