Long Live the King

The King of Suave, baby.

I'm trying to think of words to accompany this, but you know what? I got nothing.

First Words and More

Liam is really starting to talk! Just before he turned one, he began to say "uh-oh". At that time, it sounded more like "aw-oh" with both syllables run together. Now we hear a much more definitive "uh-oh", and we hear it with GREAT frequency. (Liam enjoys dropping things.)

Jason and I have heard an occasional "mama" and "dada", and in the past few days, Liam has also begun to say "ball" (bah!).

Lately, one of Liam's favorite things to do is bat any kind of ball around on the floor and chase after it on his hands and knees. (This is a sight to see, because Liam ducks his head and wags it back and forth...must increase his momentum somehow.) He also enjoys "practice walking" with his riding tractor, a birthday gift from the Barlands.

Many of you have witnessed a "hello" wave from Liam on recent visits. The gesture involves alternately clenching and opening his hand with his arm fully extended, and most of the time Liam will throw in a great big smile to boot.

Liam is giggling a lot when we encourage him to take steps while holding onto our hands, so I think he's starting to sense that there's a new kind of freedom coming his way. He's not quite brave enough to go there yet though...pretty soon I'm sure he'll change his mind.

ONE!

Liam's first birthday was lots of fun! We spent the weekend in Lenexa and celebrated with Jason's homemade pizza (which Liam loves) and turtle shaped birthday cake (yellow cake, caramel and chocolate frosting).

A few pictures of the festivities...

Driving Mr. Logan, Part II

So Logan and I went out to Home Depot this afternoon to pick up some more landscaping stuff. On the way home we had a very animated conversation. A brief synopsis ensues.

As we get into the van, Logan decides to play the Guessing Game, in which he pretends to be someone and it's up to me to figure out who he is. As he climbs into his seat, he says "Hey Dad - who am I? I'm from a movie. It's your choice to guess who I am."

"Hmm...Buckaroo Banzai." It's the first movie character that pops into my mind. Which gives you some idea of the average state of my mind.

Logan is baffled, of course. About two decades before his time. "Who's Buckaroo Gone Guy?"

"Buckaroo Ban- you know what, never mind. Can you give me a hint?"

"Sure - I'm red!" he says, as if this is practically giving it to me.

We go back and forth. I guess Darth Maul from Star Wars. "What's Star Burst?" he asks. I try to clarify - "No, Star Wars".

"Star Wurst". Images of interstellar sausage conjured up, I try a different track. "Logan, I'm completely baffled. I have no idea who you are."

He replies as if I'm the four year old, needing an explanation. "Dad, of course you don't know. That's because I'm hard tricky people."

I never thought of Logan as Hard Tricky People, but now that he's laid it out, it makes perfect sense.

----

So a few minutes later we're driving along, and I honestly have no idea what we were talking about, but Logan had a hard time hearing me, apparently. I asked him offhand if he was deaf.

Logan: "Who's Deaf?"

Me: "No, I mean are you deaf?"

Logan: "Who's Deaf?"

Me: "No, it means can you not hear me."

Logan: "What?"

Me: "IT MEANS CAN YOU NOT HEAR ME."

Logan: "Deaf means I can't hear you?"

Me: "Yes."

Logan: "Oh, no I can't hear you."

Me: "So you are deaf."

Logan: "What?"

Abbott and Costello, meet the new generation.

----

Logan was quiet for awhile, then I heard him start playing his little toy harmonica. He blew a few notes, then yelled out excitedly "HEY DAD, DID YOU HEAR THAT? I JUST PLAYED THE HARMONICA IN MY SHORTS!"

Beauty Secrets of the Preschooler

Ever wonder how young kids manage to look so...young? You might think it's their lack of age, but in fact we discovered today that there's a whole regimen of activity most people don't know about. Logan was examining some rough patches on his knees, and let slip a closely guarded secret.

"Hey Dad, see these? You guess what I do? I think what I do is get some slobber from out of my mouth, and rub it in there real nice and good so it doesn't get dried out."

So now you know. Next time you're salivating over a brownie sundae or bag of chips, just get a finger dab of that stuff and apply where needed.

Liam Learns to Read

Well, okay, not really. But he is starting to take more of an interest in some of his little board books. He even has the concept of pages down. Next step will be trying to explain which way is up.

Hey - it's better than not being into books at all. Jill and I are both pretty big readers (even if it is a nearly perfect soporific for her) and I'm sure we both want to instill that in both of our boys. So far Logan's still pretty big into the bedtime stories. I'll be excited to see how much more that increases when he learns to read for himself. He's starting to show the inklings of reading ability already.

