Liam: March 2011

Sweet William. He's two and still sweet, though he does have a fondness for splashing in toilets, unraveling toilet paper, and throwing things from his high chair.


I brought Liam to the office with me for a few hours last week and he was actually quite a delightful working companion. He watched some Blue's Clues on Briar's laptop, played with toys, opened and closed my office door several dozen times, and toddled up to the front desk, where Linda (secretary extraordinaire) gladly entertained him. He then climbed into my lap with a rice cake and watched me make a spreadsheet. Halfway through the cake--and the spreadsheet--he was asleep. Linda helped me make him a little bed under my desk and he slept there quite peacefully for about an hour.

Now that he's a walking kid, all Liam wants to do is walk. He gets quite outraged when we walk him to the car and strap him into his car seat. (Maybe he's concerned about reducing his carbon footprint?) He particularly likes to walk in shoes because the shoes add exclamation points to his steps, noisily punctuating each one he takes.

When Liam's not walking, he's dancing. The child can bust some serious moves. He'll dance to Schubert, he'll dance to Black Eyed Peas, he'll dance to "Give Said the Little Stream." He turns circles, he does the knee bop, he'll wiggle his bum, he's got a wicked high step. He even does this cool back-and-forth thing with his head sometimes. It brings me such joy to see him dance. It makes me believe that the surgery did its thing-- it gave him better balance, it gave him better hearing--and he's taking the two and going to town.

Liam loves to be my little helper, particularly in the kitchen. He'll stir, he'll pour, he'll dump. One Sunday he carefully loaded potatoes and black beans into the crockpot for me-- then proceeded to take them all back out again. He also very much enjoys scrubbing the toilet. I suspect this is because it so closely resembles splashing in the toilet. He once spent thirty minutes taking each clean dish out of the dishwasher and handing it to me, very pleasantly adding a "There you go!" to each dish.

William has a fantastic disapproving face. He'll flash it (eyebrows down, mouth in a pout) even when he does approve-- just so you'll do it back to him. This makes him smile, but then you'll smile, so he'll switch back to Disapprove. Disapprove. Smile. Disapprove. Smile. It's like he's bipolar. On steroids.

His favorite words right now are "Hi!" "No," "Eye," "Nose," "More," and "Uh-oh." "No" is the answer to every question, ie: "Liam, do you want a cookie?" "No." "Um, okay." (Desperate screaming when cookie isn't given to him.)


So adorable.