The Fine Game of Nil

For the past month or so, Liam has been a good bit more of a crank-a-potamus than usual.  During the day he’s been more clingy, desperately needing to be picked up more than usual.  At night he’s been waking up  multiple times claiming that everything is wrong and he needs daddy to stand in a dark room and hold him.  I think its been a  combination of catching a series of colds, not sleeping as much as he was use to on his daily commute, and having at least three teeth squeeze their way out into his head.

For our commute, I’ve recently organized a 15-passenger commuter van which runs a handful of us up to work every day.  One of his daycare buddies from the toddler room also travels with us.  I’d initially set their car seats face-to-face so that they could entertain each other during the ride, however, that ended up working a little too well. For most of the ride up the two of them would be making faces back and forth, mimicking each other’s noises and generally riling up until Liam wasn’t getting his morning and afternoon commute naps.  He’d arrive at daycare already yawning, and by the end of the trip home he was completely strung out and exhausted.  Pair that with a bunch of teeth coming in, and pretty much constantly having the yellow snot of health and he’s been somewhat of a handful lately.  I also think he’s been hitting a bit of a developmental stage where he suddenly recognizes his own wants and wishes and how those differ from how reality is currently treating him.

Last Friday, his buddy was absent from the van and his sleep was glorious.  Today I rearranged the car seats so that the two of them are back-to-back and he had an excellent ride home.  I got a good look inside his mouth and saw that three new teeth had broken through.  He’s still got the yellow snot of health, but at least he seem to be feeling a good bit better with whatever cold he has.  So, overall I think we’re on an upswing now.

We are so behind on updating this blog… Now that he’s mobile, there’s little time to do anything other than chase him around the house. Then once he’s in bed, all we want to do is damage-control (i.e. pick up all the toys all over the house) and put our feet up.

Several weeks ago, Children’s Hospital had their employee appreciation day at the zoo. These are a few brief pictures from that event.

Fish in the Aquarium

Dad, Liam, and Mom

Liam really liked sitting on this saddle in the children’s zoo area.

Like Obama, Liam likes acorns! (probably not a funny joke). But seriously. Liam ran around picking up as many acorns as he could, like a little squirrel preparing for winter.

The Holman Family

Riding on daddy’s shoulders is a great way to get around…

but i also like walking with mama.

Hanging out in a box, kind of reminded him of his house at home

Watch out, i might bite that finger!

whatchyoutalkingabout?

oh yeah, did I mention I can walk now?

We had a really good time. Although the pictures don’t show it, Evyan, Stewart, and Alasdair came with us. Afterwards, we went to their house, and Evyan made us a delicious dinner.

The other day I was wandering around the loading dock at work, and spotted these two awesome cardboard boxes on their way out to the cardboard dumpster.  I grabbed them and dragged them home for Liam, because they spoke to me.  They said, “Build The Boy a house”.  So after explaining to Emily exactly why I was dragging two enormous cardboard boxes into our 1000 square feet of living area, I sat down with the razor knife and packing tape and made this:

The next morning, Liam woke up and found he had a small cottage of his own in the middle of the living room.  He squeeked and ran over to it, looking all over the outside until he found the door, then he crawled inside and peaked out each of the windows.  The rest of the morning we spent playing chase around the house or peak-a-boo through the windows with shutters.

He then dragged a nice selection of toys inside and spent a good bit of the next several days playing inside the house.  One of his favorite games was to wait till the cat entered the house, then run in and corner it, forcing the cat to quickly exit out through one of the windows.

Last Sunday night, after a week of playing in it, we retired the house to the recycle bin.  He had a really good time playing in it, but it was time for it to go.  I was sad to cut it up, but I’m figuring that by keeping to a firm lifespan on such things I can justify bringing home more cardbard and building a cooler better house next time.  This one was a lot of fun though.  Nowhere near as cool as the big pink cardboard house my parents built for me when I was 1, but still a pretty nice cardboard house none the less.  I think next time I can do better though, especially when Liam gets a little bit older and can start to help.  Especially when he’s past the choking stage and I can break out my stash of box rivets.