Liam obviously needs more practice.

Driving Mr. Logan

I took the boys to get haircuts last night, which meant 20 minutes or so of Logan being cooped up in the back of my car. I'm not sure what it is, but whenever I take Logan anywhere the confinement of my smallish backseat seems to bring out the philosopher in him. Perhaps there's just nothing else to do.

Anyway, it's always interesting to see the kinds of things he comes up with. Just a random sampling of our conversation:


"Hey Dad, do you like giants?"
"I don't know. I don't think I know any giants."
"Well, I don't."
"Why not?"
"Because. They're GIGANTIC."


"Daddy, do you think you could drink a house?"
"How would I even drink a house? Besides, they're pretty big."
Logan thinks about that for awhile.
"Daddy, do you think you could drink a wheel? A wheel is small."

Sometimes this kind of question is obviously just him goofing off. But he sounded quite serious.

Spring Break: A Trip to Hutchinson

During Logan's preschool spring break, my mom and I took both boys down to Hutchinson, KS to visit Granny Fran for a couple of days.

On March 16, we visited the Dillon Nature Center. The weather was chilly and windy, but it was a nice sunny day. Here's a glimpse of our visit...

Trendsetter

Logan is on the cutting edge of fashion with his African cap and collar, Hawaiian lei, and heart-shaped glasses. He really pulls it altogether with confidence, doesn't he?

Liam Pulls Up to a Stand!

Over President's Day weekend, Liam pulled himself to a stand on the train table, and he's been steadily improving this new skill ever since! He is now capable of pulling up on low-level tables, chairs, couches, my legs...if it's sturdy and within reach, it's fair game.

Liam put his new skill to good use yesterday by pulling up on Logan's computer table and standing at the keyboard. He subsequently began tapping away until lo and behold, a Sesame Street computer game appeared before him on the screen. Needless to say, he was quite pleased with himself.

I also wanted to mention that my mom (aka M'Amy) taught Liam how to play Pat-A-Cake when she was last in town. He claps ("pat it") and makes a subtle rolling motion ("roll it") by clasping his hands and rocking them back and forth (and then he gives a really big grin). It's very cute, and he tells me when he wants me to play by clapping his hands.

4-year-old Vocabulary

It's always fun hearing Logan try out new words. I got a real chuckle tonight when Logan was putting on a pair of sweatpants with a couple of false drawstrings. (You know the type ~ there are a couple of drawstring ties sewn into the waistband, but they don't actually cinch up the waistband ~ they're just for show.)

Anyway, Logan gets his pants pulled up, and looking down to check that his drawstrings are not tucked into his pants, he asks himself, "Did I lose any antennae?"

Don't Say That...

Logan, being the (mostly) honest guy that he is, comes up with some interesting thoughts from time to time:

- While playing with my tape measure, and holding it up to me:
"Daddy, your shoulders are 16 pounds long. Your back is...5 pounds long. Whoa! Your bottom is SIXTY POUNDS LONG!"

- While I was playing Guitar Hero over the weekend:
"Daddy, are you gonna rock again?"

"Yeah, why, don't you want me to?"

"No, I don't WANT you to rock again. Mommy does it better I think, actually."

Sigh...

Grow Your Own Gamer

So, I'm sure it's quite clear by now that I'm a pretty huge gamer. PC games, console games, and now even board games - they're all good. The first two are easily accessible, but board games present a problem in that you need someone to play with. Jill's occasionally up for a game now and then, especially when others are present, but let's face it - she's not quite up to the same let's-go-for-six-hours-straight level of obsession (or derangement) that I am. So what am I to do?

Grow my own gaming buddies, and I'm off to a good start with Logan. He's been set up for computer games for awhile now, after we got his own computer installed and even connected to the internet. He's got a few CD-ROM games that he plays, but for the most part he surfs out to nickjr.com and plays a whole slew of online games. (If that's not an argument for getting grandparents online, I don't know what is - "c'mon, even a four year old can do it.") Lately, he's been getting into his board and card games too. Some of them are the much-maligned (among boardgame hobbyists) Candyland and Chutes and Ladders, but he also plays Chicken Cha Cha Cha and, at the moment, is nuts about Hearts. He doesn't care that Hearts is a fundamentally difficult game to play with only two, and I admit watching him sort through his massive hand of 26 cards is rather amusing. He also misses out on a few of the finer points of the game, like the fact that he really shouldn't tell people what is and isn't in his hand. Still, he has been known to win a game or two, and by far his favorite part of the game is to "trick a heart on you". Of course, he'll as often yell out "trick a heart on me, Daddy!" so I'm not sure he really gets the point of the game, even though he knows that getting hearts is bad. I guess he's just doing it for fun. Which is sort of the whole point anyway.

