Liam at 18 months old!

There are several moments every day where I am struck by the fact that Liam looks more like a little boy these days than my little baby.  At 18 months, he is SO SO SO active.  He will rarely sit still for more than 10 seconds at a time and is always on the move.  He LOVES riding around on his little bike.... back and forth and back and forth.  He sits on it to watch TV, takes it into all of the rooms, likes to sit and spin in circles on it..... he LOVES it.

He's moved into size 4 diapers, though I still try to fit him into size 3s since we have some left.  He's in 18 month clothes consistently now.  From time to time, I try to squeeze him into something that's 12 months, but those things are generally too short for him.  He LOVES putting on his shoes and always eagerly runs off to get his shoes if he knows we're going out.  He still doesn't like wearing hats, but there's a little green hat I have that buttons around his chin that he rarely tries to take off.  

He's trying harder and harder to talk, but most of his words are "WOAH" and "UH OH" or "EH EH" as he's pointing to whatever he wants.  Over the last two weeks, he's really trying to copy us more....and to our surprise, we found he can say things like "Cat" "Daddy" "Car"... its obvious he's trying his best.  He sometimes calls Eli "Yaya," which is really cute.

He is a DAREDEVIL.  He loves jumping from things and will do ANYTHING that Eli does. He climbed out of his crib at 17 months!!!!!  (Luckily, he fell hard once and didn't hurt himself and hasn't tried since... there is NO WAY he's going to stay put in a toddler bed).

His favorite books right now are Peek-a-Who, Green Hat/Blue Hat, Goodnight Gorilla, Batman and books about Spider-Man.

Trains are his life.  He loves building train tracks and pushing his trains around... He loves pushing his trains along the edges of tables, etc.  He LOVES pushing them to the edge and runs over saying "EH EH EH!" pointing at his trains.  He wants you to say "OH NO! It's going to fall off the cliff!!!"

He LOVES fitting himself into small boxes, carrying boxes around, putting boxes on his head.  He constantly dumps out the baskets I keep the diapers in so that he can push them around.  He LOVES emptying his boxes of toys.  Sigh.

He's gotten much better about sleeping by himself at night, and sleeping through the night.  He used to have to sleep with us for SOME part of the night, but now he really doesn't need to.  Nights where we do have to sleep with him (sleeping at someone else's house) are pretty rough...he kicks and thrashes and moves a LOT at night.  Granted, his schedule has been very, very off these past few weeks with the holidays, and he's been getting to bed closer to 9 instead of 8, but he's generally been sleeping in til after 7am!  WOOHOO!

He's still taking two naps, and definitely needs that morning nap (2 to 3 hours after he wakes up), but he fights the second nap a lot.

He LOVES bath time.  He gets very upset if he hears the bath running and he's not in there.

Annoyingly, he is ALWAYS pushing the chairs and his little table all over the apartment so he can do scary, daring jumps or climb up onto something he shouldn't be on.  I have to tell him about 40 times a day to get off the table.  He LOVES scaling the back of the couch and flinging himself over to the other side...repeat...repeat...repeat.

The boys play together a LOT, which is usually fun to watch. Liam has really learned how to fight back and has gotten into the bad, bad habit of hitting Eli on the head with trains, blocks, etc.  He's also been biting him and hitting him in the face a lot.  Both boys consistently put each other in headlocks and pull the other one down to the floor.

Annoyingly also, he LOVES climbing up onto our bed (whenever I have to do something important like fold laundry) to turn on the light and mike's radio.  He will do this OVER and OVER and OVER and if I take him off the bed, he will just open our drawers to climb back up.  If I put him outside the room and close the door, it is the worst thing to ever happen in his life and he stands there screaming his head off.

He always plays superheroes with Eli and his favorite "guys" seem to be Buzz Lightyear, Captain America, Iron Man and Venom.  He gets really excited if he ever sees a picture of spider-man.  His favorite toy to bring in the bath is Buzz Lightyear.

Food-wise, he hasn't had as much of an appetite as he used to.  He's big into berries, applesauce, yogurt (boy, this kid loves yogurt) and cheerios are usually a sure bet.  Bread is now hit or miss.... the only meat he'll generally eat is the meat in empanadas (like Eli)...   He DOES like things with sauce, unlike Eli.  Things ALWAYS taste better when they are on mommy's plate.

He loves coloring (or doing whatever it is that his big brother is doing), but he still frequently tries to eat crayons/markers.

