Problem Solved

When Mr. Man wakes up in the morning, he comes down the hall and into our room. Many days, this is as early as 5:30 in the morning. To entertain him while we rest a bit longer, we put Maisy on the TV (we have the episodes TIVO'd) and he likes to lay down and relax on the floor next to Taylor's side of the bed. Most mornings, since it's so dark still, he complains that it's too bright when we put the TV on.

This morning, he came up with a solution:



Problem Solved!!

Ready to be a Big Brother

We had our final doctor appointment today at the clinic. The baby is doing fine. I'm measuring at 41 weeks (so about 3 weeks ahead). The c-section will still be Wednesday, so just 5 more days! Liam came with us to the appointment and was so good. He loves hearing the baby on the doppler. As we were walking down the hall from the exam room to the doctor's office, we passed the office of the nurse I saw most of the pregnancy. Liam instantly recognized her, walked right into her office, and hit her up for a lollipop. He's got the routine down!

Liam is extremely excited most days. The only sign we've seen that he is nervous about everything is he is becoming a bit of a terror at school. He's been hitting, spitting, biting, and telling his teachers "No!"....totally not your typical Liam at all! The good news is that his teachers are wonderful and extremely patient and understanding. They are handling everything exactly as I would have hoped. Otherwise, Liam is loving school and doing really well. His language has exploded tremendously lately...the assistant director of his school was commenting on this too, lately.

The doctor today put me on maternity leave since my feet are so swollen from being on them all day, so I'm off work officially! We just have this one last long weekend with Mr. Man before his brother joins us. A bit sad, but exciting. We have an appointment to meet the surgeon on Monday and then report to the hospital at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday morning. My mom will be coming Monday night to stay with Liam. Should be exciting! In the meantime, we are enjoying our last few days as a family of three.

12 Days

Just a quick update....all is going well with our littlest one. We had an ultrasound today since I am already measuring at full-term. Our doctor determined that unless I miraculously deliver naturally (baby prayers, please) before then, our c-section will be on Wednesday, October 3rd! Baby looks great and, as you can see (or not...Taylor cannot), we got two great face shots. He is weighing in at around 6 lbs, 9 ozs. right now, although the Dr. said that she expects that's a bit of an underestimate.

We have a follow-up appointment this week and then, if nothing happens before then, our surgery in 12 days. Plus, our little one will be delivered by the oldest person in the military (he's been active dute for 47 years!) Kind of neat, even though we would both prefer to have the surgeon be our normal doctor. That's the fun of free medical, though.....Go Army!!

Liam is doing really well. He seems both excited and anxious for his little brother. He is doing well in school. Potty training is so-so. He'll go several times a day of his own initiative on the potty, but will often wet his diaper/pull-up. He wants NOTHING to do with underwear right now, so we're not pushing it until after the baby comes. We have time and his teachers are very understanding of everything going on right now.

I have 6 more days of work and not sure I'll make it. :) Those kindergarteners sure keep me busy. Work is also throwing me a shower on Wednesday, so that should be interesting. Anyway, here's one more shot. I will update and post photos of Liam at the end of the weekend.

I'm a Big Boy!!

Liam has had a lot of changes going on the past few months. One big one was moving him to his bed, which is when we started working with him on being a "big boy." We are trying to get him a bit more independent and feeling proud of all the things he can do.

When Liam went back to school two weeks ago, we decided that paci would only be for "night night." He only uses it to sleep at home (not for napping at school). He has his moments where he wants it, but pretty much has transitioned effortlessly.

The other thing that has come up a lot (other people are so worried about this, while Taylor and I have a very laid-back attitude) is potty training. We haven't even attempted it for three main reasons: 1) he shows very few real, consistent signs, 2) most boys do not potty train until 3 or older, so I was never going to attempt this until he was 3, and 3) new baby = a most-likely regression in certain behaviors, including potty training.

Taylor and I are not ones to work for months on potty-training. When Liam is truly ready, this should only take about a week or two to get down. Well, while I hold a lot in reservation, he finally has shown us some signs this week. He has gone on the potty three times (he asked to use it on his own and was successful) and is trying really hard when he wants to go. He was so proud of himself tonight talking about what a "big boy" he is. While I'm not going to push it too much, we may try to encourage him a bit more this week and see what comes of it. If he takes to it...great! If not, we'll probably hold off until his little brother is here and settled (i.e. Novemberish). Either way, he is using the potty a bit now and seems pretty excited about it.

Mr. Man is truly becoming a "big boy"!

Back to School

Well the summer is over and I cannot believe how very busy we were. England was great and Liam had a fun time with Grandmichaele and Papa. He was super excited to have us return and go back to our "own house" as he calls it. I think he just missed having his own things around him.

We weren't here for long though. Soon after returning to VA, it was off to Nags Head for a quiet, but fun, family vacation. Liam LOVES the beach and had a blast. Here are some of his highlights:



Splashing in the waves



Digging BIG holes!



Visiting Daddy's Lighthouse....we did this several times!



Swimming in a real swimming pool for the 1st time

We had a great time and more pics can be seen on Liam's photo site. At the end of the week, we had to return as I started back to work last week and Liam returned to school. He screamed when we took him for about 5 minutes, but other than that, transitioned back really well. He is back in the same classroom; however, one of his teachers is now the assistant director and so he now has a "new" teacher. He knew her already from another class and seems really happy with both his teachers so far. With Taylor deploying in January and the baby coming, we have decided to have Liam only attend school 3 days a week now. So far, so good, but we'll see how everything goes this month.

