Liam at 23 months

Liam.  Oh Liam, Liam, Liam.  My little drama king/whiny monster/cuddlebug.  He's getting more and more verbal, adding new words to his vocabulary all the time, but his only "sentence" is "There it is!"  I still think his limited speech is the main reason he's so whiny/cranky all the time.... he wants things and can't always get across what he wants.  Though, I must say, I'm very good at knowing what he wants, even in the way he points or direction he points in.  I've spent the last few weeks writing down all of the words he says because I think it will be fun to look back on this one day and see.  So here goes.  Here are the words he can say that you would be able to recognize:

Up, no, uh oh, yes, hi, help, Daddy, poo poo, this, hat, out, eye, yeah, whoa, ball, blue, baa, go, house, lolo.  (20 words)

And here are the words that he continues to only pronounce the second half of.  He leaves the first syllable off or first few letters off...it's so peculiar and fascinating to me.  These are the words he has consistently, but I'm the only one who knows what he's saying:

gross, Hulk, The End, "There it is!", mouth, nose, toes, down, milk, Bert, cat, dog, shoe, sock, done, wash, splash, bath, truck, hurt, foot, horse, bike, oink, duck, moo, wet, please, cheese, applesauce, want, shark, duck, quack, look, surprise, off, sit, bite, catch, ghost, hello, stop.  (43 words)

I'm sure there are several I'm leaving off.  I try to catch them all, but I know there are more I haven't added.  So he's pretty much right on par with he "should" be at this age.  He calls Eli "I" and that is super cute to me. He also continues to call me Daddy, but he pronounces it differently than when he's talking about Mike.  Crazy.  I tell him over and over that he should say Mommy and he just looks at me with a devilish smirk and says Daddy again.  Sigh.

His comprehension is far ahead of where his speech is.  He can understand so many things... I'm often quite surprised by it.  If we're reading a book and I ask him to identify certain objects ("where is...."), he gets it right 90% of the time.  He is good at following simple commands and really understands a lot.  Thank Goodness, or we'd all be VERY frustrated.

He poops a LOT.  Yesterday, he pooped 5 times. He still continues to deny when I ask him if he has a poopy diaper.

He's getting better about coloring.... though he still ALWAYS colors on himself and the table when we are coloring.

He is a sticker addict.  ADDICT.  It's crazy.  If his sticker loses its stickiness, he comes over screaming "ACCCCK" (his word for sticker) until I give him one.  He's had many an unconsolable tantrum because I have refused to give him one.  He's just super comforted by them and likes to be holding them all the time.  He is much better about not putting them in his mouth now.

He LOVES talking toys, like the Optimus Prime that Eli got for his birthday.

He loves bothering his brother... Eli has certain toys that are off limits to everyone else, and Liam loves to find those toys and then run off.....Eli in tow, whining and crying.... and he throws them in one of two places.... in the sink, where Eli can't reach it, or in the crack of the couch, where Eli can't reach it.

He's SUPER destructive with books.  Pop up books? Forget about it... he always rips those pop up structures right off.  He dismembered a library book a few days ago.  Sigh.

He loves running and putting things (toys, the dishtowels) in the kitty litter.

He continues to love climbing and jumping.  I found him standing next to the TV a few days ago.

On days when he refuses to take a nap, he usually falls asleep on the couch around 4pm.

He's still a good eater but refuses to eat any vegetables.  He loves fruit, but not as much as Eli does.  He surprises me sometimes... his favorite breakfast for the last few days is an English Muffin with cottage cheese on top.  He ate an entire bag of snap pea crisps yesterday for a snack.  He is an applesauce in the tube ADDICT and asks for "saaaaauuuuuuce" at least 50 times a day.  Cue BIIIG ta ntrum when he doesn't get one.  He could literally eat 6 in a row if I let him.  He likes to dismember/squish muffins. He continues to LOVE yogurt.  His new favorite thing to do is rip off his bib (which I make him wear when he's eating messy things) halfway through and then have a fit when he gets some on his shirt.  He sits there pulling his shirt, yelling OFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF until I take it off.

His favorite books right now are Blue Hat, Green Hat (we're working on colors... if you ask him what any color is, he'll say BLUEEEEEEEE, but if you show him a bunch and ask him where the red, orange, etc is, he'll get it right most of the time), a book about the Avengers, and his old favorite, The Five Little Pumpkins.

Poor guy never gets control of the TV because Eli FREAKS OUT if he doesn't get to pick and Liam is content to watch anything.... but if he DOES get to pick, he usually choses SpiderMan or Iron Man.

One more month til he's 2!  Crazy!