The Fine Game of Nil

Life continues to go on. As Alex mentioned, Liam is walking and also begging food. Now, don’t start thinking we are starving him or anything. He gets plenty of food, regular meals and snacks. It’s just, he likes to eat, and when he sees other people eat, he wants to eat too. He hasn’t expressed any food aversions yet, which is really nice, and makes our job a little easier.

Okay, pictures onward

This is Liam with his new carseat. He finally outgrew the infant bucket seat at 13 months. Now, most kids, on average, outgrow the infant seat around 8 months or so. He’s such a peanut, though, that he got a good extra five months out of it, making our life that much easier. Also, he’s making his monster face, which is always good for a laugh

Liam and Derrik, with monster face

Liam and Derrik

Liam has this bear towel that Bruce and Barb gave him for Christmas. The other day I put it on and was crawling around chasing him.  These next two pictures are from that.

There are several tot-lots near our house, and now that Liam is mobile, it’s fun to go out to them and play. One in particular has a bunch of toys with wheels that you can ride or push around. They also have a rocking horse. Liam can now get on and off of things like this on his own. Well, sometimes he still needs a little help, but not much.

Cap’t Liam

After checking on the garden a few weeks ago, we noticed a brass band performing for the elderly residents of Neville Place, where our garden is. We decided to stop and check it out. They were giving out slushees to the residents, and gave us some too. Liam thoroughly enjoyed this.

another trip to the garden

Hanging out with our friend Stewart. We went to Walden Pond with Evyan, Stewart, and their son Alasdair.

Liam at Walden Pond

As many of you may know, Liam is a little bit scared of water. He tolerates going in the pool if I sit in the shallow end and hold him. He tolerates going into Lake George if Alex holds him. He’ll sit in a tub of water on the porch and splash happily. So imagine my surprise when he walked right into Walden Pond, socks, shoes, pants and all! I hadn’t brought a towel or a change of clothes because I didn’t think he would go in. But he did. He walked in up to just below his belly button, then started to cry. I picked him up, comforted him, then he indicated he wanted back down and he did it again, and again. Then he walked up and down the water, about knee deep the whole way. I think this is great progress, and I will make sure to bring towels and a change of clothes whenever we are near water. I think he was okay with the water here because it got gradually deeper and he could control how fast he went in.

Luckily Evyan had an extra towel and and extra shirt that Liam could put on

And finally, to wrap up this post, Liam and a sunflower

I’ve heard stories about parents that have children who are picky eaters.  I’m really glad that so far, we seem not to have gotten one of those.  Last night Emily and I splurged on our usual healthy menu and grabbed sandwiches from Nick’s Famous Roast Beef up in Beverly.  Roast beef sandwiches so good they take years off your life.  A nice big onion roll piled with rare roast beef, barbecue sauce and cheese.  The Boy had an 8th of a roast beef sandwich cut up, some fries, some fruit mix and then managed to beg a couple of spinach ravioli off of our friend Xochi who had come over for dinner.

These days, its impossible to peel an orange in the house without Liam tottering over to explain that “Its hungry work carrying your genes forward and all.  Perhaps you might want to give your only son half of that orange you’ve got there.”

So, this post is a little delayed. Over labor day weekend, we went out to Lake George again. Here are the pictures from that trip:

Liam gets the royal treatment from Bill, with a puppy entourage

On the float boat, Liam works on getting his sea legs

Saying hi to Luka

clowning around

thoughtful, with purple boat

in the lake

On the deck

cute faces babies make

Liam really likes corn, especially on the cobb

So, that’s a brief summary of our visit. The weather was perfect the whole time. The boat was working. Last time we came, the float boat engine wouldn’t start, and Alex Bill and Linda paddled us across at midnight! It was a good thing we got there so late, as the lake was very calm. It would be much harder to do that during the day. Liam seems to be slowly getting more comfortable in large bodies of water. He’s fine on the deck in a tub of water, or taking a bath, but at both pools and in the lake, he gets a little scared. We went to Walden pond last week, and he did a great job there. I’ll post pictures from that soon.

File these under: Its Officially All Over!

2 things to note about these videos.  First, these were shot after the drive back from Lake George, so he was pretty amped up to be out of the car seat. Second, I’m really glad I had the forethought to break the cats’ spirit while they were still kittens. They’ve been remarkably understanding throughout this whole process.

Alex and Emily Holman are reported to be missing, presumed eaten in what authorities are calling a “Probable zombie attack.“

Police entering the residence found scraps of clothing and bone as well as a camera, containing a single image (shown below).  Also discovered was a 9-inch hole which appeared to have been gnawed from the inside of the residence.  Authorities are urging neighbors to remain calm as they believe the situation will resolve itself once the creature finishes teething.

Actually, this is the result of Emily handing Liam a whole tomato, but it does illustrate pretty well why I take care to keep my fingers well away when tossing food into his cage.  Also related is the Pluot incident, which I’ll write about as soon as I get the pictures off Emily’s phone.