Liam: 3 yrs. 1 mo.

Liam had a great month and holiday.  We all had about 2.5 weeks at home, and he had some time to sleep-in in the morning.  We figured he was catching up on all his sleep debt.  It was a little crazy because he and Rowan woke around the same time everyday,around 9am.  But on the flip side, he also had a really hard time getting to sleep at bedtime, and it didn't make much of a difference if he had a nap or not.  We think part of the issue is he insists on having his big light on at night.  He was really excited for Christmas, and had a great time singing with the other kids at his school's holiday party on Dec. 8th.  We don't think he really knew what Christmas was all about until he saw the presents on Christmas morning.  He loved opening up the gifts, and kept asking for another one for him.  He helped Rowan open hers, and still couldn't get enough!  So spoiled!!  At the start of our time off, he was really into the potty training.  We offered him a penny for a pee, and a nickel for a poo.  He earned lots of pennies, and even several nickels, but then kinda gave up after about 3-4 days.  We don't want to push the issue, but at the same time we hope he will get motivated soon!  He has had a new found love of Thomas the Tank Engine lately too. He knows all the names, and will name them off when they roll the credits between the episodes.  He is also pretty picky which episode he watches.  We have a ton on the Roku, and we can't just play just any ol' episode, he has to pick just the right one!! Even Rowan loves watching it now, and gets excited and points at the screen when we are picking one out.

We took Liam to his very first play on December 12th.  It was called 'If You Give A Mouse A Cookie'.  We had purchased the book before hand to familiarize him with the story, and to get him excited to go.  He was very attentive for about the first 15 to 20 min., but then he wanted to run around the theater.  He tried going up on stage, and down the side isle.  He started talking, and would NOT sit still.  We kept giving him different snacks to try to keep him quiet. Mike had to hold him for most of the time, and get him some juice from the car.  It was a super cute play, but it was one very long hour!  Hopefully next year he will be a little more mature and able to sit still for it.

On December 16th, he had his 3-year well visit.  He did amazingly well, and sat still and listened to the nurse while they did an eye exam.  He passed his 3-year questionnaire with flying colors!  He now weighs 28 lbs. 7.5 oz (16.54%), he's 37.5 inches tall (52.99%), and they didn't do his head this time, but did do his BMI which was 14.22 (3.72%).   He was the same weight as he was at a visit that he was at a couple months earlier and figured that he lost some from being sick twice with a tummy bug.  But he sure has grown a lot over the year, 2 whole inches!!  He has been a little more willing to try new foods lately, which has been a great relief to us.  He is starting to try some of the meals that we eat too. 

He also loves talking about all the different types of food.  He has shown a great interest in cooking, and Mike especially looks forward to having him help make some meals in the future.  Another new development he's had in the last week or 2 is he has decided that he isn't afraid of Gretchen any more and absolutely LOVES her now.  He wants to play with her all the time now, and calls her his friend.  He thinks it's funny when she licks him, where he used to get mad at her.  Gretchen is loving it too, and is now getting worn out by playing so much. Liam's school has their registration for next year going on now.  We debated which time would be better for us, better for him, and my work schedule.  We originally went with the same afternoon time, but the other day, he was commenting how tired he was on the way to school. I went in to talk to his teacher, and she did say that her morning time kids are more awake and refreshed.  Also she mentioned that she only teaches the morning class for his age group next year, and we really love her, and would like for her to be his teacher again.  So, the woman who takes care of registration told me that it would be much easier to switch to afternoon if needed, and recommended that we try the morning time first.  So, I guess we will see how that works next school year. One thing that Liam has known for quite a while now, that I keep forgetting to mention in his updates is that he knows the difference between his left side and his right side. He also has an amazing sense of what we try to tell him, that is if he's listening.  He will process what we say and either say 'Oh, OK.' or he will say something back to us that indicates that he has a profound understanding.  I will show him a picture of Sequoia, and he will say her name correctly now, and says he remembers her, and knows that she is dead.  We never really talk about death to him because he is so young, but he seems to have some level of understanding of it, and knows that it is a sad thing.  He still remembers the dead bunny in the road, even though we just drove by it, and he never even saw it!  The kid ceases to amaze us, and we are always telling him what a wonderful boy he is, we must also tell him he's cute too because over the holiday Liam kept saying 'I'm Cute', it was pretty funny and cute! 

