A few weeks ago I made up a tray of chicken salad sandwiches for Brandi's baby shower. I cut all the crusts off the sandwiches, and being the frugal and waste-not person that I am, I wrapped them up in a piece of aluminum foil to take home for my dog Dixie. Like most things that make it into my car, the bread crusts got left in the car for a week or so before making their way in to the house. One day when I was fetching some things from the back of the car, I saw them and brought them inside. As usual Liam was looking for something to get into so I gave him the foil packet and told him to put them in Dixie's dog bowl. I figured it would keep him busy for 45 seconds or so, (wishful thinking,) and he usually enjoys having little "helper" tasks to do. I started cleaning up the kitchen and Liam wandered into the play room to play. After 10 minutes had passed I headed to the room to check in on him, and I found him sitting with the foil & bread crusts spread out in front of him, and he was chomping away. He just sat there......eating stale bread crusts......for like, 10 whole minutes. This kid is going places folks, mark my words.
We are in the middle of a fun time in a toddlers life called potty training. (If it didn't come through the interweb, I said that with total sarcasm.) Liam will stay dry pretty much all day if, and only if I remember to take him to the potty at least once an hour. I cannot for the life of me get him to poop on the potty. (If the word poop offends you, please leave my blog now because I assure you, one day it will get a lot worse than that... I have a toddler folks, this stuff isn't always pretty.) Anyways, back to the poop; he wont go on the potty, but he has no problem going in a diaper, in underwear, on the floor, or pretty much anywhere that isn't a container used for collecting excrement. (Like I said...please leave if talking about poop offends you.) So we're sitting there in the living room floor one day last week, and Liam picks up this little plastic toy lion. He's making the lion growl at the other toys etc, and then all at once he picks up the lion, turns him over, points at his butt, and yells "POOP!" He then proceeded to get up and run into the bathroom with the lion, and held the lion over the toilet saying poop repeatedly. You know, I love this kid with all my heart but I seriously don't get him. He wont poop on the potty, but he insists that the lion does. Also, he still only says about 20 or so real words.... how in the heck did I get lucky enough for "poop" to be one of the few? (Boobies is another one he knows, go figure.)
Liam has been in a toddler bed since late August. Keegan and I vowed to let him sleep in the crib as long as he would! He'd been such a good sleeper for the last 9-10 months, going down without a hitch, sleeping through the night, and even waking up and playing in his crib in the morning! He'd actually request to be put to bed for naps sometimes if he was really tired. We just saw no reason to rock the boat. Then he figured out how to climb out of the crib and things changed. He was getting out whenever he wanted to anyways, so we finally made the switch. He actually did awesome with it! He liked being able to climb in and out all on his own., but he pretty much stayed in the bed all night. He went through a few different weird spells, like the week he insisted on having all his shirts in bed with him. We'd turn the light off and leave for the night, but when we'd find him in the morning he'd removed all his shirts from the top drawer of his dresser and had them in his bed. Every day I'd put them back and every night after we left him he'd get them back out. I was so glad we weren't having issues with him getting up and playing all night....but that was a bad idea. Every time I start feeling glad about something, wouldn't you know it, things go and change on me. About 3 weeks ago I was heading to bed around midnight when I saw Liam's bedroom light on. I opened his door and found him crashed out on the floor in the middle of his toys. I thought it was kind of cute, and I put him his back in his bed and shut the light off and went to bed. The next night, we put him to bed at 8 pm like usual. Around 9 I asked Keegan if he heard thumping, and he told me it was the TV. At 9:45 Keegan headed to bed, and upon going upstairs discovered that the thumping was in fact coming from Liam's room. Almost 2 hours after putting him to bed, Liam was still up, having the time of his life playing. (Why he does not play that long independently during the day....I have no clue!) So we make him get back in bed. 4 am rolls around....and Liam is tapping on Keegan's shoulder in our room. Back in bed for Liam.... Ever since that night a few weeks ago, we are now having problems keeping him in his bed. He goes down pretty well, but he knows how to fake it and be quiet so we think he's sleeping. Last week I was doing dishes after we put Liam to bed, and Keegan walked across the street to talk to our neighbor. I heard the front door open and I assumed it was Keegan coming back in, but when he didn't reply to my "hey babe," I went in the front room to find Liam standing in his pajamas, staring out the open front door! (Can you say scary?) The next 30 minutes were spent putting Liam back in bed after each of the countless times he tried coming back downstairs. (And of course doing this while trying not to laugh is very hard, because I promise you, he's the cutest little rule breaker I know.) Eventually we ended the ridiculousness with a spanking, which solved the problem for that night. Anyways, he's pretty well figured that he can't come downstairs because it blows his cover, (duh!) He seems to be going to bed fine, but we're still finding his light on in the morning and his stuff is all over his room, so he's obviously still waking up in the middle of the night to play, and I'm not sure how many hours of his precious sleep he's missing out on. On my to-do list for this week is to get child safety thingies-bobs for the doorknobs throughout the house, and finally figure out to install that darn baby gate at the top of the stairs. (I bought it almost 6 months ago and it's still not put up.) It also might be a good idea to charge up the baby monitor because we need to put that thing back to good use! I wish I had the kind that you can talk back into and it plays in their room. I would love to see his reaction over getting caught red-handed by us via baby cam! ;)
One thing that Liam is doing lately that I find really cool, is that he has learned which ways we go to get to different places. For instance, the other day we were driving home, and I totally zoned out and missed our turn. Liam immediately was pointing out the window back at our road and trying to tell me something in a language that I have not yet decoded. I realized what he was doing about 15 seconds later when I figured out that we had passed the road we take to go home. That'll make you feel really smart, when your two year old starts figuring things out sooner than you do. Also, I go to a ladies Bible study here on base, and unfortunately Liam hates going to the nursery there. He realizes where we're going when we get on the road that leads to the Watters center. Even though I hate that he dreads it, I still find it kind of cool that he knows directions to places so well. Those are just a few examples of how he's remembering where and what everything is. When we pass the road where Keegan works on our way to the commissary, he points out the window and starts talking about DaDa, and when we pass Sonic he points and starts demanding a drink. It has been neat to see him begin to become familiar with the places we go, to the point of actually protesting when I go the wrong way.
