January 21-28: Milestones

Bean's almost a year old. This week he'll be 11 months, and secretly I'm surprised he's still alive. In the beginning I wondered how anyone ever made it past the first few weeks of life. We start off needing a small team of assistants to manage everything for us. But every day little Bean learns how to do little things for himself. Once and a while the little things add up to bigger things, and we call those milestones. Then his assistants are relegated to measuring, tracking and recording the milestones. We can observe, but really, our role in making these events happen is quite limited.

So this week, I'll quickly sum the events, and then I'll hit the milestones.

Liam has a redesigned play area. We have reorganized the furniture, so now Liam has a giant space for play. He can run laps with his car, which he likes to do.

Liam also had a breakfast of tea and toast with marmite (with Daddy, of course!). Liam most certainly has British blood in him, because he devoured both. A real treat for him now is a sippy cup of chamomile.

We also discovered that Liam now loves being read to. He'll sit quietly and pay attention through multiple stories. He also has preference for certain books. He really likes Doggies, Mr. Brown Can Moo, and the ones that have textured pages.

Also in the news... we found out one of our good friends is expecting a baby in August. However, we're not sure if this is our news to share yet, so we'll leave you guessing for now.

Milestones...
• Becomes increasingly shy or anxious with strangers (8 - 13 months) Not yet
• Begins to show the emotion of fear (8 - 12 months) Still laughs at ROAR!; Gets scared sometimes though
• Begins to test parental responses to behavior (8 - 15 months) December & January
• Develops stronger preferences for people/toys (8 - 12 months) January – Blankie, Mommy
• Prefers primary caregiver above all others (8 - 15 months) December & January
• Separation anxiety increases (12 - 18 months) only with Mommy
• Acquires the notion of object permanence January, especially with remote controls and dog
• Attempts to use objects "correctly" (8 - 15 months) December & January; phone, cup, spoon
• Explores objects in many different ways (shaking, banging, throwing, dropping) (8 - 16 months) October
• Babbling appears less random; inflections apparent (8 - 14 months) Ah-tah
• Begins to use gestures and sounds to communicate (8 - 11 months) December; pointing
• Can respond to simple verbal requests January; no, more, eat, wave
• Begins to understand that words can refer to physical objects (9 - 12 months) November
• Begins to imitate spoken words (10 - 14 months) December; ma, da, ba, ta
• Taste: ability to taste salt improves, and babies prefer it (4 - 8 months) December; LOVES pickles
• Touch: can perceive different textures with hands (6 - 10 months) December; likes the texture parts of some of his books
• Capable of poking with index finger (8 - 11 months) November – especially likes faces
• Crawls forward on belly (8 - 10 months) October
• Lets objects go voluntarily (8 - 11 months) October
• Puts objects in and out of containers (8 - 11 months) December
• Uses pincer grasp (8 - 11 months) November/December
• Walks holding on to furniture (8 - 11 months) December

Mommy's Milestones:
• First steps on the beach - December
• Met Great Grandparents - December
• Gives hugs - January
• Listens to stories - January
• Plays by himself - December/January
• Says Mama ?????

As of January 28th Liam weighed 20.5 pounds.

Happy 6-month birthday Devin!

Liam's best friend Devin is six months old today. Happy birthday Devin! According to the Blog, we met Dev sometime between July 25 and July 30th. At the time, Liam was a little smaller than Dev is now (Liam was 5 months old at the time, and Devin must have been a few days old). From the July 3oth Blog:  

...we met the newest baby on the block. Liam no longer has that title. There's nothing quite like a new, tiny little one, as light as a feather. Hard to believe Liam was ever so small.

Funny, now Kailie is tiny little one, and Dev's only a little smaller than Liam! They grow so fast...

So this afternoon, Devin will graduate from the 'beginner baby' class, and he'll join Liam in the 'advanced baby' class. Liam's not going to be there much longer though. This week he's starting to prove his readiness for the next level of life, 'beginner toddler'. (I have a feeling there's more homework in the toddler class... at least for the parents.)

Liam's learned new things just recently. First, he's figured out how to stand up in his car, on the seat. This seems dangerous, but he doesn't care. He now likes to stand in the high chair too, and if the strap isn't super tight, he can get himself out of it....also very dangerous. He's also learned how to bang on windows with blocks and other toys; noisy but probably harmless given the strength of modern windows. He can jump up and down, while holding onto the baby gate. He likes to take off his shoes, socks and any other clothing that's easily removed. On Tuesday I spent an hour at Costco looking for his shoes, which he covertly dropped from the cart without me noticing. 

The final, and most appreciated evidence that's he inching closer to toddler-hood is that he's started giving hugs, and once and while, big sloppy kisses. Yesterday he said ma-ma-ma-ma-ma. Like da-da-da-da-da, I don't think the sound had meaning to him, but in my world, he was singing my song.

