Snip snip

We did it! We took Liam for his first hair cut. I wanted to do it myself, as I am the only one who has trimmed Lupe's hair. That first hair cut is a BIG deal, like snipping the umbilical cord. Don't laugh, even if you think I'm being melodramatic. Some of you understand I'm sure. But I didn't think I could do a boys cut very well, especially a 16 month old boy.
Some friends recommended Tigerlily salon so we went there. The four of us went in to this hipster hair salon to get our little guy's ten minute cut! Applause to Josh who managed to do it with Liam squirming in Papa's lap. Notice the blurry motion of scissors snipping and baby squirming and the furrowed brow of concentration of the stylist? I think the pictures capture it pretty well. And yes, he looks older now. My sweet baby is growing up! Sigh.

Mi familia

Standing

He stands up in his crib now. And keeps asking for the keys to drive the car.

Sshhhh.....

Shhh.... don't tell anyone. The other day after dropping Lupe off at school I went to SLO donuts and ate a donut all by myself. I didn't tell anyone and I didn't share.

The artist

I am so excited that my girl is blossoming as an artist before my eyes! Watching her first drawings of people and all of a sudden she can draw a house and a flower. Piñatas too!
And I can dictate the words to her and most of the time she can write it down. Wow!
Lupe's preschool has a program called raising a reader. Every week they bring a book back home with four books and they have a special notebook in which to do something related to one of the stories. They can draw a picture or practice writing or dictate something that we write for them. Well my girl is already a reader. Every week so far, of the four books we own at least one and have probably read one or two others. So the first thing Lupe did in her note book is not about one of the books in her bag. We had just finished our longest chapter book ever with 20 chapters and 149 pages. How's that for reading?

Bubbles and blue shirts

Liam was sitting on top of a plastic mirror on the floor and I blew bubbles at him. I thought it was pretty cool to see the way he looked at and played with the bubbles while also seeing his own reflection.
And for the first time he was playing with one of Pedro's T-shirts covering up his head and every time he did he laughed hysterically. Usually one of us is making him laugh but this time he was making himself laugh and that was a first. Each exclamation of a laugh almost sounded like a sneeze. Or perhaps I could call it a guffaw.

Time to celebrate

I have been looking forward to writing this post for a long long time. Something big I mean huge happened in our house last Saturday, October 27. Some of you may or may not know the importance of crawling for brain development. It has been our primary goal for several months now. Liam has been scooting on his belly for quite some time. But he tends to pull himself with his arms and let his legs just kind of drag behind. So we have been doing assisted crawling and cross patterning with him every day. Sometimes this means just having him on his belly and with two people moving his arms and legs in a cross pattern. Sometimes we do that and have him moving forward on the floor to get to a goal. We also have him on hands and knees with two people helping him crawl that way. Or doing sit and stand exercises to help strengthen his legs as well as tactile stimulation and deep pressure massage on his limbs. Pedro and I could not have done all this without the enormous help of Liam's grandpa next door.
So last Saturday, at almost 16 months right before bed, LIAM STARTED TO CRAWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Excuse my excessive use of apostrophe marks but this is such good news and we just can't explain how excited we are!!!!
Cause for major celebrating. I've included a picture of Lupe playing the kazoo and the guitar for her brother.
Oh yeah, he also got two new teeth the same day and in addition to crawling figured that he may as well learn how to pull himself up to standing.
And did I mention that he can scroll through flashcards on the iPad?
I mean this week has just been a developmental explosion!

Cause and effect

Look at this guy! We are rocking the cause-and-effect activities this morning. Liam is sometimes almost pulling himself up to stand with a little support. And then he knows just what to do with the flash card program on the iPad- he can touch the screen to go to the next image and he always waits for the word to be spoken aloud before moving on. How clever is he?
We went to the park and for the first time Liam pretty much went down the slide by himself. Very brave.

When the cat is away....

When I was about nine years old I won a local art contest with a drawing of the phrase "when the cat is away the mouse will play".
Fast foreword 18 years...
Lupe is at school and Liam can play with all of her special stuff including her jewelry box. I do believe he's having the time of his life!

