liam at six

I'm not sure how we got here so quickly, but we're celebrating Liam's sixth birthday today. Because of Mike's work schedule, Liam got to have a cupcake (with candle, of course) first thing this morning. Then he opened presents and went to swimming lessons, and now he's at his summer program, where he'll take a field trip to the library and go to a flea market just for kids. All in all, a very exciting day.

Liam amazes us every day. He reads everything he can get his hands on, and has so many questions about every subject he encounters. He just soaks everything in, and he reasons through things and makes connections that I doubt I would have made at his age. He's changing so much, growing by leaps, and we're starting to catch glimpses of the preteen, teenager, man he will become.

In a lot of ways, he's a bundle of contradictions. He complains that he never gets enough sleep, but he's up at the crack of dawn every morning because he doesn't want to miss out on anything. He says he doesn't want to go to school, then comes home beaming and tells us how much fun he had and what he learned that day.

Our Liam is easily frustrated and prone to shouty outbursts, but for every one of those, there's a corresponding outburst of affection. Hugs, kisses, random declarations of love, and sometimes just pure sweetness. This morning, we went to the grocery store to order his birthday cake, just the two of us. Liam was talking with the baker and picking out his cake, and then he turned to me and said, "This is just wonderful, Mom!" and gave me a hug. And I shared a look with the baker that said, enjoy this now while it lasts. And I know it won't be long until he crosses over into mom-is-boring/embarrassing territory, so I do. I just wish that part could last!

when charlie met ollie

Oliver, the youngest of Bethany's Great Danes, is 4 months old here. Charlie is getting close to 2 months. Ollie was on his way home from the vet, so he stopped by to meet the new kid.

max will not be left out

This reminds me of a song the boys and I really like by They Might Be Giants (of course!) called "Climbing the Walls."

I was grinding my teeth, I was wasting my youth
And using up my teeth
Now I'm done chewing my nails
Hanging my head, chasing my tail
It got so bad I quit my job
Then I got a new job climbing the walls

fearful symmetry

I'm not usually one to get all literary with the references on the blog, but this phrase from William Blake seems just about right at the moment. But don't worry, I'm only speaking dentally. Saturday night, Liam lost his first tooth, and Sunday afternoon, my mom and Loni discovered that Henry's first tooth has broken through. So it's double the teething fun around here! Or, as my friend Natalie recently pointed out: It's the cirrrccclleeeee of liiiiiiiiiiife!

And now I will have that song stuck in my head for the rest of the week. Way to go, Natalie. And thanks a lot, Lion King.

henry at nine months

At Henry's checkup this month, Dr. B. kept remarking on how "full of personality" he is. And she's right. Instead of the normal "mama" and "dada" babbling most babies do, ours waits until we're talking to him, and then gives us his feelings on the matter: "blah, blah, blah." And unlike most babies his age, Henry doesn't sit up by himself. Not because he can't, but because he'd much rather be on the ground and on the move, getting into everything he can.

He continues to be the happiest baby of them all. He smiles and laughs easily, and even when he gets angry or demanding, he is easily pacified with a smile or laugh from one of us. He's partial to Liam in particular, and Liam is equally happy to sing and talk to Henry to keep him in good spirits.

Henry's growing right on schedule, as you can see. He's consistently followed the same growth curve every month, and this one was no exception. Here are his stats, and you can see a couple more pictures below.

28.75 inches
19.4 pounds

See also: one month, two months, three months, four months, five months, six months, seven months, eight months.

charlie

Because we wanted to test the theory that you can never have too much cuteness in one house, we'd like to introduce Charlie, the newest resident of the Circus Forticus Menagerie. He's a chocolate lab, and officially he is Liam's birthday gift from Bethany and Joe, though of course, he's a gift to all of us. Boys and pup are (mostly) in a mutual admiration society, though Henry doesn't care for it so much when Charlie mistakes him for a fellow puppy and wants to romp. We only picked him (or he picked us!) yesterday, and it's already a great adventure, and we're sure the fun is only just beginning.

last day of school!