Since I'm doing an update of Liam, I'll go ahead and share some of his new words. Some of you have really vocal kids who talk a lot, so this list may seem like it's not much to be excited about, but Liam has been a late talker, so every time we get a new word I get pretty excited. His new words from this past month are: no, yeah, eat, stop, bye bye, hi, help, treat, pop, cat, & book....I'm sure I'm missing a few. In real life, these words sound more like: ndo, dah, eat, dop, bah bah, hi, hoop, teach, pop, tat, & gook. When Liam was 18 months and still not talking much at all, we got a referral to for him to be evaluated. We weren't really concerned with his cognitive development, but we were starting to wonder why he wasn't talking. They sent a speech therapist to our home to do an evaluation on Liam. The woman who came to our home was so impressed with Liam and had nothing but good things to say about him. When the test results were back, she said that he was at or above age level for everything but expressive speech. (When they do the evaluation they measure all their development, from physcial, to cognitive, to emotional, to social.) She said it's fairly common for some kids to talk later than others and it doesn't mean anything at all. She recommended that we reevaluate at his second birthday just to make sure he continued to make gains. Well at his second evaluation he still wasn't saying much, but again, his scores in every other area were almost all above his age level. He understands everything we're saying, follows directions, recognizes and identifies pretty much anything you ask him to, understands humor, interacts with others well, understands verbs & complex concepts, follows multi-step directions, runs, jumps, climbs, swings, plays, etc...in all these things he excels, but he just doesn't repeat words! (Stinker!) His test scores were still too high to qualify him for speech therapy, but the screener recommended that I take him off base where the standards were different. So at his 2 year well check up, I got a referral from my doctor, and once it was approved through my insurance, I scheduled the evaluation through Pediatric Developmental Therapy off base. After their evaluation they came to the same conclusion: Liam was extremely bright and well adjusted, he was just for whatever reason deciding to talk later than others. Apparently Keegan also waited til after 2 to talk, so I figured it was just part of how he is wired. The lovely therapist we met with off base suggested that he still come once a week to help him along the way. We've now been meeting with her once a week for 4 weeks, and I'm so glad I made the decision to do this. I think Liam is finally at the cusp of his language unleashing, so I don't think all his new words are a direct cause of going to see the speech therapist, however, it has been really helpful for me to meet with her every week. I have learned so many great tips for things to do with Liam at home that will help encourage talking. She basically just "plays" with him the entire appointment, but she incorporates lots of great ways to motivate him to initiate speech. He enjoys going and I feel like it's equipped me with more tools that I can use every day of the week with Liam. I find the whole process of brain development fascinating, so it's cool to talk and discuss Liam's development and the concepts he's working on with someone in the field....and of course it's always fun to hear someone else brag on your kids. :) I really can't wait until he is talking non stop and asking all kinds of inquisitive questions! Everyone keeps saying, "Just wait, you'll be wishing he'd shut up before long!" I disagree! Being two and having lots of thoughts and wants and needs and yet being unable to express them causes lots of anger and frustration for both of us, so I am very glad he is finally figuring this whole talking thing out! Hopefully I can have a whole list of new words to share every week!
That's my Liam update for the month of November! I really like the idea of having a post for each kid every month. It will be a cool way to look back at their changes & growth, and a great way to lock away all the memories! I'm sure all my other posts will be filled with things about the kids too, as they take up about 95% of my life, but it's fun to dedicate an entire post just about them for that moment in time.
Haha! Lions must poop on the potty. Hilarious!
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