Liam is getting really good at sitting up on his own. He started out trying to sit up a while ago, but can now really sit on his own for a couple of minutes and interact with us, play with toys, and turn around a bit.
It's really interesting to watch his learning process. Right now, he's learning how to coordinate his movements - something we all take for granted once we're past a few years old. At first, he would concentrate hard on moving his arms and hands to grasp things. It is cool to think about it from his perspective - it must be like slowly discovering you have telekinesis ("hey, I can move these things on the end of my arm with just my mind!"). He is still sometimes fascinated with his own hands and how he can literally manipulate them.
Now he's learning about moving his legs and feet in a similar way - it started with random-looking leg movement when he's excited, but each day the movements become more purposeful. He can grab a toy between his two feet and bring it up to his hands, which then put it straight into his mouth. I can see the early stages of crawling as he lifts himself off his tummy onto his knees and elbows, and then almost pushes himself forward. One of the cute things he does now is to lift his head off the mattress while he's on his tummy and peek over the crib wall to see me. This, of course, usually draws me right back over to the crib to continue playing instead of letting him go to sleep :)
There's a similar process with his vocalization. It started with random sounds when he's excited, but is starting to get a little more speech-like at times. At first, his favorite phrases were "ra" and "la" but he now loves to say "bthv." Of course, without more than his two teeth, the "th" is very fuzzy and cute.
Speaking of teeth, he's got some coming through up top. The middle two, and the two on either side are starting to show. Beware of offering a finger for him to hold, it's likely to be thrust straight into his mouth for a nice bite!
He always makes me smile. No matter how tired I might feel sometimes, I brighten up when I walk into a room and see Liam. He's got an extroverted, easy-going and sometimes bubbly personality and an infectious laugh and smile. He's become very cuddly too, which I love. My favorite thing is to make him laugh. He loves to laugh at funny noises and faces and getting tickled or kissed on the cheek.
Steve had a conference up in Boston these last couple of days, so Liam and I decided to join him so that we could visit our old (and one very new) friends. Liam was once again an excellent traveler and enjoyed the hour long plane ride trying to figure out how to unlatch the tray table in front of him.
He was so wound up from our days hanging out with friends, he had a hard time going to sleep in the hotel room. We would give him a bath and put his pajamas on him, but he would just sit on the bed ooohing, cooing and sucking his toes. When we returned last night, he was very excited to tell his Papo (thanks dad for watching over our house) about his trip and forgot all about his 8 bed time.
