A night with the Freemans

I adore my niece and nephew, Violet and Eli, so when Evan wanted to go to Chicago and see his brother, Liam and I went to stay with the Freemans.

These kids have SO much fun together. Violet is so nurturing and sweet and always wants to hug Liam or wrestle him. (so much that Liam started to cry whenever Violet would try to hug him on the second day, I think he had had enough)

Eli is the best, so loving and such a sensitive little man. He really loves his Cousin Liam. (no more Baby Liam)

 Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!

 Violet sharing her elephant slippers

Eli in "time-out" for not wanting to share his cowboy slippers ;)

Thanks for letting us come over Blair and Stephanie! Can we come next weekend too?

Grandpa's Truck

A couple weeks ago we went home for the day and Liam got to see Grandpa's truck. Liam is obsessed with trucks right now, talking about them, looking at pictures of them, and watching them drive by the house take up most of our day.

He was quiet while getting to see Grandpa's truck but we have heard about that day a few times now.

"Grandpa's truck! Grandpa's BIG truck! Grandpa's white big truck!"

As if Grandpa wasn't the coolest family member anyway in Liam's eyes, it is most definitely a confirmed fact now. Liam always talks about Grandpa, wants to know where he is when he wakes up first thing in the morning. Always thinks he should be the one who is calling me when my phone rings and now he can talk about Grandpa's big truck as well.

You're pretty great Grandpa Fink!

Best friends

Today we dropped off Butters at the doggy hotel, said bye-bye and Liam broke down in tears. When I asked him what was the matter he simply replied "Dog, dog!" I think Liam is going to miss the big loud dog who always steals his food. (I'm pretty sure Butters did not feel the same way) Good thing it's just for the weekend.

Safety First

While Liam was wrestling pillows on our bed Evan decided that things weren't looking very safe and suggested to Liam that maybe he should get down and play on the ground.

Sure Dad, no problem. Liam runs out of our room, down the hall and right into a wall. Face first.

Biting Round 2

As Liam's upper canines are trying to come down we have had to deal with the biting phase once again. Tuesday while picking Liam up from daycare our babysitter said it was a bad day for Liam. He was biting his friend, Brooke, ALL DAY! She said he was actually seeking her out so he could go up to her bite her or squeeze her arm. He drew blood and she showed me the giant bruise already forming on her arm.

I made Liam say that he was sorry to Brooke, which of course at that point he probably didn't know why he was apologizing, and told our babysitter to apologize to her mother for us.

The next day I was having a night out with a friend so Evan was home alone with Liam. He told me that while Liam didn't bite him, but he did put his mouth on his leg like he was about to. Evan decided that this biting issue needs to be taken care of and fast so he put Liam in timeout. After timeout was over, Evan was having a serious talk with Liam explaining how biting is wrong, it hurts and we don't bite anybody. After his "lecture" he asked for Liam to look at him and tell him that he understood what he was saying.

Liam looked up at Evan; and farted!

Evan said he kept looking at him and smiling like "Wasn't that funny daddy? You were trying to tell me I was in trouble and then I just farted on you! I'm hilarious!"

Now if momma would have been there I would have been on the floor laughing! Evan was able to keep a straight face. (thank goodness one of us can keep it together)

The dog

Since this blog is mainly about Liam now with very little mention of the dog, here is an update:

The good news:  Butters saw the vet today where she weighed in at 61.9 pounds. This is amazing to me as one year ago she was weighing in at 89 pounds! That means she has lost about 27 pounds! I actually thought for a second while she was on the scale that maybe one or two of her legs was off the scale and the vet tech was missing it but she has really slimmed down that much. The doctor is impressed with her weight loss but doesn't want her losing anymore so we can add another 1/2 cup of food to her daily intake. Butters is going to be thrilled! (Actually I really think we could feed her 10 cups of food in a day and she would still act like we hadn't given her anything)

The bad news:  Reason why we took her to the vet today is we believe that she is having little accidents in the house. Most of them so far have occurred on the couch while she is laying there asleep. At first we thought she was just licking herself and that was what the big wet spot was from but now we have decided that she is just peeing on my couch for the fun of it. Two nights ago I went up to bed first, Butters was already taking up the whole bed so I pushed her over to Evan's side. When Evan came to bed two hours later, he was not too happy that she had peed all over his side of the bed.

This resulted in me trying to catch Butters pee this morning in a tupperware container. Oh yeah, you heard that right. I'm sure if any neighbors were watching this they were thinking not to ever accept any food from that house again.

So, the result of the pee test? Butters had a small amount of bacteria and blood in her urine. Two weeks of antibiotics will determine if this is just a bladder infection or incontinence. I don't even want to get into the details of what medications she will have to be on if it is the latter.

Here's hoping a round of antibiotics helps our poor girl out and maybe making Evan take her out to pee a little more often.

Now where did I put the number for our carpet cleaners? I've got a couch that needs to be de-urinated.

Putting two and two together

Today Liam and I went to pick up a few various things at the store. One of those things was a box of band-aids since we were running low at the house. While unpacking and putting things away, I looked up to see that Liam had opened the box of band-aids and kept saying "Knee, Knee."

Liam falls and skins his knees all the time, and we have maybe 2-3 times put a band-aid on his knee.  He apparently has decided that band-aids are only to go on knees and no other body part. Liam continued to say "knee, knee" until I put the band-aid on his knee.

He loved his little band-aid and continued to lift his pant leg to show me that it was still there, on his knee, for the rest of the morning.

Repeat after me

At Liam's 18 month wellness check up, our pediatrician whom I love, suggested that we start pushing Liam to talk more. So, since July Liam's vocabulary is increasing by the day.

Last night during our walk I suggested to Liam to ask Daddy (driver of the stroller) to 'go fast, please' Liam repeated after me not really sure what he was asking for and Daddy went fast! Then that is all we heard for the rest of our walk. 'Fast, please Daddy' (giggles) and repeat.

Also this week I have decided that Liam should start to tell me that he loves me. It's not really a choice considering I gave birth to him and all.
 So, I say "I"- Liam points to his eye.
"Love"-"oove".
"You"-"you".

He is catching on well to this one. Now if I can get him to say it on his own without being prompted I will be in heaven. And he better not say it to anybody else first!

Future nudist

Today we went to the Bloomington library to return some books and of course get some new ones. While picking out the new books Liam was standing next to me while I was sitting on the floor trying to find books that would interest him at home. After maybe 30 seconds of reading a book to myself I looked over at Liam who had his shorts down around his ankles.

Yes,  you read that correctly, his shorts were around his ankles and he was attempting to remove them completely except they were caught on his sandals.

I am not sure what caused him to want his shorts off. He has never pulled them off before at home or in any other public place.

We may have to start showing Liam those signs on the door of every store, restaurant and city building. No shirt, No shoes, No service.