He throws toys ALL the time.... we get very mad at him for that, but he doesn't care and ALWAYS continues to do it.  Grrr.

He's showing more of an interest in Basketball and likes to shoot the ball at the basket and pass to others/imaginary people.... but he still gets VERY mad if you don't give him the ball.  He'll collapse to the floor, screaming and banging the floor if you don't give him the ball.  Taking turns is not a concept he enjoys.  He DOES enjoy taking toys that Eli is playing with and running away with them/throwing them.

He still LOVES the cats, but instead of being nice to them like he used to, he likes to spider-man blast them or throw toys at them.  Cliffy is terrified to go anywhere near him.  Riley tolerates him for about 5 seconds and then runs away.

His hair sticks straight up in the back.  He definitely needs a hair cut, but he does not cooperate with hair cuts, so we're in a quandary.

He really likes playing with toy food, just like his big brother, and especially likes the play ice cream we have.

I could go on and on... but that's a pretty good picture of Liam at 18 months!  Apparently, he's in the 78th percentile for height (don't believe that, though I do think he's gotten a lot taller) and 11th percentile for weight.

Bedtime Story Part Two

.... so they break in the windows to get the bad guys.  The bad guys are always shocked to see the good guys there, and they scurry down the tree and escape the good guys.  Green Goblin always finds his sled in the bushes and flies off...usually to the woods.  Firestar and Ice Man are always waiting at the bottom of the tree and quickly, Firestar shoots a fire ball at Mr. Freeze and melts him.  (Occasionally, Eli interjects that Mr. Freeze gets Firestar first, and then Iron man has to come over and carefully melt off the ice with his repulsor blasts before she can get him again).  Then, Ice Man freezes Electro and Firestar uses her Fireblasts to melt the ice, causing it to turn to water.... we all know water is no good for Electro, and it also makes him melt.  Iron Man and Wolverine then turn their attention back to Green Goblin, and here, the story always changes.  Sometimes, Green Goblin relocates to a new treehouse which becomes surrounded by hungry wolves...sometimes, he goes to the river and joins Dr. Doom and Vulture or Scorpion (who always appear at this point in the story) and builds a pirate boat or a raft that goes over a waterfall and is then eaten by sharks and whales.... sometimes, he goes to Dr. Doom's house in the woods and ALL of the good guys (Thor, Hulk, Invisible Woman, Spiderman, etc) appear to fight off the bad guys.  When ALL of the bad guys finally meet their doom, we hear "FE FI FO FUM!" and a giant climbs down the beanstalk to get Wolverine and Iron Man.  They have a plan, however.  They make a path of kit kat bars leading to the same pit where Juggernaut bit the dust.  The Giant LOVES kit kats and follows the whole path, eating them along the way.  When he arrives at the pit, he looks over and that's when Thor and Hulk push him with all of their might into the pit.  The animals are hungry again and they are happy to eat the Giant.  Wolverine, ever the quick thinker, quickly uses his sharp claws to chop down the beanstalk so the Giant cannot climb up it and so no more giants can climb down.  Sometimes, Eli decides that the beanstalk regrows itself, and in this case, Thor has to come and knock it down with his mighty hammer.  Last night, Iron Man also had to step in with his repulsor blasts to knock it down a third time.

THE END.  Quite the bedtime story!

Eli's Bedtime story

I am soooooooooo behind in blogging, mainly because of a combination of two things:  the holiday season, and my need to SLEEP or just chill online doing mindless things at night after the boys go to sleep.  I have a million things I want to say, but I'm going to start little by little in hopes of getting a few things jotted down.

I've been wanting to post this for a while....  Our current bedtime routine:

Every night, usually around 7pm, I tell the boys it's time for stories.  OH...first, we get into our jammies, which both boys protest.  When Mike and I are both home and not busy, we turn it into a "contest".... Mommy and Eli vs. Daddy and Liam (or vice versa) to see who can get into Jammies fastest....  It's amazing how Eli will go right along with it when it's a contest. :) Eli is allowed to pick out three stories (2 regular stories and one "bonus" story) to read.  I try to read one while Liam is hopefully running around playing.  The alternative is Liam crawling alllll over me and Eli.  It's nice on the days when Daddy is here, because then Daddy can read a story or two or 16 (Liam's attention span is about 10 seconds) while I am reading to Eli.  When I'm reading stories 2 and 3, it's time for Liam's bottle and he usually cuddles with me and feeds himself.  When stories are over, we go to brush our teeth.  Both boys stand together on the stool (even though they don't both fit) and I hand Liam his toothbrush with toothpaste and he goes to work.  God forbid I put water OR toothpaste on Eli's... he MUST do that himself.  After Eli brushes (and gets toothpaste intentionally all over his face), I finish up for him.  It's VERY challenging to get a toothbrush into Liam's mouth and I am only successful about 25% of the time.