Baby Packer Backer

Liam's first football season is over. The Green Bay Packers were robbed of a Superbowl berth in the heart-wrenching conclusion of the last playoff game this evening. Liam watched some of the game, wearing Packer colors, of course. My hope is that with this loss, Favre will hang out for at least another year. I think the Pack could make another run next year, and with a third-place finish, maybe the networks will carry more of their games out here.

So I now have eight months to teach Liam to say 'Go Pack Go'. Shouldn't be too hard, except for that technicality that gets in the way right now... Liam's vocabulary consists of ah-tah, dah, and the occasional eh-dul-eh-dul-eh-dul. To pronounce the last one, say eh and quickly move your tongue left to right repeatedly. As you can see, we have some work to do.

Here's to Superbowl XLIII *next year*

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig

January 7-14th 2008

We have been back from Florida nearly a week. Liam's getting back into his eating and sleeping routines. It's hard being a baby!

He was pretty good coming home on the flight. We sure did learn a lot about traveling with a baby. We had a seat for him on the flight home, so he slept a lot more than he did on the flight there. He's been waking up really early this week, but I think he's adapted better to the time change than we have!

He's gotten a little fussy about eating again. He still loves yogurt, puffs and bread (especially olive bread) and baby food. We've tried pancakes (Thanks Krysti) and toast again. Toast still isn't interesting. He doesn't like bananas or bagels, which used to be on the hot list. {sigh} I'm tempted to try more 'solid' things that require chewing now that he has 6 teeth.

While we were in Florida, Liam sprouted the two front middle uppers, one on the last day of the year, and one a few days earlier. So now he's a regular piranha, especially if he chomps down on fingers.

This week has been adventurous; we went to story time at the library and swimming at the Y. Liam loves swimming so much! He figured out how to kick on his own last night. We had extra fun because Devin (and his parents) joined us. He's still getting used to the water, but he had fun too. It was only Devin's 2nd time swimming, so he's a little unsure about it all.

Wave Bye-Bye

Today's our last full day in Florida. The weather has been outstanding. Liam's totally adjusted to this time zone, so I predict a few very early mornings when we return.

Saturday was our third visit to the great grandparents. Grandpa took us over to see the Manatees near the warm water outlet of the power plant. There were at least a dozen manatees hanging out in the water. We also went to lunch, where Liam enjoyed another pickle. He LOVES pickles.

Yesterday we went to the Brevard County Zoo. Liam met several giraffes, nose to nose. More about that when we get home.

Today we went for a walk along the beach, and then swimming at the Cocoa Beach Pool. It's a world-class facility. Liam loves to swim.

Now it's time to head back to the beach house, and start packing it up. Can't believe how fast two weeks went; it always does on vacation.

Photos in two days.

Baby New Year

We're still in Florida, though today you wouldn't know it. For the first time since we've been here, the weather is cold. However, it's still sunny, and warmer than the weather at home, so we're not complaining! Besides, we're having so much fun with the grandparents and great-grandparents.

Liam's typical day starts with Granny getting him when he wakes up. He eats his yogurt with the grandparents while we get a little more sleep (yay!). Then he plays for a while before his morning nap. Then we go out -- to the beach, or the pool. Yesterday we saw the space shuttle at the Kennedy Space Center. Liam likes walking around looking at new things. Then we have dinner at home and Liam plays some more. Liam's grand-dad sometimes reads him the new books from Roy and Muriel in Ireland. Then he has a bath and falls asleep listening to the frogs, crickets and ocean waves.

Once and a while we make the 2-hour drive to the great-grandparents south of Tampa. Liam and I did this by ourselves a few days ago. There he crawls all over the floor looking for trouble -- lamp cords, remote controls, mini-blinds, anything little hands are supposed to keep away from. So we try to take him outside as much as we can.

Liam has tried some new things while on vacation. The "Greats" live on a golf course, so we walked along the cart path one afternoon. There are so many interesting birds to look at, and of course we always have to look for alligators. Liam learned to drive the golf cart, when we went to the clubhouse for lunch. There he also stole Mommy's pickle, which he devoured. He's also tried macaroni salad, which is also a new treat.

We went to Kennedy Space Center yesterday. It looks like we will not get to see the shuttle launch as we hoped. The launch has been postponed indefinitely. We did learn that there are only 13 shuttle launches left. Then NASA is switching back to the rocket and capsule program, ending the shuttle program entirely. So we have only 2.5 years to get back here to see another launch. Lester and I love space exploration, and we hope Liam also likes learning about the planets and space missions. They said the first person to set foot on Mars is currently between 5 and 15 years old -- I guess Liam's a little young. But it was encouraging to learn that it will be in Liam's lifetime (and hopefully ours too!) Wouldn't it be incredible to be a little boy seeing humans go back to the moon and on to Mars?

And one last bit of news... Kailie Bale was born on New Year's Eve. She will be the newest kid on the block back home, replacing Devin, who is inching up on 6 months old. Welcome Kailie, Liam can't wait to meet you!

I have a few photos from our vacation, but they take forever to upload on the library's free wi-fi. More soon.