There are so many things to share, I don't quite know where to begin. That's what I get for neglecting to blog for several months. Liam is making a lot of progress in many areas. He's eating much better! While non of the real solid foods that he eats are enough to constitute a meal, he's eating more of them to complement the purees, formula, yogurt, and soup that are his staples. He'll now eat pizza, chicken nuggets, fries, hot dogs, pretzels, crackers, pita chips, goldfish, cheerios, and anything else that is hard and crunchy and has flavor. He'll sometimes eat a fruit bar or a piece of toast. No "real" fruit or veggies to speak of, but he gets those through purees, Gerbers, etc. He doesn't like sweets at all, which I suppose it's a good thing, but will make it harder to bribe him later! :)
Physically, he's right on par with little nuggets his age. He's running and climbing and going up and down stairs. We recently got out a little slide that Coby had as a toddler, and then got a matching one for Safta's house because Liam wants to slide all day long! We went to Chuck-E-Cheese a couple of times and he did a lot of sliding there too...as in, 50 or more times. He loves to go to the park, but when we do, it's nothing buy swings for him. He'll slide a couple of times and then take my hand and take me directly to the swings. And when it's time to go....It's the terrible 17 months that come out LOL. Screaming and crying and just being...well...a toddler!
Liam's language has definitely seen a lot of improvements as well. His receptive language is great! He understands commands and follows them most of the time, helps clean up, and knows his colors (as shown in the video below):
As far as speaking, we're not quite there yet, but boy, is he trying! A huge accomplishment for Liam is that he now imitates several sounds when we tell him to, which he wasn't doing before. He'll combine some sounds too, which is great. He'll say "ah," "Esh," Grrrrrnnnnn," and "hahaha" when we tell him to. He also likes to scream and yell a lot (in delight, not in anger).
He's become quite a little rebel, which I complain about, but actually really enjoy because it's just typical behavior! A few weeks ago Daddy taught Liam that it's lots of fun to stand outside, throw cheerios on the ground, and stomp on them. Liam took that idea a step further, and is now doing that inside, and with goldfish too. He also loves to crush crackers in his highchair. Lovely! Today when we weren't watching he "took a bath" in the cat's water bowl. Thought it was so funny!
Sleeping is getting better too! Our 2 mattresses on the floor plan works really well, and out of the last week or so he slept through the night for about 5-6 nights , and only woke up once. I'm worried that he's getting night terrors because a couple of weeks ago he woke up one night screaming and inconsolable. But he was fine after about 20 minutes. He had his eyes wide open but wasn't really seeing or hearing anything. It was pretty freaky!
We really have to work on stranger anxiety with Liam, though. That's an area which needs a lot of improvement. I'm so fortunate to have my mom here to watch Liam if we want to go out, but what about when the whole family wants to go out together? Babysittes have been out of the question for a while now. This is also why we had to stop all the therapy with Liam because he refused to cooperate and would just cry and cling on to me for the length of the session. And with me out of the room? Fuggetaboutit! Well, Coby had a Christmas concert coming up. A huge one, where he has a solo! WTG COBY! But the whole family wanted to go and Liam is not exactly up to sitting quietly for 2 hours (two minutes???). So we got a sitter and she was training for a while to get to know Liam. She came to the house or to Safta's house about once or twice a week and hung out with Liam to get him used to her. It didn't really work!!! He didn't want anything to do with her. So at the end, safta decided to stay home with Liam. Coby did a fantastic job with his solo...the video is from far away (on my IPhone) but you can hear him really well!
Speaking of Coby, he's just an amazing 11 year old! He's turning into a young man, and I'm so proud of him! He's doing well in school, sings in the choir, and will start soccer in February. He's come so far from being jealous when Liam was born! Now Liam squeals with delight when he sees Coby, and they play together, and love one another so much. Coby really wants Liam to talk and I'm pretty sure one of the first words Liam will say will be "Coby."
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