Grandma Trick - revised

Since about November Liam has been copying Grandma's cough - we call it his Fake Cough. He copies everyone's cough and always has a very distressed look on his face while doing it. He has issues with sneezes though (welcome to Allergy Season!) and will try to figure out how to manage to fake a sneeze but usually goes with the tried & true Fake Cough.

I've attempted to teach him a fake sneeze by going AH! AH! AH! CHOO! in rising degrees of "something great is about to happen" noises but he usually just laughs his butt off or Fake Coughs. Although at times you can hear him start the AH! AH! AH! which can sometimes sound like 1! 2! 3! but he never follows through with the CHOO! portion - which maybe is his Fake Out Sneeze??

Anyway...my point here today is to tell y'all of the Revised Fake Cough. Grandma started saying to him (in May, I believe) "oh, you've got a bad cough" to which he responds with more Fake Coughs. So now every time he coughs, we all tell him what a bad cough he has. Sometimes he throws a laugh in there as if to say "fooled ya!" but other times, he gets very distressed look on his face and Fake Coughs some more :)

Here & There

I have a larger post to write about our weekend at Camp Carolina but I thought I would throw out some new things that Liam is doing these days :)

• He is now WAVING! It's a full arm wave but totally adorable & he's catching on & waving more often now - he really started to do it on my birthday so Mommy was very happy!
  
• He's saying "KA", which, of course, I believe is the beginning of CAT :)
• The babbling has been ramped up a notch in the past week as has the Motor Boating noises
• He is sticking out his tongue & good lord is it adorable
• I'm not so sure he will be walking anytime soon because he is such an expert crawler that he only "walks" these days when he is cruising & does not really show any interest when he is not holding onto furniture
• He learned to crawl up stairs this weekend! Daddy was behind him & Mommy went up top to give him a Goal :) He did get stuck about 1/2 way up & didn't know what to do once he was holding onto the banisters so Daddy had to rescue him. He wasn't quite sure if he wanted to let go & if he did what his next move was!
• He plays Peek-a-Boo with just about anything - the pillows, his blankets, his (MINE!) cuddle pillow, and especially my hand when we are getting ready for his nap
• The Fake Coughing is in FULL EFFECT. He also mimics our laughs - tis very cute!
  

Quick recap

Liam has been busy keeping Mommy on her toes so I haven't had as much time to devote to my ramblings here but here's a quick recap of things that have happened this week!

On Friday Grandpa's flight got canceled from Dulles to home so he rented a car and stopped on by & decided to stay the night :) He fed Liam his dinner, napped while he napped & just generally hung out & hugged & kissed on him the entire time! Grandpa has the same double cough that Grandma has & the copying was in full force again & now even when we cough (and poor Matias with his allergies...) he mimics us :) It's too cute! He's not quite sure what to make of the 9 sneezes Daddy manages to get out in a row though! You can see his little brain working away to figure out how to copy that noise!

Saturday we went to Lowe's to get a freezer for the garage - our little freezer doesn't cut it with all of Liam's foods & Matias' Favorite Food (Meat!) so we got one for the garage. And then browsed around looking at the patio furniture & bought some PLANTS! Matias planted an herb garden after successfully growing his own basil for quite some time now & I actually planted some flower pots! Liam hung out outside with us in his Pack n' Play - making that the first time we've used the Play portion of that device! He watched us but mostly spent his timing watching the landing pattern for Dulles :) The boy loves his planes!

Sunday, I held my Memoranza (CM's equivalent for National Scrapbooking Day/Month) so it was a Liam & Daddy day! They spent most of it at the mall while Matias got new tires & brakes & he hung out in his stroller most of the time. Matias said he had a good time and that he took a nap while they were wasting time. He's got quite the little crush on one of my friends/customers Jodi & he hammed it up good for her whenever he got the chance!

The yeast infection pretty much cleared up over the weekend as well - and along with that the FLIPPING STOPPED! I'm assuming he was in such discomfort that flipping was one of his ways of dealing with it - whatever it was I'm SO GLAD it has disappeared!

Also, since we've been giving him Heartier Meals I've started offering him water in between bites - he basically refused to use a sippy cup & will only drink from a cup - assisted, of course. He's getting much better at each meal & only dribbles the tiniest bit on himself & I really do think he appreciates the chance to cleanse his palette ;)

Another milestone that I've noticed him reaching has been Sorting - he puts things into their proper place, he puts his Cheerios into the "cup holder" on his tray & has mastered the cubes for his farm, along with fitting the circle in the circle hole - the triangle is giving him some issues but I'm sure he will work it out in no time! It's really cute to watch him put his finger goods in his cup holder :) He also hands me things now - the remote, his bottle, the phone(s), a book...and that is just totally adorable :) I say "thank you" every time he hands me something & I think that encourages him to hand me more things...

And that brings me to something else - having to tell him "NO". We've, of course, had to start telling him "no touch" once he became mobile and he wasn't REALLY grasping the concept until the past handful of days. He listens about 90% of the time but the ONLY downside is when he stops touching the thing, I say "thank you, that's a good boy" & since I've praised him for doing what I've asked, he does it again to hear me say "thank you" - you can see where that is leading...he reaches out for the forbidden item & smiles at me, waiting for me to say "no touch" & "thank you". So, I do it. Again, I'm the demented parent parrot saying "no touch", "thank you" & "open/closed". It's no wonder I cannot speak in full sentences anymore ;)

The Cruising is increasing daily :) Please someone give me a cute Liam Fellow term for Cruising - I can only think of gay boys at a truck stop or Tom Cruise - oh wait, those are the same thing...anyway I digress...the Cruising is getting much better although he's still working on his confidence - he reaches out to the ottoman from the couch & just barely cannot make it so instead of just letting go for that brief moment he sits & crawls two paces to get there. But when he Cruises on one piece of furniture, he's much more confident about it & now goes all along the couch, daybed downstairs, Pack n' Play & he walks around his Office (now refusing actually go IN it). I'm sure it will just be days before he lets himself take that plunge and releases one hand to grab his next piece of Cruising material (refraining from making Katie Holmes joke here...).

Liam is blowing raspberries on ME now - usually my thigh/knee area or upper arm (the nice flabby sections!) and also attempting to hit his open mouth on me to make the Indian Sound.

And for a quick recap, this got awful long :) Don't fret I'm wrapping it up as LOST is on! Tomorrow, I will talk about my need to clean out & sort his baby toys from his Little Big Boy toys & more exciting things like Gymboree sales & polo shirts!

*sigh* this kid, he cracks me up

Liam will actually COUGH when he's ready to get up from his nap. Sometimes this is alerted by a sneeze or a squeal but most normally it's a cough.

Grandma DID teach him the little fake cough trick but now it's just too funny to me that he COUGHS to signal "hey! lady down there playing on that computer! i'm done with my nap! come get me!"

I'll take the camera up with me now so you can also see that he tries to lift him self up (sit up/crunch style) when you come into the room.