Thursday, July 30, 2009

What Liam's saying these days

Liam's language skills continue to improve, and he's communicating much more effectively these days. Some recent sayings:

"Mama carry me." (As opposed to the previous request, "Mama carry you," which always disappointed me, since I never did get carried anywhere.)

"That's a BIG burger!" (In response to the giant burgers on the new Carl's Jr. billboards along the freeways. That'd be Hardees, to our midwestern peeps!)

"Martian raiders! With a big net!" (From his current bedtime favorite, Mars Needs Moms.)

"Daddy go! Mama go!" (A boy needs his privacy to squat by the side of the bed to do his business!)

"I was bad! I need a timeout!" (Let me tell ya, they really don't work when the kid is downright gleeful about getting them...)

"Milo said it." "Trixie did it." "The WonderPets said it." (He loves giving recaps of his favorite shows and books, either as we're going along, or just at random points throughout the day. Maybe in 20 years he'll be Eberts' latest partner!)

"It's okay!" (Said in his most soothing tone, usually followed by "Mama's crying." Not that Mama actually was crying, but this is what he wants me to do so that he can console me.)

"I wanna hold the banana thing." "I wanna hold the apple thing." "I wanna hold the celery thing." (He wanted to hold every "thing" this morning while we were in Trader Joe's)

"We look stylie!" (Everyone was wearing sunglasses and Liam found it to be very stylie!)

Bam, Bam!

No, Liam hasn't turned into Emeril.

After bathtime, in what I suppose is the logical progression -- at least to Liam -- of the game where Mommy & Daddy munch on baby belly, Liam made the statement "Liam's drinking Mama!"

Mama's response: "What, you're a vampire, now?"

This was met by what we initially thought to be very enthusiastic shouts of "vampire, I'm a vampire!" Then all of a sudden, he reared back and punched Daddy as hard has he could, yelling "Bam! Bam!!!"

Turns out, Liam actually thought that he had finally learned the word for a guy whose favorite activity is hitting things: "Bampire!"

Makes perfect sense to me! Now I just have to figure out how to pitch it to HBO...

Monday, July 27, 2009

It's a Wiggly party!

Last Thursday, Liam and Mommy went downtown to see The Wiggles in concert. If you are not familiar with The Wiggles, you can check out their website, or view one of their videos on You Tube. They are a very big deal with the under-five set. They started out as just musicians, but now have a TV show & videos, and according to their website, they've opened their own amusement park on Australia's Gold Coast. It also says that according to Business Review Weekly, they were the highest grossing entertainment act in Australia for the past 3 years. Did I mention that toddlers really like these guys???

Since we were going to be walking around downtown, and since there were going to be hundreds of other children at the concert, I enlisted some help. Miss Susan (of storytime fame) had mentioned that her youngest daughter, Delaney, although 12 years old, still wanted to go see the concert. I thought "Aha! I can get my little helper, and spare her mom yet another Wiggles concert!" So that's what we did.

Incidentally, Liam behaves better for Delaney than he does for me. He got straight into his car seat, for example, and started putting his arms through the seat belts in a shameless move to impress her! It was very funny. And very convenient!

The concert was a lot of fun. The music was all very upbeat, and the audience knew all of the songs and were encouraged to sing & dance along, which Liam did with enthusiasm. In addition to the singing & the dancing of the four members of The Wiggles themselves, there were a bunch of acrobats/gymnasts known collectively as "the Wiggly dancers." They were on stage for most of the songs, dancing and doing some basic tumbling. Liam was especially impressed with the handstands they did. Each time someone did a handstand, he jumped out of his seat and put his hands on the ground, shouting "handstand!"

The concert was at 3:00, which is right in the middle of naptime. Liam made it through all but the last 3 songs before he crawled over our armrest and fell asleep on Mommy's lap. I woke him up for the "Hot Potato" finale, though. Couldn't let him miss "Hot Potato!" Besides, we were parked 5 blocks away, and no way were Delaney & I going to carry him that far!

The Wiggles come to town every summer, so I'm sure we'll be going back next year. Maybe we'll drag Daddy along...

Sunday, July 12, 2009

"I Feel Pretty!"


