Fear of the transition

With Liam’s first birthday approaching I find myself starting to worry about EVERYTHING! Things that have not even crossed my mind in the last few months are now a nagging voice in the back of my head. Does he talk enough? Is it bad he doesn’t wave yet? How do I start weaning him from his bottle? (Oh my goodness what are we going to do without bedtime/nap time bottles?…), Does he eat enough table food? …. and on and on….. I think it is because there are so many milestones that “the books” and “the experts” say kids should be doing by a year and because the one year marks a series of chances from the normal routine for the last 12 months.

During Liam’s lunch time I was talking to my Mom who suggested I start letting him learn to feed himself with a spoon. So we gave it a shot today at lunch….

He started his lunch who some green beans and goldfish. I have been giving him a decent amount of table foods to eat before I give him a jar of baby food in hopes that someday we can transition to all table food…he had some gerber raviolis that he would not even touch or poke with this little index finger none the less eat.

**please disregard the horrific cell phone quality pictures**

Then i gave him his bowl of butternut squash and apples mixed with a little oatmeal to thicken it up for him. …Ah ha just as I suspected..he stuck his hand it in.

 

I helped him a few times by guiding his hand into the bowl and then into his mouth.  After a few tries I let him do it himself. He did fairly well and got a little on his spoon and into his mouth, yay Liam!

Then he got sick of that idea and decided he would just eat straight from the bowl…much easier! 

Over the weekend Alex and Liam matched in their gold shirts…it was just too cute not to take a few pictures of.

Ooooh that poor runny nose…i am so ready for Liam to get over this cold!  

Today I dressed Liam in an outfit that I referred to as his “Dorrance Outfit” (the “town” Alex grew up in).

 

You may remember the flannel from this classic shot.

Have I mentioned I am so ready to move home?

Celebrating Fall

Since Alex and I moved to Indy a few years ago we have been going to an Apple Festival at a local orchard. Last year when we went I was HUGE….and so ready to meet Liam. I can remember so clearly think about how excited I was for next year and to bring our almost one year old.

I could not have been a more perfect day to celebrate fall. We have had record breaking heat all week here in Indy, over 90 degrees every day. Today it was in the low 60’s and Liam got to wear some of his new fall clothes.

 

I purchased these overalls for him last summer right after we found out he was a boy!

Liam loved holding onto a chuck of apple and nibble little bits off. Today he got to have one with a tiny bit of caramel and loved it, of course!

Over the last week Liam came down with another cold. After a rough afternoon yesterday I called the doctor at 4:30 in the afternoon…on a Friday and they let us come in to take a look at him before the weekend…THANK GOODNESS for only living two minutes from the office!!! Turns out he had an ear infection in his left ear cause by all of the congestion from the two colds he has had this month. He is on an antibiotic and a decongestant/cough medicine for the next few days so we are hoping he starts feeling like  himself again soon.

Happy 11 Month Birthday Liam

Dear Liam,

 

      Well Buddy this is it, the home stretch to your first birthday. Your Daddy and I both agree that this month you changed so much in the way you interact and play. You are so much fun! You love anything with wheels be it a car, truck, train or your walk behind toy. You love to push your cars and trucks around the living room like they are driving.

    

You have grown extremely fond on this hammer…you crawl around with it all day! Oh and did I mention you think it is hysterical to hit us with it.

 

Your favorite game to play is tag. Everyday when Daddy gets home from work you play. You crawl so fast as he chases you, laughing and screeching with excitement. Every once in a while you plop yourself up to see how close he is, make eye contact, laugh and your off trying to to get caught. 

This month you learned how to give high fives and to “touchdown”…perfect timing for football season! You love to sound like an Indian and hit your mouth with your hands.

You have no interest in walking, none what so ever. I am pretty sure it is because you crawl SO fast! I’ve even had comments from strangers about how fast you are. I may eat my words in a few months but I cannot wait until you can walk! You love your freedom to explore and not being able to walk frustrates you so much when we are places that you can’t crawl. You cruise around furniture with ease and have gotten a lot better at standing without holding on to anything.

Liam how old are you going to be next month? “This old Mama”

You love to eat and although you have quite a sweet tooth you also love fruits and veggies. You have four 7 ounce bottles a day and eat three solid meals with snacks in between. You love yogurt! You love to hold a peeled apple and scrape tiny bites off with your two bottom teeth. You love tiny broccoli florets and sautéed tofu. Your favorite snacks are graham crackers, cheerios, and freeze fried fruit bites. Last night we celebrated your 11 month birthday with a Halloween oreo.

