Tube:
(A.K.A. ‘Audition for the Blue Man Group’)
Again:
Swing:
“Look, Ma! No hands!”
Fire Truck:
Beep, beep!
Push the button…
…the light comes on!
Wow! Look!
Rock Wall:
Liam’s on a mission to destroy all the baskets in the house. Here’s Matt helping his cause:
This week’s splurge was Chicken Tetrazzini from the Cotton Country Collection (brought to us by the ladies of the Junior League of Monroe, Louisiana — for those of you in the know: these are the women who also gave us Chicken Spectacular, so you know that they’re not messing around).
The recipe itself was quite good. The execution of the recipe left a fair amount to be desired. For starters: despite having had a day long break from our little man (courtesy of Grammie and Pop), Matt and I were both completely exhausted when we began the dinner preparations. It’s never a good sign when I find myself standing over the cookbook reading and re-reading and not absorbing any information.
The major snafu involved the fact that all the vegetables (celery, mushrooms, bell pepper, and some green onions and parsley thrown in for good measure) were supposed to be minced. I began preparing the veggies by stating that I didn’t pretend to know how to mince a mushroom, so I was just going to finely chop everything and be done with it. At some point Matt says something to the effect of “isn’t that what the Cuisinart is for?” My response was, yes. Yes it is. Unfortunately by the time Matt mentioned the use of a helpful appliance I had already spent at least 20 minutes finely chopping things that were supposed to be minced. No worries, I thought. Just throw everything into the processor and mince it and move on. This is when I realized (far too late) that too many ingredients at one time in the Cuisinart means that you have to turn the thing on for a really long time which means that you end up with a puree instead of minced anything. So we ended up with a green paste that we were supposed to cook until “tender.” As I was beginning to pour the paste into a pan containing butter and garlic (pre-minced, thank goodness) I was thinking to myself “I really shouldn’t be doing anything in a skillet without my apron” and at that exact moment the vegetable paste hit the pan and sent butter splattering all over one of the few tops that I own that Liam hasn’t smeared with food or dirt (or both).
We finally got everything into the skillet and cooked as well as it could be cooked and into the casserole dish. Next up was a (seemingly) simple task: toast some bread to have with our meal. Matt put two pieces into the toaster oven only to find that what I suspected was happening earlier in the week was still happening (the toaster oven doesn’t necessarily toast when you turn it on — sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don’t) and it took three attempts and three times the amount of time to toast two pieces of bread.
In the end, the tetrazzini was fantastic (it’s hard to go wrong with both butter and heavy cream) and the bread was pretty tasty (although not entirely toasty), too. By the time we finished our meals and our wine all was again right with the world.
Today we went to the PDK Airport with Walker and Jessica. There’s a playground right off one of the runways and the boys were mesmerized by the planes. We had a great time!
Big Airplanes:
Little Airplanes:
There are swings with a great view of the planes.
Liam was in heaven.
So was Walker.
Lucky Charms:
Driving:
Walker Moore: Monkey Boy
Love from “Jeff-ca:”
Ovals! (Liam-style):
Ovals! Â (Walker-style):
Tonight Liam really wanted Matt to read him his Matisse book. Matt was in the middle of changing his clothes after work so he said “I’d love to read you your Matisse book, Liam. I just need to put on some shorts and some socks and I’ll be ready.” At this point Liam bolts out of the room and comes running back a few seconds later with a pair of his own dirty socks and hands them to Matt. When Matt explained that Liam’s socks wouldn’t fit and thanked him for being helpful, Liam opened up the top drawer to my dresser and “put away” his dirty, rejected socks. Toddler OCD = awesome. The fact that my kid asks for Matisse by name = even more awesome.
1: I’ve been listening to Steve Martin’s Banjo CD for a while in the car, which of course means that Liam has been listening, too. Yesterday Gillian informed Liam that he was listening to a Banjo. Today we were sitting in the car getting ready to leave for the grocery store when I hear Liam from the backseat: “Banjo on, please Mama.”
2: Liam’s displaying some OCD tendencies these days. No door is left open, he puts any clothes that are out in our bedroom into our clothes hamper (even if they’re not dirty), the latch on the door to the basement MUST be latched at all times (and explanations about the fact that his father is downstairs and latching the door would lock him out seem to have absolutely no effect). The most detailed OCD-esque routine (by far) comes when he wakes up from a nap or in the morning. It goes something like this: Matt or I go into his room. Liam immedately gives us his pacifier and woobie (narrating while doing so). The second we have those he screams his version of “sound machine” until we turn it off. Next is “light on” which is immediately followed by “basket back up” (since he still can’t keep his little hands off his clothes hamper we continue to keep it in his crib while he’s awake). Recently he’s also added “Baby Liam” (at which point he points out the three pictures of him as a baby that are around his crib) and “Aunt Sarah” as he points emphatically towards the Luckovich hanging over his bed. I won’t be at all surprised if getting him out of the crib soon takes more time than putting him in there.
3:Â Instead of just saying “Bye Bye” when anyone moves out of Liam’s sight (which he’s been doing for a while and continues to do) he’s started saying “Hello” except that it comes out more like “Huh-lowww” which is insanely cute.
4: Liam’s starting to get into sequencing. Today on our way back from the grocery store when we turned onto our street I hear from the backseat: “Almost home, open garage, turn banjo off.”
5: It used to be the case that when I was on the phone Liam would go play quietly until I was off. Now he either screams “Bye, bye Gee” or “Bye, bye Da” and “Phone back up” until I’m off. I could do without this particular development.