To celebrate, I made the boys a surprise dinner. Thankfully, Loni was able to help me with my plan, since it involved making pancakes from scratch (with buttermilk!) while simultaneously feeding the baby and keeping the big boys out of the kitchen and distracted until it was time to eat. And it turned out to be a big success! Once I had the first batch on the table, I led the boys (with hands over their eyes) to their chairs for the big unveiling:



And here's a close-up of the Yoda one:



P.S. In case you're wondering, we owe it all to Williams-Sonoma.

small blue planet

Upon arrival at my parents' house for an impromptu holiday weekend cookout, the boys discovered that Aunt Lon got them a surprise. Much excitement ensued.

happy memorial weekend!

The boys hope your holiday weekend is as fun as theirs has been so far.

They started out with a picnic feast out in the yard:





Then they moved on to the "bathing" portion of the evening:




And now they're doing some camping (indoors, but still very fun):

spring concert

Max and Henry had their spring concert this week, and Liam was very excited to finally get an audience member perspective on the proceedings instead of having to perform. He gave us his prediction for the show:



The program itself started with the younger kids group. Henry was probably the youngest one, and he didn't quite live up to Liam's expectations, but he was definitely in the spirit of things (you can hear him squealing in excitement):



It should be noted that X, the baby next to Henry, is at least six months older, but barely any taller. So even though Henry's kind of shripmy compared to where Liam and Max were at that age, he's still quite tall. Anyway, after the little kids joined their parents in the audience (or, in Henry's case, a parent, sibling, aunt, and Yami), the big kids took over. They did six or seven songs, and culminated in this impressive finale. Apologies if you wanted to see all the kids, but there's only one I really cared about so I focused on him.

sharp-dressed men

before and after

the force is with them

the misgivings tree

My friend Natalie's excellent post on the real meaning of the classic children's book The Giving Tree reminded me of our own recent arboreal adventures.

We have a pair of giant maple trees in front of our house that flank the small parking area. Every time there's a storm, or the wind blows the right way, the trees give give generously of their branches -- the small ones and the large ones. Branches in the parking area, branches across the sidewalk, branches hitting the house, big branches in the street -- yes, these are truly generous trees. But eventually, all the giving just got to be too much. So I called the city's street department.

Since the trees are in the park strip between the sidewalk and the street, it turns out that they're not our responsibility, which I found out six weeks later when a city crew showed up at our doorstep before 8:00 one morning. The verdict: One of the trees got a nice trim, and the other one was too far gone inside, and got the chop before it could fall on its own and smash our house.

It was pretty exciting to watch them cut down the tree, and apparently, we saved a TON of money since the city would do it (I've been told this by my parents, one of my uncles, and helpful members of the city crew themselves). And we have an added bonus: Since we've got one less tree, we were able to get a satellite dish for TV and now we can kiss our crappy cable provider good-bye! And that, my friends, is definitely a gift worth getting.

P.S. Lest you think I'm too callous about the loss of our ancient friend, you should know that we've already planted a flowering plum tree nearby (but out of the way of the dish) to balance things out a little.

triops

Mike and I both had to work during the school's fun fair this year, so brave Avalon took all three boys over to the school and navigated the masses by herself. The boys enjoyed dinner (hot dogs and chips) and a variety of games (including their favorite, an inflatable slide!) along with something relatively new to them: face painting.


Max chose to get a tree on his cheek for reasons unknown to me, while Liam went with an eyeball on his forehead. Since the boys' favorite band is They Might Be Giants (who are definitely in my top five as well!) I can only assume that this was the inspiration:

max wanted in on the photo shoot, too

henry at eight months

Henry is a very confident little guy. He knows exactly what he wants, and he goes after it. He's also quite possibly the happiest baby I've ever seen, and the combination of those two factors makes him really fun to watch. His favorite activities right now are crawling all around the house, knocking down blocks, splashing in the tub, and laughing at Liam. Max can make him laugh, too, but Liam is usually the one who earns the happy baby belly laughs from Henry.

