We have a new tooth! The upper right incisor has made an appearance. We are Bad Parents for not being quicker on the uptake: it looks like it came in a few days ago, and is a quarter of the way out already.
New words and sayings in the past two weeks include “bless you”, gentle, door, Grandma, Papa (Grandpa), two, close, “car go!”, shirt, apple, “all gone”, “all done”, as well as clear and properly used “thank you”, “yes”, and “no”.
He points at everything (or goes to touch it!) if you say the name of an object. Fridge, door, cat, chair, table, bath, light… but the best moment came about six weeks ago when he was eating dinner and babbling, “Mama, mama, mama” with a big smile while swinging his head back and forth. “Liam, Liam, Liam,” I chanted back at him and he stopped moving, sat up straight and patted his chest with both hands, a pleased little grin on his face. It was the first time he’d actively identified himself to us. It was an awesome moment, and I’m surprised I didn’t record it when it happened.
He’s started actively matching two images on his own. If there’s a dog on one page and a dog on the other, he’ll put his first two fingers together with his thumb and touch one, then touch the second. It’s interesting that this is a very specific hand position that he only uses to indicate two of the same object.
He flips through books with animals and says their names, mangling them sometimes in Liam-speak, but he knows them. He doesn’t seem to discern between the animal name and the sound it makes, so a cow is usually “mmmmmmoo”, a cat is usually “cat”, a dog is “dah” or “ff ff ff” (as in “arf” or “woof”), bees are “bssss” (and I have no idea if that’s the sound they make or the actual word), and fish are “fsh!”.
He can say “crow” too, because he was calling the Halloween crow prop over at his caregiver’s house an owl, and she taught him the right name for it. He confused us for a while by pointing to the top of the bookcases in the living rooms and saying “owl, owl”, and we kept trying to redirect his attention to the stuffed owl on the lower shelves. This past weekend HRH happened to be holding him at the time he said it, and finally caught on that Liam was pointing at the displayed cover of Solitary Wicca for Life, which has a small buff-coloured figure in a robe in the lower lefthand corner of the cover. From the other side of the room, it does look somewhat like an owl.
Okay, that’s your quick catch-up on Liam’s World.