Then we head to bed.... Liam goes into his crib, demanding usually to press the button for his music (Eli gets to push it half the time and Liam gets to push it half the time).  Liam also demands a sticker.  It's amazing how comforting stickers are to him.... put one in his hand and he instantly pops his thumb in his mouth and cuddles with his sticker.  Most of the time, Liam is down for the count, though he sometimes protests by crying for a few minutes.

Eli's routine is a bit more involved.  He has to be the one to turn off the light, and then of course he can't see to get to his bed, so I have to hand him a flashlight so he can make it there.  Once he gets into bed (God forbid I put covers on him), he hands me the flashlight so I can charge up his Glowworms... (old school ones...) that he then lines up on the windowsill next to his bed.  Then, it's story time.  I have to tell him a variation of the exact same story every night.  It always involves Wolverine and Iron Man and always involves a factory of some sort.  It has evolved from a simple goodnight story to a massive tale, and usually takes about 15 minutes or so to tell.  If I try to divert from the story, he'll correct me, so it's always the same basic thing...every...single...night.  It usually goes a little something like this:

Once upon a time, Wolverine and Iron Man were going to the.... (then Eli fills in the blank.  It's either the blueberry factory, the ice cream factory, the chocolate factory, the pie factory, the kit kat factory, the gingerbread boy factory, the lollipop factory, etc...).  We'll go with the pie factory...  So then they parked their car and went inside and asked the manager if they could see how the machines worked.  So then they went downstairs and saw the big machines.  The first machine mixed all of the ingredients together (he lists the ingredients) and the second machine pours them into the pie crust...the third machine bakes the pies (sometimes he'll tell me the temperature or how long, which is usually something like 7,000) and then the machines put the pies into boxes, which are then put into bigger boxes and shipped out to pie stores.  THEN... all of a sudden.... (and it always has to be this order).... it gets very coooold in the room, the lights go out, and they heard splat splat splat on the ground.  Who was there?  (If I say the names, Eli gets angry... HE has to be the one to tell me that it's.... Mr. Freeze, Electro and Green Goblin.  Juggernaut is always waiting outside in the parking lot with the getaway car.  The make of the car is always decided by Eli.  It used to be a black van, but now it's usually a purple or white Limo...so they can all fit.  Then the guys run out of the room carrying all of the boxes of pies and jump in the car and Juggernaut drives them to his house as fast as he can.  Wolverine and Iron Man take off after them as fast as they can.  Once the bad guys get to Juggernaut's house, they unload the stolen goods into his house and eat them.  Juggernaut always gets VERY full and sleepy and lays down for a nap, and the other guys always decide to leave and go to Green Goblin's tree house.  Most nights, this is where Dr. Doom and either Scorpion or the Vulture or both appear.  They always decide to go to Dr. Doom's house in the woods.  While Juggernaut is sleeping, Wolverine and Iron Man finally make it to his house.  Iron Man breaks the lock on the front door and Wolverine uses his very sharp claws to dig a huge pit in front of Juggernaut's front door.  They then fill it with animals.  Eli lists of the animals (quite the collection):  Buffalo, spiders, lions, tigers, Dubaks (from Star Wars), Tyrannosaurus Rexes, snakes, and a variety of other animals.  Then Juggernaut wakes up from his nap and wonders two things.... where are his friends and why is his lock broken?  He goes to investigate and to find his friends.  He opens the front door and falls into the pit and OH NOOOO all of the animals eat him up.  That is the end of Juggernaut.  (Each bad guy has to be killed off before we finish the story.  Some nights, bad guys just keep appearing....those are the really, really long nights).  Then Wolverine and Iron Man decide to go down the road to Green Goblin's treehouse.  Wolverine uses his very sharp claws to climb up the tree and when he gets up there, he knocks Green Goblin's sled off into the bushes (this was my attempt to not have a getaway plan for Green Goblin, but even if the sled breaks into a million pieces, Eli always makes him fix it and fly off).  Then he signals for Iron Man to fly up and join him and then together they break through the window to get the bad guys.

Uh oh... naptime is over.  To be continued....