Rowan: 13 Months

Rowan is growing and changing so quickly I can't keep up!  We had some time off for the holidays, and couldn't believe how much she changed over nearly 2 weeks.  On December 17th she had her first haircut, and she did great!  She turned 13 months old on December 26th.  She says a few words now, but mostly she chatters in her own language.  So far she does say 'Mama', 'Dada', 'Baby','What's Dat?', 'Uh-Oh'.  She points at things she wants or likes which lately have been Cheerios and lights.  She is starting to want what we eat now.  So I will give her bits of it to try. She really loved the hummus that she tried the other day, and she really loves bananas, and squeals in delight when she sees I cut some up for her.  She also loves graham crackers, and had a little tantrum when I tried putting them away after giving her some. I ended up giving her some more, and she is now learning how to get stuff from us, just like Liam?!?!  We are such pushovers ;) But she has learned the sign for more, and will do the sign, or clap which is similar to the sign. 

 

She LOVES the lamp I put in her room.  She was always blinded in the morning when I turned on her big light, and she would sneeze several times from the light...so the lamp has helped a lot and she loves to point at it, and give it her own word.  She also loves the lights on the Christmas tree, and thinks they are candles and tries to blow them out.  She is still very cautious about walking, but over the holiday she started to take more than 2 steps...it's around 4 or 5 now, then she will stop, pat her legs, sometimes dances, then kneels down to crawl.  She is getting braver everyday, and she is so proud of her walking.  She is also learning to stand on her own.  Last night she was able to stand by just using the boppy pillow to hold onto.  She also does this really cute thing where she will do a downward facing dog position with her legs and head, then she will take her hands and put them on her ankles, it's quite impressive, and I hope to capture it on video!! She is also now a climber!  But, she is not as cautious about climbing as she is about walking.  She can climb onto the kid's table if the stool is next to it!  She will pretty much try to climb anything she can reach now, so we do have to watch her more carefully!!  Another thing she loves is giving Liam hugs and kisses.  The best time to see it is at night when they are getting tired and loopy and they will just roll around on the floor in the blankets and hug and snuggle, it's the cutest thing!!  I love watching them play and bond, and am very grateful to have had some extra time to spend with them over our break.

comment by mom/grandma on 01/04/2011
They are so cute together, we are glad to have them here again.

Liam is 3!!

So Liam is officially 3 years old now! We decided to have their party early because some family members would be of town during their actual birthdays. Anyway, we had our party at Arete Gymnastics. We had the whole place to ourselves for 1 hour of playtime, and then 30 min. to have our cake and gifts. The kids had a great time playing!  All his cousins were there as well as one one of my friends little boy.   We had a Curious George theme, and we ordered a monkey cake, similar looking to George, but they did not have the kit to make it. So we had to pick a different design at the last minute, and we ended up with Finding Nemo...so we called this theme 'Curious George Goes Scuba Diving'. We put 2 monkey's on the cake, one for Rowan and one for Liam!  Right before we lit the cake I was looking for Mike to make sure he had his camera to take pictures, and while I wasn't looking poor Liam lost his balance on the bench and fell backwards onto the concrete floor! He hit his head pretty good, and I felt so bad. He cried for a bit, but he was OK thankfully. We sang happy birthday to the kids, and enjoyed some cake. We let Liam open his gifts, but we were pretty pressed for time, so we took Rowan's gifts home to open later. All in all I think the party was a great success!

It's kinda funny to think back a year ago when Rowan was just born, and Liam did not want anything to do with her.  And now, he is such a great big brother.  He loves her so much, and loves to play with her.  He hugs and kisses her and is always concerned about how and what she is doing.  There is a little rivalry mixed in there, but overall he just adores his little sister, and we couldn't ask for a better big brother.

He loves being read to, and also 'reading' his books.  He hasn't been the easiest kid to potty train, it's still a work in progress because he can not be easily bribed.  But, he will make an excuse to sit on his potty to read a few of his favorite books...already taking after dad!!  He also is loving to help his grandma and dad cook.  He doesn't cut or use the stove yet, but loves measuring and mixing stuff!  And we have also noticed that he is more likely to try something if he has helped make it.  So we will have to make that more of an activity for him.

He's really been into his cars lately. I got him a car suitcase, and he loves to take them in and out to organize them.  He is really excited for Christmas, and had a great time decorating the tree.  In fact, he insisted on re-decorating it for several days after too!  It's kinda funny, a few months before Christmas, we asked him who Santa was, and he said it was Mom and Dad...not sure if he even knew what he was saying, but we thought that was pretty funny, but really didn't want him telling kids at school that.  Even before we had kids, I had been so conflicted about telling our kids about Santa or not.  I really have a problem making up stories (aka lying), so we kinda just decided to let it happen naturally...hearing it from other people, on TV, at school.  We did not tell him about Santa flying in his sleigh, or coming down the chimney.  We just casually talked about him like we would any other character on TV.  I think it worked out well this year.  He got a little magic of Santa without it being a whole elaborate story.  

