more firsts

Just in time for Christmas, Max has said his first non-mama or -dada word. He dropped his beloved zero (part of a number puzzle) and said "uh-oh!" And when I asked him to say it again, he did. We have language!

Also today, Liam wore big-boy underwear for the first time. They lasted about 15 minutes. It's a start, right? We also discovered that he can sing the entire ABC song. We knew that he knew all the letters by sight, but we had no idea he knew the song until he started singing it to us.

And a final music-related note. My birthday was last week, and Liam, true to his sweet-loving heart, sang "Birthday cake to you, Mommy" to the tune of Happy Birthday. That's my boy!

a taste of what's to come

The boys are ready to celebrate Christmas! Here are some pictures that didn't make the cut for our Christmas card (which will appear soon in mailboxes all over the country).





Only 12 more days!

something new

Both boys have done some new things over the past few days. Three days ago, Max started clapping his hands. And now he does it all the time! His new favorite game is patty cake. Two days ago, he stood by himself. Granted, it was for about five seconds and then he gave the classic cartoon look around. The expression on his face clearly said, "Hey wait! I'm not holding anything!" and he promptly fell down. He hasn't tried it again, but I'm sure it won't be long.

Meanwhile, last night was Liam's first night in a big-boy bed. No more crib for him! He's got a new bedroom with his favorite things (used to be our office) and he was excited to be there all day yesterday. He kept telling us all about his new room. We were a little worried that he would just get up and walk around instead of sleeping, but he stayed in bed all night long. This morning, he woke up, and I called to him from bed to ask if he was okay. "I'm getting up," he said, and got up and came into our (also new) room and climbed up to give me a hug.

And now they're playing nicely in Max's room. Full disclosure: I just broke up a giant screaming fight because Max stole one of Liam's beep-beeps, but they're playing nicely at the moment. For now.

O Christmas Tree

Sunday morning we packed up the boys and braved the freezing cold (no snow, though) to go to Hensler's Nursery and "help" my parents and sister get their Christmas trees. The boys seemed to enjoy looking around at everything. They each met Santa, but only Max would smile at him. To be fair, this Santa is particularly scary. Kind of like Bad Santa, but older and with a real beard. Liam wanted nothing to do with him, even when OBS (Old Bad Santa) offered him a candy cane. After meeting Santa, we explored the grounds. Liam and Klaudia bought some grain and fed a pony, which Liam really liked. We saw wild turkeys, a cow, horses, and reindeer. And then we trudged out into the field and chopped down the trees. Well, we watched my dad and brother chop them down. After the chop, my brother J gave us a primal example of man's domination over nature:



After we came home, we were inspired to start our own holiday decorating. Liam helped us with the tree...



...while Max did his part by "helping" with the stockings.



Happy holidays!

block party

Max has discovered a new favorite game: knock down the block tower. Fortunately, Liam loves to build block towers, so it mostly works out well. Until Liam gets frustrated because all his towers get knocked down. Tonight, they had a full half hour of shrieking, crashing joy playing with the blocks. It's so much fun to watch.

First, Liam painstakingly builds a tower...



Then, Max approaches in baby stealth mode...



He destroys the tower...



And vanquishes all his block foes. Triumph!!

a trip to the dentist

Taking a two and a half year old to see the dentist is an interesting experience. I'm glad we only have to do it twice a year. Today was Liam's second-ever dental checkup. We take him to a pediatric dentist, so before every appointment they take the time to show the kids all the equipment and let them play with it. Six months ago, Liam just stared while the hygenist demonstrated with the water squirter, the sucking tube ("Mr. Thirsty"), and the tooth polisher. Today, he squirted the water into a cup, drank some, squirted some more, used the sucker, and when shown the toothbrush, promptly put it in his mouth. Then asked for more water. So when the dentist came around, Liam was in a pretty good mood...which dissolved as soon as the dentist started looking at his teeth. But we got through the cleaning, and once his tears were dried, Liam got a Thomas sticker and one proclaiming him a member of the "No Cavity Club." Then he got to pick a toy from the toy chest (a beep-beep, of course). I'm pretty sure by now he's forgotten the agony of the cleaning, which is good. And his little teeth are so shiny and white! Next time, it'll be time to bring Max along too. Double the fun!

happy thanksgiving!

This year we packed up the boys and went for a nice dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's house. The boys had a great time. Max at a heaping helping of Gerber's best Turkey Dinner with Vegetables, and Liam stuffed himself full of all the good food Grandma made, then topped it off with a big piece of "birthday cake." On a side topic, all cake is "birthday cake" to Liam--even pancakes, which he calls pan-birthday-cakes. Anyway, fun was had by all. The boys got to spend tons of time playing with Grandpa, including some time spent playing the piano. Check them out:



In other news, Liam is starting to speak in sentences more and more. While I was typing this post, he climbed up on the desk and started messing with all of our papers. I didn't mind too much until he started on a path of destruction, after which I told him to get down. "No!" he replied. Then Daddy came in and told him to get down. His response? "Okay, I'll get down." Figures.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I know we've got a lot to be thankful for.

a fine specimen

Max had his 9-month checkup this afternoon. He is happy, healthy, and a nice shade of orange as a result of his love affair with vegetables. The doctor was very pleased with his progress, and said that he's doing wonderfully. He's big stuff, but we knew that already. His weight is 21 pounds, 13 ounces (a little over double his birth weight), which is the 75th percentile. His height is 30.5 inches--above the last line on the chart. He's tracking exactly the same as big brother has so far, and he's showing no indications of stopping.

Here's a shot of our big boy with one of his favorite people: The baby in the mirror.



And one of him modeling his new Irish wool hat. (Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!)

a portrait of the artist as a toddler

I'm starting to feel a lot better and doing a lot more with the boys and around the house each day. The bruises are healing, and next week I go in to get my stitches out. Yay!

Liam's newest obsession is waiting until we're distracted and then going for the camera. He's figured out how to turn it on and take pictures (nothing gets by that kid!), and his favorite subject is...himself. So without further ado, here's Liam's first photography show. I think his work shows insight and great promise for such a young age. Wouldn't you agree?

post-surgical report

OUCH!!!!

(I would include a picture, but I don't want to offend the more squeamish members of our readership.)

get a leg up

I'm going in for some vein surgery on my right leg Friday morning. I'm excited because I've had pain in that leg for a long time now, and it's gotten worse. The surgeon is going to go in and close off all the bad veins (they have busted valves), and then other (healthy) veins will take over the job of getting the blood where it needs to go. I'll be glad when it's done, but of course I'm not looking forward to it. It's outpatient, though, and with any luck I should be back at work on Tuesday. So that's good. Another silver lining: I can't lift anything over 10 pounds for a while, so Mike is going to have the bulk of the childcare duties, and I might get a full night's sleep. He says he doesn't mind, since he shares equally in all the household/child duties anyway. But still, I think the man deserves all the credit in the world. The boys aren't easy, even when both of us are up to the challenge. They're a lot of great things (sweet, funny, generally happy, often surprising), but easy isn't one of them.

halloween, part 2

Here's a side view of Max in costume at the Halloween party the boys went to on Sunday. Their friends Ella and Sadie hosted the party, and the boys had a great time.

happy halloween!

Liam is an expert at this game. So far he's been a frog and a bear. This year, he decided to add a layer to his costume, so he went as Uncle Johnny as Walter Payton (the costume was Johnny's when he was a kid.)












But it's Max's first Halloween, so we wanted to get him a costume that seemed to suit his budding personality. I think we did pretty well. So check out Dragon Max, and have a great Halloween!

green bus

We went and saw Grandma and Grandpa Saturday. It was the first time we'd seen them since they got back from Ireland. They had gifts for everyone--wool hats for Mike and Max, a lovely scarf for me, and a double-decker green bus for Liam. He adores it. He hardly lets it out of his sight, and has insisted on sleeping with it every night. "Green bus, GREEN BUS!" he cries. And heaven forbid Max should touch the thing. "No, Max! My green bus. Nooooo Maaaaaaxxxx!" Anyway, he loves it. Here he is, proudly showing it off:




The same day, we went to Morton Arboretum so the boys could see the pumpkins, walk along the scarecrow path, and play in the children's garden. Sadly for us, it was frickin' freezing, so we stayed less than half an hour. The boys seemed to have a good time, even as their little hands and cheeks were turning into blocks of ice. Here's Max playing with some pumpkins and enjoying the scenery:

many happy returns

Sunday we celebrated my Gram and Grandpa's 50th anniversary. The boys made it almost halfway through Mass, which I think is pretty good at their age. The luncheon and reception afterward were at Occasions, so it was a nice opportunity for us to remember our wedding day too. After he got over his initial shyness, Liam ran around the place like the King of the Wild Things until it was time to go home. Thankfully, his many cousins were there to make sure he didn't run out onto the highway or do too much damage inside. He made it through the day with only one injury, too--he fell and hit his head pretty hard on a chair. Max had a great time too. He spent most of the afternoon crawling around and pulling up on various chairs, but he also got his first taste of an actual green bean (as opposed to strained green bean baby food) and he seemed to really like it. Here he is, enjoying it Groucho Marx-style.

if liam ran the zoo...

One of our favorite things to do with the boys is go to the zoo. We went Saturday morning, and since Liam has been really into learning about animals lately, we thought he'd like to visit the petting zoo/farm at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Turns out that seeing animals up close and personal was a little scary for him at first, so we moved on to the exhibition barn. Here's Max hatching out of an egg:



After that, Liam started to warm up a little.





And a little bit more...











He was doing so well that we thought we'd try a family picture on the bridge that leads from the farm to the main part of the zoo. As you can see, Liam didn't like that idea much, but I think the picture is pretty cute anyway.

bemy, finally...

Some names are easy for Liam. The first name he really understood and said was the name of his favorite person in the world, Klaudia (seen here at Liam's birthday party). Among the names he knows without hesitation are Max, Yammi, Papaw, Grandma, Grandpa, J, Loni, Jo-Joe, and Johnny.

We've been trying for months to get him to say my sister Bethany's name. I figured that three syllables shouldn't be too much since he could say Klaudia with no problem. But no. When asked to say Bethany, he would just laugh, or run away, or stare blankly.

Then today, a breakthrough. I got some pictures that I ordered online and Liam wanted to look at them. When we came to the image below, I asked him without much hope who the person was. "Beh-mee!" He replied excitedly. Bemy, indeed! I just hope he's still saying it when we see Bemy on Sunday...

the difference between geese and ducks

holli left early this morning, so i was able to get in some quality solo hang-out time with the boys. the only thing that stood between chaos and slightly more chaos was me, and we made the most of the opportunity by watching sesame street, banging on metal mixing bowls with an ice-cream scoop (our new neighbors must love us), chasing the cats, and crying for various reasons. getting the boys ready for day care by myself can be challenging, to say the least, but i managed it today without screaming any bad words. i was sure thinking them, though.

on the way out the door, liam pointed up in the air and said, "birds!" i looked, and sure enough, a gaggle of geese was circling the park and making a glorious racket. now liam knows all about ducks, but where i see geese, he just sees more ducks. perfectly understandable. i won't even try to explain swans and loons to him until he's 12. in his animal book, the goose and swan are ducks, the gosling is a baby duck, geese say quack, and so forth. so this was a chance to set him straight, because no son of mine will spend his 2's thinking a goose is a duck.

"those are geese," i said. "do you hear what they're saying?" and liam said, "honk honk." we talked about the differences between geese and ducks ("duck quack quack quack"), and how geese (at least these geese) were different from the ducks that tried to kill us for our stale bread at indian boundary park:


anyway, while reading the animal book before bedtime tonight, liam remembered that geese (we don't have the singular down yet) are different from ducks, and with a little prompting, he gave a good "honk honk." victory! the damn swan is still a duck, though.

and just so max doesn't feel left out, this is what our 8-month-old looks like when he's overtired, frustrated, and suffering from the infant hell that is teething:

we'll take it...

The boys may have been in bed before last night's Bears game started, but that didn't keep them from being happy(ish) when they saw the highlights this morning. They seemed in shock that A) the Bears were playing such crappy football, and B) the Bears actually won.

"My Bears," proclaimed Liam.



Max just smiled and blew a raspberry.

cruising!

It seems like Max is hitting all the milestones much earlier than Liam did. He was a little behind in birth weight (2 ounces), and it seems like he's spent the time since then trying to surpass big brother in all other respects. He's 8 months old now, and has 3 teeth (Liam had none at this age), a nice head of hair (Liam was bald), he's crawling, can pull himself up to standing, and now he's cruising along the furniture! It won't be long until he's walking. And once that happens, Liam had better watch out, because his days of taunting Max into crawling after him, only to move out of range at the last second and do it all over again, will come to an abrupt and bitter end. I can't wait! Mike took the boys to stay in Naperville Saturday to give me a night off, which was absolutely appreciated. Thanks to Barb and Kevin, for being their unwitting hosts (they were away in Ireland while Mike availed himself of their facilities). Here's a picture of Max getting ready to cruise at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

another cook in the kitchen

hey there.

i've been invited to post on this blog, which is only fair. i've had some small part in the creation and upbringing of these monsters.

on the other hand, i think holli's doing a great job, so i don't know how much i'll be able to add. plus, i don't have a whole lot of free time, what with my philanthropy and white-tie events and such.

so how about a picture of a lunar eclipse in progress?

the good, the bad, and the unyee

Yesterday was the first really cold morning of the season, so we busted out the winter gear. Liam wouldn't cooperate for photos, but Max seemed happy enough to pose with his father.


Tonight after we got home, Liam decided to rummage around in the fridge for a snack. After a minute or so, he came in holding a Bass Ale in one hand and a Miller Lite in the other. "Daddy's beer," he informed me. He offered the beer to Mike, who declined on account of he had one already, so Liam put them back away and rummaged around again. This time he came back with a Sprite in one hand ("Mommy's water") and a tupperware container with an onion. "Liam's unyee, Mommy! Liam's unyee!" What else could a mother do but ask if he wanted a bite? So I gave him a small piece, then he kept demanding "More unyee, Mommy! More unyee!" and I gave him increasingly large pieces until he ended up with this:



Oh, delicious unyee!

meanwhile...

Max is learning a new trick of his own:

scary liam and the blown-out candles

The birthday celebration went well. We thoroughly enjoyed the pizza, and when it came time for the cake we were all full, but only Liam had the sense to refuse his cake. Mike and I had a few bites of ours and spent the rest of the night overstuffed. Check out these videos from the celebration. The first and second are of Liam blowing out the candles--he insisted on doing it as many times as we would light the candles for him. And the third is a new game we like to call Scary Liam.

In other news, on day 3 of the sterilize-everything ordinance to keep Max's thrush from spreading, we discovered that the following things do not boil well: a plastic Elmo car, which ended up with funny curving axles, and the lid to the boys' shape sorter, which now has charred edges and a trippy warped shape. The Big Bird plastic car, however, survived the boiling and lives to be slobbered on another day.

happy birthday!

Today is Mike's birthday. He's a wonderful husband and father, so we wanted to make him a nice birthday cake. Liam has recently and mysteriously acquired the concept of "birthday cake." On his own birthday at the end of June, Liam just stared at the cake until it was time to eat it. But in the last couple of weeks, he's started identifying every cake as a birthday cake. So we decided to make one. Liam helped with all the preparations. Last night we made the batter and baked the cake:




Then this morning we frosted it. Liam even surprised me by blowing out the (imaginary) candles. So tonight we'll enjoy a nice piece of cake, and Mike's traditional birthday stuffed pizza (kind of like a cake, but with pepperoni!), and then Mike can open his gifts. He deserves all of that and more. Happy birthday, Mike!

the cure is worse than the illness

Max has been taking antibiotics for his ear infection, and now it turns out he has thrush (yeast infection in the mouth) from the antibiotics. Go figure. The doctor was kind enough to phone in a prescription without seeing him...but I think it will be interesting to see how easy it is(n't) to apply medicine with a q-tip to the inside of an 8-month-old's mouth. Should be good times here at the Fort!
In other news, the weekend pumpkin trip was a bust. We looked at a couple of houses in Walkerton in the afternoon, and by the time we got to the pumpkin patch it was closed. We'll have to try again soon.
The boys and I went to Klaudia's first gymnastics competition of the season on Saturday. She qualified for state (I'm told that's very good). Go Klaudia!

I rarely let my picture be taken. I'm always the one taking the picture while Mike and the boys do something entertaining. But this week I was inspired by my brave friend Val, who always has pictures of herself with Tyler on her site. Plus I'm practicing for the family picture later this month. Here's our first effort.