6: Liam has a fascination with trash and trash cans these days. The only problem with this until recently was making sure that he was asking one of us to throw something away (so that we could determine that it was, in fact, trash and not underwear or dollar bills). Now he has a fascination with trash when we’re out and about. I’m all for cleaning up our neighborhoods and parks but I’d prefer it if my toddler weren’t trying to single-handedly achieve this goal by sticking his hands directly on other people’s garbage (and inevitably into his mouth). I just can’t figure out quite how to encourage cleaning up without Liam touching chewed gum and used kleenexes. Also — he spent about 30 minutes of the last playgroup we attempted to attend running back and forth to the trash can instead of playing with (or near) the other kids and threw an absolute fit when I removed him from the general vicinity of the trash can. With this particular interest you’d think that my house would be clean, wouldn’t you…?
7: Today we were in the grocery store when a song off the Indigo Girls’ latest album came on over the sound system. I have trained Liam so well that when I said “Liam, do you know who’s singing this song?” he thought for a minute and said “Emmmly and Aaaamy.” Fantastic.
Goooooo Jackets!
Dancing with Gran:
Ready to hit the links:
Cheese!
This week we took our first trip to the library to check out books for Liam (I think he’s finally at the point where destroying “real” (non-board) is the exception as opposed to the rule). The experience was interesting, to say the least. There’s a little section in the middle of the children’s area where there are a bunch of little tables and (thankfully very sturdy, very heavy) chairs. On one side is the picture book section and on the other is the juvenile literature section. There is also a cordoned-off area where there are three carousel horses (clearly labeled as being purely for looking, not touching). Liam was fascinated with both the chairs (he absolutely HAD to sit in every single one of them) and the horses (convincing him that climbing under the bars on the barricade was not a good idea was quite a feat, and not one I accomplished entirely). Basically I just threw as many books as I could pull from the first row of shelving that didn’t look entirely inappropriate for his age into our bag and ran out with my tail between my legs. I’m thinking I may begin searching books in advance and putting them on hold so that there’s no downtime while we’re in there. It’s impossible to remain inconspicuous with a child screaming “HORSES NO TOUCH” while emphatically pointing at the children’s section from the circulation desk.
Library loot:
So much treasure, so little time!
Oh, yay!
Today we took a trip to the Botanical Garden with Gillian. The word we’ve been using to describe Liam’s mood today is ornery. I took an obscene number of pictures of his backside because that’s mainly what he showed us today. I also took a lot of pictures of plants because they’re much better at sitting still for the camera. Despite his increasing sleep deprivation a good time was had by all.
Turtle!
Pictorial progression of the photographic posing process:
Venus flytrap!
Soccer skills:
Gitcha, gitcha, gitcha!
Stairs!
Onward!
More stairs!
Pictorial progression of the photographic posing process part 2:
Letters!
Despite explanations to the contrary, Liam holds fast to his belief that leaves are trash and should be disposed of as such:
Liam doing his interpretation of a caterpillar breaking out of his cocoon:
“Yeah, Mama — I see the butterflies — but something tells me I should know who these guys are…”
Tone block:
Loner:
Evidence that Liam will eat anything if someone else eats it in front of him first:
Exact point at which Liam realizes that he still has an apple in his hand (and has clearly forgotten that he has dropped said apple on the ground and was supposed to be looking for a trash can):
Exact point at which Gillian realizes that Liam has realized that he still has an apple in his hand:
Exact point at which Gillian realizes that Liam cannot be trusted to search for the trash can:
Flower fountain:
No shoes!
Giant button:
And this is where my camera battery died and I discovered that our spare hadn’t been recharged. Oops.
1. On Sunday, on our way home from the park Liam and I had the following exchange while I was walking down the street carrying him:
S: “Liam, I’m going to have to stop and put you in the stroller very soon. Do you know why that is?”
L:Â “I DO know why that is.”
S:Â “Oh.”
2. Liam has been working a lot recently on his “puffles” (puzzles). He’s really getting the hang of the talking number puzzle. There’s only one problem. It doesn’t just say the number — it also names what’s on number underneath the puzzle piece (“one ladder, seven quarters, etc.”). He has memorized the pictures while not necessarily the numbers that go with the pictures. He’s going to go to school and someone’s going to ask him to identify the number 20 and he’s going to say “20 frogs.”
The fish nuggets from the Cooking Light 5 Star Recipes cookbook are awesome.
The oven that sets the smoke detector off every time it bakes above 450 degrees is not awesome.
My response to the oven setting off the smoke detector every time I try to, I don’t know, USE it, is even less awesome.
That is all.
Liam going “night night:”
Streeeettttch:
“Asleep:”
Refreshed:
Wash, rinse, repeat:
One:
Two:
Three:
Again?
Kiss attack:
Beautiful lillies from Gillian:
Sunflower surprise:
“You can’t see me back here, can you Dad?”
Reading:
“Oh, I know what that is!”
Precious boy:
Today we took the soccer ball over to the park and let Liam run around.
New shoes before:
New shoes after:
Liam’s working on his very best goalie face:
Practicing throw-ins:
“Oh, Da, really? I have to kick it that hard?”
“How’s this?”
Acrobatic kicking:
Getting the hang of it:
Part One:
Part Two:
Part Three:
Part Four:
Part Five:
Part Six (aka: the picture that would never be posted if it were of my hiney instead of Matt’s):
Back in action:
Confident Toddler March:
“Look Dad!”
“Whoops!”
“I guess I’ll just sit down, then.”
The tongue of uber-concentration:
“Up and at ‘em!”
“Hey Mama, I need to tell you something.”
Sweet boy:
Silly boy:
