2 More Days!

So excited that we only have 2 more days till Josh/Daddy gets home! All in all though things have been going really well (I better knock on wood). The only real issue is that Liam has been waking up super early the past few weeks and its hard to not have help when you are so tired. On top of that, for some ungodly reason, I have been waking up at 3:30/4:00 the past couple of mornings and can NOT get back to sleep. I don't know what my problem is. I'm assuming when I wake at that hour, I start to get anxious/nervous that Liam will wake up earlier than usual and that in turn keeps me from falling back to sleep. On top of that, tonight I've got a sitter so that I can go out for Liz's bday, so I'm sure it will be another night of minimal sleep. Oh well, just a couple more days and then Josh will be home and I can relax again :)

Liam and I have been having a lot of fun.....the past few days we have:

- Gone to the park with Julie and Sadie (Liam is more than obsessed with Sadie)
- Gone to the field to throw the ball for Polly (again, this is another favorite activity of Liams...he could watch Polly catch the ball for hours)
- Played with all the toys in the house a million times over
- Had scrambled eggs for the first time
- Sat on the porch in the beautiful weather and watched the cars
- Had many walks
- Played in the bath a little longer than usual
- Pulled up to a stand on EVERYTHING. He just started standing in his crib a couple days ago and since then can't get enough of standing wherever he is
- Climbed the stairs a million times over
- Played in Polly's cage (unbeknownst to mommy)
- Watched our first Sesame Street (he could take or leave it except for Elmo...why are kids so obsessed with Elmo? Cracks me up)

Today we have to go to the grocery and then we are hoping to meet Auntie Tina at Piedmont Park later if the weather holds up. Tomorrow is a big day because not only will Liam be 10 months old , but we are going to Northside Hospital in the afternoon to meet Jon and julie's new baby girl!!

More updates on how the rest of the weekend goes after Josh gets back on Sunday!

Saying Hi to Daddy!

Relaxing on the porch watching the cars and runners

Can you tell what I had to eat?

What?! Am I not supposed to be in here?

EARLY morning Sesame Street

Flying Solo...Wish Us Luck

Liam and I are going to be flying solo for the next four days. We did it once before when Liam was much younger and everything went great. The main difference, however, is that a) Liam is now mobile and b) he only takes 2 naps now (vs. the 4 he took the last time).

I know I can handle the days since I already do that twice a week by myself. It's really the evenings I'm concerned about. (And specifically its the third, fourth and fifth evening). Most evenings when Josh gets home I'm very ready for a break!! So, I can only imagine that by night three I'm going to be more than ready for him to get back home :)

So, fingers crossed everything goes smoothly and is manageable. I will be sure to give you all an update on how it all goes, as well as how excited I know I will be to have the sitter I set up for Saturday night so that I could enjoy a soon-to-be much needed night out!

More Polly laughs

As I mentioned last time, Liam and Polly together are the cutest thing I have ever seen. There are so many funny interactions between the two of them throughout the day and I just happened to catch one yesterday morning. I honestly have no idea why I decided to video. For some reason I had a feeling something good was about to happen!

Polly Dog

As you know, we point out everything Liam sees lately and tell him what it is in hopes that one day he will say it back to us. Well, we realized recently that we were contradicting ourselves whenever we would point to Polly and say "Dog". I mean, Liam hears us call her Polly all day long, yet we are telling him her name is "Dog". So, as of this week, we are renaming our dog, "Polly Dog" (or "Polly Puppy" if you ask Josh but that just creates all sorts of problems).

Polly Dog is one of the sweetest, most gentle giants you will ever meet. She is a 100 lb golden retriever that wants nothing more than to be loved on, run, or protect Liam from mean old mommy who tells him "no" some days (or heaven forbid tries to change him while he is crying). Polly is 2 1/2 years old and for the first 2 years of her life she slept on the floor in our bedroom next to me. About 6 months ago, she decided that she needed to protect Liam when he would cry out in the night and she now sleeps outside his door (which is great until she decides to shift positions and it sounds like a 100 lb thud followed by a large moan which in turn scares the bejesus out of Liam). Liam has always liked seeing Polly and would always smile at her but it is only within the last month or so that he truly freaks out when she walks in the room. Without any other siblings, I believe he now considers Polly his play mate. So, as of the past few weeks, a new routine has ensued and I was finally smart enough to catch it on camera.

