A March Trip

Liam has a thing for rakes, brooms, and mops--
they offer hours of endless entertainment for him right now.

Last week Liam and I returned home from a trip to Illinois to visit my family. For only having a few days, I think we made great use of our time. We were able to meet up with many family and friends and enjoyed our visit very much. I was most concerned about how I would manage flying alone with a 16-month-old, but I was well-prepared with snacks and entertainment for the plane and Liam handled his second plane trip like a pro. He's such a good-natured little guy and he takes most things--including traveling around with his mom for a few days--in stride! Aside from visiting friends and family, we managed to spend some time at the St. Louis Zoo and swing by SIUE to visit an old friend and professor of mine. Unbelievably, come May it will have been ten years since I graduated SIUE and moved to California, so it was nice to roam campus and remember what it was like to be an undergrad. A lot has changed for me in the last ten years!

With Liam being so young and my new position at work being more demanding, my trips home are few and far-between these days, but I'm thankful for the times I do make it back for a visit. I've posted a few of my favorite pictures from our trip below. Enjoy!

Liam with Grandma and Grandpa Myers at the St. Louis Zoo.

Liam and Mommy.

Look at that hair!

I call this one, "Big Monkey, Little Monkey."

With Aunt Erin and Uncle Ethan.

Liam absolutely loved riding the carousel at the zoo.

Check out my new hat!

With Great-Grandma Orsborn.

It's tough being little.

With Great-Grandma and Grandpa Myers.

All of the Orsborn grandkids and great-grandkids
in the same place at the same time!

Liam and Mommy at SIUE.

Aunt Erin and Liam at SIUE.

Catch Him If You Can

As I mentioned in my last post, Liam is picking things up at an amazing pace. His words aren't always complete or articulate, but he's learning. "Dah" for dog and "Cah" for cat are coming through pretty consistently and clearly. We also hear "yaaaaay"  and hand-clapping a lot during playtime. Naturally, he chooses to do cute things when my video camera is no where in sight, but over the weekend I managed to capture a few moments on video. I'm afraid these videos aren't of the best quality--even when I have my camera in hand, Liam often complicates things by trying to grab the camera or becoming cranky and frustrated with Mommy because she won't surrender the camera--but there the best I could manage.

It was fleeting, but I managed to get him to "blow kisses" for this video.

Liam does some "jumping" in this one. Don't get excited--his version of "jump" is to just kick his leg out. He may not get off of the ground, but he has fun with it!

Here I was attempting to get him to hold my cell phone to his ear and say, "Haaaaiii," which he's fond of doing, but since he already had the cookie I suppose there was no real incentive for him to be cute for the camera...

Leaps and Bounds

Liam's development continues to move ahead in leaps and bounds. Last week he suddenly started doing a number of new things, and it became clear to us that he now understands much of what we say. The new development that I appreciate the most is his budding sense of humor. He has started giggling (on his own, without prompting) at what he thinks is funny or looking at us for a laugh when he does something he thinks we should find funny. Baby giggles are a great cure for work day grumbles. He is also fond of standing next to furniture or a doorway and "hiding," then telling us "Boo!" This game is one of his favorites because when he says boo, we say "Ahh!" Something else he recently picked up is kissing his hand and saying "Mwah!" when he sees someone leaving. The other day he sent me off to work with a "Mwah!" and it totally made my day. (Yes, I have tried to get it on video, but as soon as the camera comes out, he is far more interested in the camera than doing what I'm asking him to do. Just give me some time...) Of course his "no" is getting even more discernible and emphatic. He also waves and says "hi" or "haaaeee" sometimes, and it has been fun to see him start mimicking things like talking on a cell phone or wiping the coffee table (he sees Mommy do that a lot). Now is the time to become a lot more self-conscious about bad habits...

It's hard to believe all of that was just last week! Who knows what this week will bring? Pretty soon he will be picking things up so fast I won't be able to keep up an inventory on his new skills. If he continues at this pace, we may be able to hold little one or two-word conversations with him before long. He recently had his 15 month "well baby" check-up with the pediatrician, and she seemed pleased to see that Liam was right on schedule with his development. He checked in at 22 lbs. and 31.5 inches, which means he gained 3 lbs. and grew a whopping 1.5 inches in the three months since his last appointment. If the boy didn't burn so many calories buzzing around every day I'm sure he would have gained more--he eats like he has two hollow legs. Liam may be long and skinny, but he is still a force to be reckoned with. Since he hit the 15 month mark we have entered another round of teething, which means Eric and I are sleeping less. Those almost nightly rounds of pacing the floor with a crying baby are a continual lesson in patience and sleep deprivation. They have also convinced me (yet again) that caffeine was specially invented for exhausted parents!