Other than potty training, our other trial lately has been bedtime.  We have always left one light on in his bathroom, so it's not completely dark, but now he also insists to have his room light on too.  He has been crying and clinging to us when it's time for us to go.  We are guessing his imagination is getting more intense by the way he talks about monsters and such, so it is probably just a phase. Anyway, we take the good with the bad, and are always grateful to have such a wonderful boy in our family!

Rowan is 1 Year Old!

We just can't believe that a whole year has come and gone, and our little baby is 1 year old already?! She turned 1 on November 26th, and we got her a small cake, and sang her happy birthday.  It was in the evening and she was a little tired, so she cried a bit when we offered her the cake.  I put a little of the frosting on her mouth, and she actually decided she liked it!  Liam helped her open her presents.  She got a Fisher Price talking/singing tea set, an Abby Cadabby 'P is for Princess' DVD, and her first doll.  She is constantly doing new things and surprising us, so I had to hurry and write down all the new things she's doing lately before she goes and changes on us again.  She is still not walking on her own,but she is getting close, and she is climbing on everything!  She loves Liam's Cozy Coupe Car, and she can open the door, climb in, close the door and move it backwards.  She LOVES playing in it, and we think it's her favorite toy right now.  She had her 1 year Dr.s visit on December 3rd. and we were a little surprised given that she is more social than Liam was at this age, that she scored low on a few sections. Although we weren't concerned since they always seem to start doing most of them shortly after we fill it out. And sure enough about a week after she started pointing at things she likes or wants like Cherrios, and lights and trying out words for the items.  She now weighs an even 20 lbs., 33.04 percentile, she is 28.8 inches, 41.29 percentile, and her head is 18.25 inches, 84.62 percentile.  A couple of super cute things she's been doing lately is what we call the claw wave, where she will open and close her thumb and pointer finger, kinda like a lobster claw.  And the other one is clapping when we say 'Yay', or clap when we sing a song with clapping in it. Everyday we just marvel at how wonderful a baby she is, and feel so grateful to have her in our lives.  We love you Rowan!

Rowan: 50 weeks/11.5 months

This is such a bitter sweet moment to write this last update on our little baby before she turns 1 years old on November 26th?!?!  Where has this year gone?!  It doesn't seem that long ago that she was born...Kids really make time more relative.  So here is our update on our cute little girl.  She is still cruising a lot, and standing for a few seconds at times.  She has tried a handful of times to take a step, but she is a very cautious baby, which is quite the opposite of how Liam was.  It is kinda nice to be able to just let her play, and not worry too much about her falling yet.  Plus we have never met a baby that is so interested in playing...we think that is part of the reason she isn't in any hurry to walk.  She has started to say 'What's that?' a lot.  She says 'bye' sometimes, and has started to wave and blow kisses with her hands.  She sometimes will mimic on command too, it's pretty funny.  At night time when she gets loopy with Liam she likes to kneel up on her knees and free fall right onto a pile of blankets and pillows on the floor. She doesn't like to keep her socks on, so I think we will need to get her some shoes, since the first pair of shoes I have for Liam are still too big.  We had a combined birthday party for the kids on November 13th at Arete Gymnastics.  She had a lot of fun in the foam pit with dad!  We are going to get her a smash cake and have a little celebration for her on her actual birthday.  I am happy and sad she's turning one already...I just want to keep her this age forever, but I know that is just impossible!  We love you Rowan!!

Liam: 2 yrs. 11 mo.

Wow, this is the last update on Liam before he turns 3 years old?!?!  Congrats to us, we have survived our first round of the 'Terrible Two's'. Liam continues to grow and change on a daily basis.  He is really loving school now, and is even excited to go and see his teacher and friends.  He has started to lecture us on things we have lectured him about.  For example, we have had some mice sneak into the house, and we have told him not to touch the traps because he could get hurt.  One day Mike was home with the kids and Liam started to lecture him about the mouse traps.  He said something like this ''Dad,  look at me.  Listening and be patient.  No snap the mousetraps.  They will snap and give a bad booboo.  Be a good boy and no touch the mousetraps". It is the funniest thing!  He has also started to negotiate.  He will ask for something, and we will say you can have 3, and he will say, how about 5, and so on.  He has a steel trap memory on certain things.  For example, I took down one of his pictures in his room so that I could hang a Halloween picture.  A few weeks later when I was putting him to bed, he asked to have his old picture back, and he asked for it by the title 'The Waiting Room'.  We have only told him that title maybe a couple of times, and it had been several months since we told him...We were shocked to say the least!  Then later as we were driving we drove past where I had mentioned seeing a dead bunny about a month before and he talked about how sad it was that the bunny got smashed by a car.  Also if I change my route driving to work and back he will say "Going a different way".  His attention to details just amazes us!  Lately his favorite snack has been Doritos, and he calls them 'Doraydose'.  He asked dad to get them at the store one day, and that is all he asks for now, so that will probably be the last bag for a while.  On the bright side, he does like a soy nut mix that is healthy, and soyjoy bars. 

 

He has also discovered the joy of Halloween this year.  He actually was very excited to go trick-or-treating this year. He was very good about putting on his costume too. The first time we got it though it took a little convincing. We ended up putting Rowan's Flower costume on first, and just showed him how cute she looked, then he was fine putting it on. He was a dragon this year, and a very cute one at that! Halloween landed on a Sunday this year, so our state decided Saturday would be the Trick-or-Treating day...but unfortunately, it also was cold, windy and rainy! But thankfully Liam's costume was warm, and we had an umbrella. I took him to handful of houses, then we went home to warm up. After he ate some dinner, Mike took him to several more...the rain had calmed down, and he kept saying one more house, one more house. The next day he wanted to go again...we told him that it was over, but we could do some Trick-or-Treating in the house. It got pretty late and he needed a bath, so I asked Mike to have a few pretzels behind one door, and his milk behind the next one. He knocked on the first door, and dad handed him some pretzels, and then he said 'I want some candy'...such a funny kid! Anyway, it was pretty fun watching him enjoy Halloween!

Liam: 2 yrs. 10 mo.

Liam is doing really well in school.  We had a parent/teacher conference at the end of September.  It was also a meeting with his new teacher, Miss Farrah.  (Miss Emily is no longer his teacher).  Miss Farrah is really nice, and told us that Liam is really good in class.  She said that he is kind of the 'leader' in the class.  If she needs the class to do something, she will ask Liam to set the example because all the other kids will watch and follow what he is doing.  He also gets along with all the kids, and plays with everyone.  As far as his 'studies' go, she says it's kinda early to say since school just started.  But she did say he is a little shy when it comes to saying his colors, numbers, and ABC's.  Hopefully he will warm up and not be so shy because we know he knows all that stuff!  We also got Liam's school pictures back, and they are so cute...we got one of him, and a class picture too...we were surprised how they got 8 kids to sit still long enough for a picture...an amazing feat. 

Liam is starting to tell stories, and his imagination has started to get more enhanced.  One night he was scared of monsters in his room, so I decided to spray some 'Monster' spray (aka Fabreeze) and it worked like a charm, thankfully!  

He has been into Trucks and dinosaurs lately.  He loves to watch shows on them and read books, and since it's Halloween this month he has also loved watching 'Nightmare Before Christmas'.  He has started using the 'I love you' hand sign while telling us he loves us.  Dad also taught him the peace sign, and hang loose...so cute!  He has been a bit more sensitive to 'boo-boos' lately and we think partly he just loves the attention it gets him.  

His favorite dessert has been Popsicles.  We get the all natural fruit ones so hopefully not too bad for him or his teeth.  Ever since I started brushing his teeth when he was a baby it has been a fight.  I got him an Elmo book on it, and also started to talk about getting the sugars off, so FINALLY over the past few months he has started to let me brush his teeth without a fight.  Since he actually lets me brush now, I was able to see that he had a chip in one of his back teeth.  I got a recommendation for a dentist from Mike's cousin, and got him an appointment.  I had no idea if he would be good or not, but figured we should attempt his first visit.  He did amazing!  He sat there and watched 'Charlie Brown' on the TV that was on the ceiling.  The dentist said that his tooth is not decaying, so we will just leave it for now, and just keep an eye on it.  He didn't have any cavities either, so glad about that. 

Last week we took the kids to Pumpkinland to pick out some pumpkins.  We thought of taking him to the activity part, so we started to go back to see what was back there.  He left the cornered off area, and was going toward the road.  We told him to stop, but he gave us his defiant face.  Dad had to run after him...we decided that we didn't have enough time to do the activity that day, so we left.  On the way home, Mike explained to him why going in the road is dangerous.  He told him that he would get a bad boo-boo, and could die.  A couple of days later I saw a dead bunny in the road.  I said how sad it was, and Liam put together the fact that it got smashed by a car, and had a bad boo-boo, and needed a band-aid.  It is so interesting to see how the lessons we teach them, they can process it and talk it out (well as best they can for their age).  It was a good opportunity to talk again about not running out in the road...I'm sure we will need to repeat that one over and over!