You are 23 pounds and 30 inches. You wear almost all 12 month size clothes and size 3 shoes or size 4 skidders. We transitioned over to cloth diapers this month and are loving them. You still wear a size 4 diaper at night. You have five teeth, VERY soon to be six. You have your two bottom teeth, and your top four minus the front right. You go to bed around 8 and get up around 7 each day. You usually take two one hour naps per day but you have gone a few days with only one nap.

You indiscriminately say “Dada”, “Muma”, “Pop”, “Bop”, “Nunu” and a few other words.

 

You had a bad cold this month that also lead to your first fever.

You still LOVE being out and about! You get cabin fever way too fast…we are in for it this winter for sure. You are such a good boy when we got out for lunch or dinner and always smile and make friends with people while shopping. You love playing with other kids and really enjoy hanging out with your Baby Jam group.

    

We have so many fun things planned this month, including your first birthday party on the 16th and a trip to Sesame Place on your birthday!

Love you always,

Mama

Look at how you’ve grown…..

The apple doesn’t fall far

Alex is a sugar-a-holic, to say the least, and as you can see the apple doesn’t fall far.

“Mama….you best not take this donut box away from me”

“Mmmm so good”

 

“I love icing”

 

“I think i got it all”

 

Show Us Your Life (is back) – Living Room

Yay!! Show Us Your Life is back! When SUYL first started last year the first few weeks were a home tour. I jumped in on the fun after this was over so I am excited to post our home tour this year.

I admire bloggers that are “real” and honest….and today that is what I am going to be. I got up and took pictures of our living room AS IS…right now. No fluffing, not even straightening up the bomb of toys that went off this morning…..maybe I am being more lazy than “real'” but that’s okay.

 

Mama got the camera out…

Have you noticed the lack of pictures lately…it is because every time Liam sees the camera he has to have his figures all over the lens but I managed to get a few cute ones yesterday and thought I would share. He is wearing his new bumgenius 4.0 cloth diapers that we love!

   

This picture cracks me up! He was very excited to get the camera strap.

 

The Great Pumpkin…shortage

Did ya’ll know there is a pumpkin shortage? Well there is. Like, not even an empty spot on the shelf for cans to go shortage! After searching every single grocery store on the west side on Indianapolis I went to facebook to declare that there was officially no pumpkin to be found. I found out from friends that there was definitely a pumpkin shortage here in the good old US of A. I got wind of pumpkin being sold on ebay so I had to check it out…two cans for $16 plus shipping…

 

As it turns out the great pumpkin shortage of 2010 is due to a bad crop last year.

I guess we will be waiting to make pumpkin bread for a while….

And of course here are some pictures of Liam from today. We went shopping this afternoon with his friend Sage and her Mom Sara. Liam though taking a quick 20 minute nap on the ride home was enough for the rest of the day…. So around 5:30 we ran to get milk at the grocery store and this is what happened on the 5 minute ride home…

Weekend and such

On Sunday Liam and I went to cheer on Daddy at softball. Liam was much more interested in playing in the dirt. What is it with boys and dirt…he was drawn to it like a magnet!

  

Stroller wheels can entertain him for a solid 20 minutes. Check out that wind blown hair do…ya’ll will laugh to know that I styled his hair for a lunch date we had today with Erin and Berkley…yupp with the little bit of hair he has I managed to style it.

 

We have had a taste of fall weather here recently and Liam got to put on his jeans again. I just could not get over the curtness of him in jeans..and of course he is spinning the wheels again.

Liam and I had dinner by ourselves tonight and enjoyed a nice non-Daddy approved (he is super picky) dinner… sautéed tofu (don’t knock it till you’ve tried it) over pasta with a tomato cream sauce

 

and some peach shortbread for dessert.

Tonight I found two shirts that I am going to order Liam’s for his birthday celebrations next month. The real planning and prep for his party is starting and I can’t believe it, his first birthday…so exciting! I wanted to do a theme that captured what his first year was all about. Since so many of his toys are Baby Einstein I thought it would be a cute theme. We are going simply for all primary colored decorations and a few Baby Einstein caterpillars. Here is the invitation i have been working on… i NEED to get them printed ASAP and yes, i cried the first time i typed our “as Liam turns one”.