Game Time

Going through Mommy's backpack--he loves to play with earbuds.

It's hard to believe the first month of the new year is nearly in the rearview mirror. Liam is growing like a weed and becoming more and more the curious, exploring toddler everyday. Just as he was a happy baby, he is a giggly, happy toddler who is (mostly) even-tempered. Right now everything is a game to him. Bathtime becomes "Trying to Catch and Eat Bubbles," tooth brushing becomes "Catch Me If You Can," and any time he manages to breach the baby gate and gain access to the kitchen becomes a game of "How Fast Can I Empty the Cabinets Onto the Floor Before Mommy Catches Me?" As you might guess, he keeps us on our toes and routinely tests our reaction time. Still, I can honestly say I (mostly) love every minute of it. While it is bittersweet to see babyhood fade and give way to toddlerhood, I look forward to watching him become a little boy.

Hmmm...what else do we have in here?

Last week brought a new development--I played "with" him rather than alongside him for the first time. (Up until recently, he's still very much been a "parallel" player, meaning he does his own thing and plays alongside others rather than engaging playmates directly.) We rolled a little ball back and forth between us for about five minutes or so. The ball was just the right size for his little hand to get a good grip on it, and he enjoyed it when he discovered that if he rolled the ball in my direction I would roll it back to him. It was really fun to be able to play a game with him, so I hope this is the start of a new trend. 

In short, Liam is doing wonderfully. I wake up everyday wondering what Liam will do to surprise, entertain, exasperate, inspire, or...make me swear he will be an only child. It's pretty great.

Liam hardly ever looks up when he's outside.
He's way too curious about what's on the ground!

Opening and closing doors is
 a favorite pastime.

Daddy hasn't put the shelves in his bookcase yet,
which is just fine with Liam.

Mmmm. Spaghetti.

The Value of a Safety Pin

The Getty Center and I do not get along sometimes. Although I work at the Getty Villa, my duties often require me to be at the Center, and often things just go wrong during those visits. Yesterday was one such visit.  I arrived at the South Gate of the museum in the afternoon for a meeting on publishing curricula for teachers and was waved through the gate up to the coveted "Top of the Hill" parking. Villa staff are supposed to be allowed up to TOH parking when they come to the Center for meetings. This perk allows us to shave anywhere from 20-30 minutes off of the time it takes us to get up to the museum because we avoid waiting in line for the tram with visitors at the bottom of the hill. However, because TOH parking is so coveted, Villa staff are not always lucky enough to be waved up--it's pretty much a crap shoot. Even so, this time I felt victorious because the security officer kindly waved me through the gate. Yesss! 

Uh, well, not quite. I ended up driving around the parking garage for 20 minutes, keeping an eye out for anyone who was leaving, because all three levels of the parking garage were full. I would have gotten a parking space sooner, but some jerk cut around me and claimed an open space I was waiting on. After about ten more minutes of prowling the parking garage I came upon someone who was leaving, and was at last able to park my car. My plan was to head up and quiet my rumbling stomach with some lunch before my meeting. (The veggie burritos at the Getty Center Cafe are AWESOME.) And all was well. Yes? No. After an hour in the car, I needed a pit stop, so I stopped by the restroom. In order to look nice and professional for my meeting, I had worn my nice dress slacks, which have a zipper that goes up the side. Since this was just how my day was going at that point, that delicate zipper on my nice and professional dress slacks completely failed.  I now had a big gap in the side of my pants that threatened to reveal my brightly colored underwear to all the world once I left the privacy of the restroom stall. Crap. I immediately dug into the front of my backpack, looking for my keys.

A couple of years ago a woman at church gave me a safety pin and told me to put it on my key chain, saying, "You should always carry a safety pin." I did as she suggested, and it's been there for the past three years. As I took that safety pin off of my key chain there in the restroom stall, I was convinced that lovely, thoughtful woman was heaven-sent because God knew I had a disastrous wardrobe malfunction coming my way on January 26, 2012 and I was going to need that pin! It totally saved the day. I used it to pin the long black shell I had worn over my blouse that day closed, thus concealing the gaping opening in my pants and saving my dignity. Thankfully, this story has a happy ending--the rest of the afternoon was uneventful and the failed zipper went undetected.

Word to the wise: Always carry a safety pin. ALWAYS.