And Now, A Word From Our Sponsors

So, you all might have noticed that we haven't exactly been plentiful with the photos lately. In fact, hardly a word written in two weeks. As luck would have it, Logan and I have been a tad under the weather lately, and as cute as our faces are, I'm not sure even you want to see them puffy eyed and smeared with snot. So, in order to spare you any more than the lovely image now dancing through your minds, we've taken a brief hiatus to allow for the healing process. Rest assured that once the illnesses subside we'll be back in action and more adorable than ever.

-Liam (as dictated to Jason, because Liam can't type. Yet.)

A New Do

There comes a time in every young man's life when he must gather up his courage and face... "the scissors". Liam's time came at 9 months of age, with hair reaching the bottom of his earlobes. A few tears were shed, but with a steady dose of sweet potato veggie puffs, Liam bravely sat through snip after snip.





At right, Liam is seen sporting a lovely blue marine life cape and sitting comfortably on Daddy's lap. He's a tough man to read, but I think his expression says, "Mom, you had best be passing me another sweet potato puff promptly."





Here we see Liam adjusting to his hair trimming experience. Gwen, the stylist, has been cutting Logan's hair since he was a baby, and she won me over early on with her knack for moving quickly. She spends just enough time on distraction, but she knows that the best way to keep a baby happy is to hurry up and get the job done!









"Hey, that's not too shabby!"












Wow! What a difference!

Logan was in dire need of a haircut too. Here's a look at his transformation...

A New View

Twice during the past week Liam pulled himself to a stand while in the bathtub. (Don't worry all you grandparents ~ he was promptly placed back on his hiney.) Now somebody needs to take a guess at how long it will be before he's pulling up on other things around the house. I'll activate the stopwatch...

Logan is taking after his father and is playing a lot of board games lately. His favorites are Zingo (a picture bingo game) and Dora Candy Land, but a number of other games get plenty of playing time too. We have even been playing some more advanced games with him (Ingenious ~ a game that involves matching tiles in a manner similar to dominoes) and he has fun even if he doesn't understand all the finer points of the game. Good sportsmanship has been coming a little more naturally lately too.

Current Stats

The boys had their 4-year-old and 9-month-old check-ups this morning. As suspected, they are growing.

Logan: 36 pounds, 6 ounces (75th percentile), 41.5 inches (75th percentile)
Liam: 19 pounds, 15 ounces (50th percentile), 29 inches (75th percentile)

Tub Time

Liam loves to take a bath. From the moment he hears the tub filling with water, his eyes light up and his feet start kicking. BATHTIME!

Once in the tub, Liam grabs whatever toy is in reach and gets busy playing. It used to be that whenever a toy was out of reach, he would start splashing about wildly which would in turn create a bit of a current to send a toy sloshing his way. (Smart, eh?) Now he's figured out that he can crawl in the water just like on dry land, so toys are never out of reach.

Liam's newest bathtime achievement is pulling up to his knees on the side of the tub and grinning at us over the edge. It's adorable.

See, I told you!

Logan provides lots of entertainment for his little brother too.

Towel time after the bath is almost as much fun as the bath itself. Sometimes even more so. Take a look at this little camera ham...

Childryn of ze Night

Is it just me, or are Liam's new top teeth beginning to look just a wee bit...pointy? Oh sure, they're nubs now, but in a few more months who knows. All that teeth scritching and grinding he's been doing lately? Maybe it's sharpening.

Do You Know Where Your Superness Is?

Logan and I got to enjoy some "mommy-son time" with a few friends on Wednesday night at Sesame Street Live. Super Grover had lost his superness, but he found it again after a few lessons in healthy eating, exercise, rest, good dental habits, and proper hygiene. Logan was excited to see Grover, Ernie, Bert, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Oscar, Elmo and many other Sesame Street friends. All of the flashing lights and characters dancing and singing made for quite an entertaining performance!

Logan asked me at the conclusion of every song and dance number if the show was over - with obvious concern that the fun was ending. When the show actually WAS over, Logan cried, so I guess that says something about what a good time he had.

Jason got a full report upon our return, and Logan told him that his favorite part was watching Super Grover fall down when his superness was still missing. I know that he also got a kick out of being involved during the audience participation segments (answering questions posed by the characters, clapping and stomping as directed during a cheer, etc.) and watching the song and dance numbers. He was on the edge of his seat with his eyes peeled the whole time!