We had a fun visit with Mr. Benjamin and parents yesterday. Ben is walking now and is all over the place. The boys were still doing a lof of lateral play, but seemed to have a good time. Taylor and I were talking about how much fun it will be when we have three boys running around! It will also be interesting to see how our new addition handles having these two running the show:



Liam has grown a lot this past month and is doing a lot of new things. He counts to 13 on his own, knows a lot of his uppercase letters, sings songs fairly well, is doing some fairly advanced imaginary play, and is a big help to Taylor and I. We have seen him change so much this summer, it makes us so sad to think about how much he will change in the year and half Taylor will be gone. The good news is that we don't have to worry about that for a bit and we are enjoying our last month as the three of us. Liam is REALLY excited about the baby, who has almost become an imaginary friend for him (I'm not sure this is good or bad). He loves to say that the baby is in his bouncy seat and brings him water. Either way, I think it will be fun for Liam to have someone else around as he is definitely not one to be an only child...he loves other kiddos too much!

Not much new with the baby. We have our next appointment on the 12th, where we will schedule the c-section....to take place approximately 30 days from now. Yikes! In the meantime, I'm going to try to survive the 1st month of kindergarten and soak up as much of these two as I can get before my 3rd little man arrives:

Summer Fun and Some News

Yikes! It has been forever since I updated. Since Father's Day, our summer has been a whirlwind. I won't go through every detail, but touch on some of the highlights.

A lot of the summer thus far has been spent visiting with family. One of Liam's favorite things is to see his cousin Ben. Ben is starting to get to the point where he can play with Liam a little bit more and is actually getting mobile now. It is really funny to see Liam try to entertain and interact with Ben - even if Ben doesn't always respond. One thing the boys definitely do is crack each other up, and listening to the both of them giggle is hysterical!









We were also fortunate enough to spend a week at the beach in Long Island at my uncle's beach house. Liam LOVED the beach and even went in the water a bit (although it was pretty cold). He really seemed to have a blast there and I think he'll love our family vacation to North Carolina later next month.



We also took some time to make it down to VA Beach to take Liam for his first sailing trip on Tooey's boat. He did fairly well, especially considering it's a 2 year old in a cooped up environment, it was hot, and he had to wear the life jacket. He really liked the boat and had a lot of fun.





This last part of the month is being spent in NJ with my parents while Taylor is on a grad school trip to England. Liam is having a very difficult time while here. Still trying to figure it if it's more being away from home for so long or having Daddy gone for so long....probably a combination of both. It's already been 8 days and I'm hoping things will improve, but for right now, he is struggling. Either way, I take off in a week for a week in England with Taylor (our first vacation without Liam...yay!!!! - no offense little man) and hot shot here will be spending the week with my parents. I know he'll survive this and hopefully adjust, but it's so hard seeing your little one be so sad and having a hard time. We are sneaking in as much fun as we can, though. As you can see, it's not all tears:







I'm going to end this post with our more difficult news. Taylor received his orders. He will be reporting for duty to prepare to deploy to Iraq around the 3rd week of January. While this was somewhat expected, Taylor and I are both amazed at how hard this news hit us. He will be gone for approximately 15 months and working on a team of 12 men that work directly with the Iraqi Army to train their counterparts there. It is a very different mission than he had the last time was there and the deployment is twice as long. We both love the Army and this comes with the territory, but it is never easy to say goodbye, especially with the two little ones now. We can only hope and pray that he will make it back safely and I know that with my boys, we'll make it through and this only makes our family stronger. Besides, how can I really be too down, with my Mr. Man there to always cheer me up. We really make a good team:

Father's Day 2007

We had a great weekend here in VA. Taylor's parents came for the weekend. It was also Richard's birthday, so a perfect weekend to be together. Friday night, Taylor and I had some of his friends from GMU over for a cookout. The weather was great and it was nice to have someone to hang out with. Liam was in bed when they got there, but got up to ask about the people he heard. Pretty cute. He also "needed" boo-boo cream (lotion) and a band-aid from Daddy....can we say, pay attention to me please. :)

Saturday, Taylor's parents came and we mostly just slept and hung out as everyone was tired. It worked out well for me so I could do some last minute shopping and errands. On Sunday, we all headed out the WW II Memorial and Air and Space Museum. Liam LOVED that and coerced his grandparents into showing him all there was to see there while Taylor and I caught a show at the planetarium. It was hot and all the excitement wore Liam out, as you can see:



He never does this!

While I am finished with work (thank goodness), we decided to keep Liam in school an extra week so Taylor and I could have a mini-vacation before having him home all summer. We are trying to get a lot of errands done while he's there, so we ran up to a great baby store in MD to take a look at some of the things we need for our youngest boy. Some of our stuff we sold or got stolen, so we need to replace those things and others will be new (ugh...double strollers!). Anyway, it was nice just to see Taylor as we have been very busy.

We also surprised Liam with a new water table that we've been wanting to get him for months and months now. He LOVED it, of course, and had a blast playing with it:







We also enjoyed a nice family dinner of fish and chips at our picnic table while Liam ran crazy around the yard. He did manage to stop and relax for about 10 seconds:



All in all, it was a great kick-off to the summer. Liam is enjoying his last week at school and will have a water day there tomorrow. We also have a busy week. We are meeting with a physician on Wednesday to discuss a possible c-section, going to see Lyle Lovett in concert, and going to a meal-prep place to try out. Should be fun!