Dot is the baby ant in A Bug's Life, which is Liam's current favorite movie. So, now when he puts on Mommy's headbands, he tells us: "I look pretty, like Dot!"

I agree, don't you?

Here's a link to his other photos: pretty Liam
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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Anna kissing Liam

Posted by PicasaAnna kissing on Mommy's boy!

4th of July

After our successful fireworks test at Sea World last week, we went to the local high school to watch Rancho Bernardo's annual display. Because we were concerned about parking, we got there an hour early. Turns out the parking was a piece of cake, so we had a fair amount of time on our hands to kill before sunset. We were concerned about what we'd do to keep Liam entertained & out of trouble around so many people.

Turns out, we shouldn't have worried, because as with most crowds, this one was about 50%... girls.

Yep, Liam found himself some new girlfriends. Three, to be exact. Not far from our blanket was a blanket with three very giggly ten year old girls on it. Liam walked over and sat right down with them, much to their delight! They spent the next 40 minutes tickling, playing catch, and generally enjoying themselves with their new "little brother." They asked us to let him stay during the fireworks, too, but Mama's selfish & wanted her baby back for that.

We all enjoyed the fireworks display. Liam's favorite were the smiley face fireworks, followed by anything purple. He wasn't at all freaked out by the noise, and it was a lot louder than at Sea World, where they were much farther away.

The fireworks ended at about 9:20, and here's how good our parking place was: we were home by 9:35! Wow!

Oh, and Liam's new girlfriends? One of them chased us down as we were leaving so that she could give Liam the toy they'd been playing with together. Another notch in his crib post...

Here's a link to some photos: Watching fireworks at Rancho Bernardo Middle/High School

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Kissing on MY boy???

Anna kissed Liam at storytime on Tuesday. A few times. I knew that girl was trouble from the first minute I saw her...

I'll try to get pictures next week, didn't have the camera with me Tuesday.

No more Limam?

Liam referring to himself as "Limam" may have gone the way of Liam referring to Kirk as "Knnnnkkk" (no idea how you spell the sound Liam used to make).

On Monday, he called himself "Liam" repeatedly.

Mommy and Daddy are a little sad that Limam won't be part of the little guy's vocabulary any more.

Sea World

Sorry, sorry... I don't post often enough, I know. My hands have been giving me fits lately, so I've been avoiding typing and/or shirking my responsibilities to the Liam-obsessed public, depending on your point of view.

It's not that he hasn't done anything interesting. The kid is extremely interesting!

Last Saturday evening we went down to Sea World. Couple of reasons for this... our annual passes expired at the end of June, and also, we wanted to do a test run for the 4th of July fireworks.

We (Mommy & Liam) rode the "robot Elmo" ride. The cars are shaped like Elmo's head, and each car is dressed up as something: fish, cow, etc. Ours was the robot, which worked out well--Liam had definitely decided during our 20 minutes in line that he wanted to ride the robot. I would have had to get back in line & wait for another ride if we hadn't lucked into the robot car! Anyway, as with all rides, Liam loved it, and was quite difficult to get off. We're still working on learning about taking turns...

Then, as Liam says, "we saw a lot of shows!" Actually, we attended 2 shows, and he saw 1 of them. We started at the dolphin show, which he spent mostly nuzzled into my neck. They had some pyrotechnics that included large jets of flame shooting up from time to time, and he absolutely hated them. Didn't seem to bode well for the fireworks experiment. (Incidentally, the dolphin show was very cool, including the pyro part!)

The Shamu show was next, and this one we did manage to get Liam to watch... although he insisted that the lights were bothering him & that he needed to wear his sunglasses. He loved the show, especially the parts where the whales splashed the audience (not us, we were up too high). He likes telling about "the baby whale spitting on the people!" And yeah, that is what it did. Again, a very cool show. It's nice that they have the trainers back in the water with the animals.

Finally, after the Shamu show, we got to stay in our seats for their nightly fireworks display. Liam did just fine with them. He did keep the sunglasses on throughout, but whatever. We were more concerned with the noise scaring him. His review: "the fireworks went BOOOOOM!!!" So, we're all set for Saturday's show. Yay! We watched from a few miles away last year, and it was definitely not the way fireworks were meant to be seen.