Almost 19 months

Its easy to get caught up in thinking about the areas in which Liam has some delays, especially watching younger ones advance past him in certain areas of development. We recently had a six month evaluation by our team of therapists and while lagging a bit in gross and fine motor areas, in the cognitive and social areas he is zooming ahead! I feel like writing a tally of all the FABULOUS things our little Liam can do now at almost 19 months.
Starting to point to things.
Cruising along the furniture.
Standing on his own a few seconds without holding anything.
Laughing and playing with his sister.
Swiping flash cards on the iPad.
Doing the hand movements to itsy bitsy spider, twinkle twinkle little star, buenos dias, round and round the garden, and a little bit of wheels on the bus and our bumble bee song.
Waves bye bye, high fives, blows kisses, hugs.
Touches his head, toes, belly, ears when asked.
He dances.
Loves books and turning the pages.
Loves playing with cars and trucks, can even make one zoom forward after pulling back on it.
Says "up".
Signs "eat" and "more".
Is beginning to use a cup to drink and spoon to eat, with a little help.
Can throw a tantrum.

Cutest boy ever

Monarcas

Um, yes. The Central Coast is the absolute best place to live. Yesterday we went to Pismo beach to see the butterflies and play in the sand. The cold spell is over and the days are in the 70s again. It was perfect.

Dream

Last night I dreamt he was walking.

Bread

I'm pretty sure that Liam's first two phrases are "Up Papa" and "more bread". You may not recognize what he's trying to communicate but at home we do! He gets REALLY excited about bread. I'm raising a carb junky! Which is why I'm excited to find the missing piece of the bread maker a friend gave me so I can give him the healthiest bread possible. He also really likes muffins and pancakes (conscious of kids with DS having weight issues my baked items are low in sweetener and have added vegetables, flax, etc. don't say, poor kids! They turn out yummy!) I had heard that gluten intolerance was common for people with DS, but fortunately we think that is not the case for our Liam. Yeah! I tried, but gluten free bread sucks- um, i mean, is not great in my experience.
Last week we had friends for dinner. As we were eating I held up a piece of bread for Liam and asked him, "What's this Liam?" and he made his excited "baaa!" sound while our friend said "mine!" That doesn't come across as funny written down here as it did at the time.
Do you see him looking longingly at the toast in the picture below?

Today our little guy started to use his pointer finger more, singing "buenos Dias". And then, he finally touched his own nose!
On Christmas night he let go while standing in his crib and balanced for a moment on his own! Good things are waiting for us in 2013.

Tis the season

Play with my babies

Searching for inspiration for more sensory play with Liam and fun for Lupe, especially with 4 or more days of rain! Now Liam, he puts everything in his mouth. So I could play with oatmeal, flax, dried beans, but if I watch him carefully. Play dough? Homemade wouldn't harm him if ingested, so that is what we made tonight, spur of the moment, with kool aid for color and smell. Papa came out of the shower and found us making mess all over the kitchen floor!
What shall we try tomorrow? Edible finger paint?
Lupe loves when Liam goes to bed BEFORE her and if she cleans up while I nurse him to sleep, then she gets to choose an activity to do together, just the two of us. So tonight we drew a picture together, of a princess of course.

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.