Still no teeth, and still gallons of drool every day, so he must be working on it. Right? He MUST be. At this point, though, he'll still be ahead of both big brothers if he gets a tooth during the next month or so. The race is on!

He is growing like a weed (definitely time for some new onesies for these pictures) and constantly on the go. Next month, I'll have a more formal growth update, but for now, you can see it in his happy baby photos.

See also: one month, two months, three months, four months, five months, six months, seven months.

blog note

Been missing us? We ran into a little tech problem -- namely, the motherboard on my computer bit the dust and had to be replaced. So for the past few weeks, things have been pretty crazy as I snagged Mike's laptop whenever I had to work, but otherwise didn't have much time to compute. But my computer is back now, so I can finally start downloading all of these pictures and videos, and get back to posting more regularly. Thanks for your patience!

the difference a year makes

Last year: Every single time the opposing team scored a goal in a soccer game, Liam would burst into tears. If his team lost (they don't "officially" keep score at this level, but you better believe the kids do!), he would be inconsolable the whole day. And if one of his teammates scored more than one goal and he didn't score any, he would sulk and complain that it wasn't fair.

This year: In the first game of the season, Liam passed the ball to his teammate, who scored a goal. Instead of sulking, Liam celebrated his assist and congratulated his teammate. He even congratulated his friends on the opposing team when they scored goals. His team lost by a WIDE margin, but in the car on the way home, he could be heard telling Max, unprompted, "It's okay. We played hard, and next week we'll play even harder, and that's what really counts."

henry at seven months

Look out, people, he's on the move! While he can't crawl quite yet, Henry certainly gets around. He scoots himself wherever he wants to be, and he's not afraid to go after what he wants (and usually pop it directly into his mouth). He can sit up, but usually falls down pretty quickly. Bath time has been a challenge lately, because he's way too big for the baby bath, but the bath seat doesn't stick to the textured bottom of our tub (we found that out the hard way when Henry took a header into the water). For right now, the solution has been to have one of the big boys act as a human bath seat. The boy (usually Liam; Max doesn't have much patience with Henry's wriggling) sits down in the tub like he's ready to go sledding with a friend, then I plop Henry in front of him and he wraps his arms around him while I clean him. Fun for everyone.

We are still on tooth watch for Henry, but if the sheer amount of drool he produces constantly is any indicator, it won't be long before he pops one out. His favorite toy right now is a textured teething ring, if that tells you anything.

Next doctor's appointment isn't for two more months, but I can tell you that he has a VERY healthy appetite, so we have no doubt that he's growing on schedule.

Plenty more pictures of our young wiggle worm below.

See also: one month, two months, three months, four months, five months, six months.

dragonoid!

One small Easter tidbit to share: At my parent's house on Easter Sunday, a big group of the extended family was gathered for dinner/egg hunt/pinata destruction/kite flying. The boys got Easter gifts from Aunt Bethany, which included a Bakugan figure for Liam and one for Max. So just before dinner, everyone gathered to say grace, which went something like this.

Assembled Catholics: In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit...

Max (at the top of his lungs into the silent pause between the sign of the cross and the start of the prayer): DRAGONOID!

Not to be blasphemous or anything, but it was definitely the funniest prayer I've ever heard...

easter fun

Three lucky boys got to have two different egg hunts this year, one with Grandma and Grandpa in Michigan, and the other with Yami and Papaw on Sunday. They also got plenty of Easter goodies (check out Liam's excitement). It was an exhausting weekend, but so much fun.

liam's art show

This untitled work by Liam was chosen to be in an art exhibit at our local gallery! Works from all five of the elementary schools in town were chosen, and we were so proud of Liam for his artistic prowess.