4 going on 14

I don't know if it's just being four or the influence of school but my sweet little girl has been replaced by a teenager, with attitude. She is talking back to me, throwing tantrums, making ugly faces, and on top of all that, doing new things like preening in front of the mirror.
It is so hard to watch! I suppose I should be glad that she feels comfortable enough with me, her mom, to talk about her emotions a little bit and to tell me when she is angry at me.
And may I just ask why is it that kids so often are dying to be friends with the one person who isn't very nice to them and doesn't want to be friends back?
God give me wisdom and patience here!

Thursday morning here

We are having a rainy day and it is so thrilling! Like finally getting a glass of water when you have been just so so thirsty. Pedro has taken Lupe off to school. We are finishing up our blueberry peach pancakes. Liam likes to feed himself now more than be fed. In fact, Liam is doing so much cool new stuff recently. Imitating gestures and sounds. He lets us know when he wants to sing itsy-bitsy spider. I don't know if it's the molar coming in but he keeps his mouth closed a lot more these days. Playing with his fingers playing with his shadow. I remember in months past having some doubts when I would see him just staring at the world passing by but now he seems like such a curious little guy When you are raising a baby with a developmental delay every single little thing they do is so exciting. I somehow thought before that these little things would get missed with the second child in the busy life that that entails. But having him is like being a mom for the first time again.

"camping"

This is one of our favorite games recently. It can be either a sheet a scarf or a kitchen towel and all we do is cover our heads and say "camping!". And everybody smiles.

Music time

Buskers on the street, babies in the music store.

Sense of touch

Sensory stimulation is a big part of what we do with Liam. What could be better than laying on the soft grass without your pants, feeling the sun on the top of your head, and a warm breeze?
That and Liam's first experience painting today.

Paso a paso

When you have a child with special needs you are so aware of each stage of development and every single little thing that they learn. It's so awesome when you are practicing something with your child and you wonder when they will finally, finally learn to do it and then one day - BOOM- they just start doing it!
Liam will stay sitting on his knees for a a while and he looks like such a big boy when he does it. Instead of letting the food just drop out of his mouth he now will put his hand in front of his mouth to keep it in while he chews. For a few weeks we have been blowing kisses at him and this week he finally started to imitate the motion. So awesome! He also has been slowly starting to make some new sounds although his main sound is still baba (that being said the other day when I wasn't picking him up he was pretty clear when he said mama up!)
But the day he starts crawling we are going to have a major, I mean major fiesta. We are working so hard, and so us he. With the help of one of his grandparents we are assisting him in the crawling Cross pattern motion. And the little guy works up a sweat!

Hair!

Look how long that hair us getting! But I can't even think about cutting it. Well, maybe I thought about it a little bit these last two days when the temperature was around 100°. But I didn't cut Lupe's hair until she was three and even then it was only a little trim. That first haircut feels like cutting the umbilical cord all over again. It's a big first for me.
So we won't do anything with his hair. I think he looks rather handsome.

Avila valley barn

Such a short short time ago that I was doing this class field trip with my little Lupe. Now she is in a five day week school and I am in parent participation class with Liam. I probably shouldn't have gone this day. I think it was 100°. Literally. Doesn't Liam look sweaty and hot?
However an interesting thing happened that same night. I was reading a blog called Noah's dad. His little one is about Liam's age and also has down syndrome. October is down syndrome awareness month in our country and this dad created an idea on his blog for a "wall of awesome. ". The idea is for parents to share pictures of their kids and talk about how awesome they are. Pedro and I were looking through the photos and I saw that just a couple of hours before a mom had posted about her field trip to Avila Valley barn- hey, we were there! From what I can tell the down syndrome community is very small in this county and I was excited to know that another mom was on the same trip but with a different class. I saw through Facebook that her daughter is three and she lives in another town nearby. So I sent her a message; we'll see what happens! Always trying to make connections.

Yum

He still eats greater quantities of mashed soft food, but we are finally seeing he likes more texture and flavor too! Papa's huevo con tomate and my quinoa with parsley walnut pesto. Mmmm.....