Whenever Liam wakes up (either in the morning or from a nap) and I enter the room he either sits up or looks up and after giving me a quick 2 second grin he then begins to look around for Polly. He does not want to get out of the crib until she walks into the room. I usually start calling for Polly and seeing as she is super lazy at home it can take her awhile to get in there. This whole time Liam is just staring at the door and intently listening to see if he can hear her tags clinking. When she finally comes in the room it is like Christmas morning. Liam gets so excited that he usually squeals or as you will see in this video puts his head down and starts flailing his arms and legs. I get a kick out of it every day and I hope this is something he never grows out of :)

A NOT so great holiday weekend

Contrary to my post, this weekend started out great! Friday night our neighbors came over for some Indian food and game playing. We had a blast but per usual, did not get much sleep that night as our cute little biggy woke up at 6AM. Saturday started off great as well....we had a nice lazy morning and then our friends Caroline and Travis brought their 1 year old boy, Waylon over for a "happy hour" play date :) Waylon and Liam are only 3 months apart (almost to the day), so they had a blast. It was a nice break for the parents to sit back and relax while the boys entertained themselves. I was also super excited at the fact that Liam would wear himself out so much that he would have a great sleep that night. WRONG.

Around 11:00PM Liam started crying. Every now and then he will have what I assume is a nightmare and cry out for about 3 minutes, then go right back to sleep. Well I knew that something was off when he sat right up in bed and started wailing. When I went in there I discovered that he had thrown up all over his crib and all over himself. I didn't really think anything of it until I picked up him and he started vomiting again. This time all over me and the carpet. For the next hour and a half Liam proceeded to get sick every 20 minutes. It was awful. He was so pitiful and it was very hard to see. I also hated the feeling of being helpless. Nothing like your little man feeling awful and there is nothing you can do about it.

Luckily around 1AM he was able to fall asleep off and on until the morning. The next day we were very hopeful as he seemed much better after his morning nap. All that was squashed when he got sick again around 2PM the next day. Oy vey! Off to the Dr. we went. We got some meds to stop the vomiting and by nighttime he seemed to have stopped throwing up but was all around miserable! Sleep was rough. Up every 2 hours just moaning and I'm sure achy. Yesterday he did much better and by the evening he was crawling all over the place and even drinking some formula. After three rough nights, he (and we) finally got some sleep last night as our little guy slept from 7-6:30. Ah bliss. Today we seem to be almost completely back to normal. The appetite is still not quite there but I'm sure that will come with a little more time.

I am beyond thrilled that Liam is feeling better. The last 48 hours have been rough for everyone, both emotionally and physically. It was by far our hardest illness yet, but its great to know that we all made it and are on the mend!!!

9 months

I know you all think i'm crazy because I think I say this every 3 months, but today Liam turned 9 months old and I honestly and truly think THIS is the best age :) We are having a blast right now!! Everyone kept telling me that once Liam started crawling I would wish he wasn't, but I honestly feel the opposite. It's like he has this new found freedom all the sudden and he doesn't fuss because he can't reach a toy or because he is sick of the toy he is playing with. Instead he just crawls right over to whatever he wants and no fuss needed. It is great! Josh and I have actually been able to do things on our own and not spend every waking second helping Liam get another toy. Now don't get me wrong, there is the drawback of having to watch your kid even closer than before, but luckily Liam makes grunts and squeals when he crawls (at least right now) so we are fully aware of his whereabouts at all times.

Today we had our 9 month check up. Only 1 shot which was a nice change of pace from our 6 month/4 shot check up. This was the first time that we walked into the Dr's office and he actually remembered and knew that this was a place he did not want to be. He was fine, until the second I put him up on the table he started SCREAMING! Amazing to see that he actually remembers that the table is where he gets the dreaded shots. Everything checked out great. The Dr. called him a "little ham" because he was smiling and sticking his tongue out the whole time. Crazy to think that our next apt is our 1 year check up. I'm still in denial that I will have a 1 year old soon!

Liam's stats this check up:
weight: 22 lbs / 77%
height: 28.5in / 60%

We have a crawler!

Well we officially need to baby proof. Our little man started crawling two days ago and is already getting pretty good at it! He's been getting up on all fours and rocking for about a month now and then last week he sat up by himself in the crib, so I had a feeling crawling wasn't far behind. We had to entice him with things he usually can't have, such as Polly's dog collar, my watch, the remote, etc, but hey, it worked! Now all he wants to do is practice crawling over to the coffee table and attempt to pull up.

The crazy part in all of this is how proud I was when he actually crawled. I felt like he had just accomplished a full marathon...amazing how much joy I felt just from him crawling. Oh boy....I'm in for it!


The first video is from the day he started crawling....still a little wobbly. The second video is from yesterday...still slow (sorry the video is a couple min long) but getting much better at staying up. I have a feeling in a week he'll be sprint crawling :)