As relatively new parents, the most common piece of advice we hear from more experienced parents (of course, is anyone ever
really an "experienced" parent?) is to savor these early years in particular because they fly by so quickly. After the one-hundred and seventeenth time of hearing this, you tend to ignore it. But we can already tell, comparing Liam and Gavin, how much we have forgotten just about Liam's first year.
Gavin is now one, and is the same age as Liam when Katie was roughly two months along in her pregnancy with Gavin. But when we think back to Liam at twelve months, we have an unbelievably hard time reconstructing precise memories of him. Pictures help jog recollections, but those don't suffice for all those times we thought we'd never forget of Liam learning to walk, eating solid food for the first time, pulling on Monona's ears, etc.
This blog offers the opportunity to keep a running log of random things the boys do and say that, while they are memorable now, we are sadly apt to forget in ten years. So in this first installment I wanted to just list some recent things the boys did that made me laugh or stop what I was doing and try to mentally photograph the moment.
We're trying, so far unsuccessfully, to toilet train Liam. The other day, while changing his diaper, I asked him if, instead of a diaper, he wanted to wear underwear.
Daddy: How about Diego underwear?
Liam: Nooo (in a singsong, not a whiny voice)
Daddy: How about Elmo?
Liam: No
Daddy: How about Thomas?
Liam: How about I wear a diaper?
I can't exactly reconstruct Liam's tone of voice, but I just laughed when he said this--he sounded so funny and so adult about wearing a diaper!
Gavin is already the rough and tumble one. Liam and I have a game in which we tackle one another--called, of course, "Tackle." Gavin has quickly picked this up and, in his toddling way of early walking, will walk toward me and simply dive into me with his arms outstretched and emit what I can only describe as a half-growl, half-yell. It is hilarious.
I took the boys to the Learning Tree toy store the other day to buy a baby doll for Liam. (He loves baby dolls. Whenever we go to someone's house, or to day care, or to the babysitting room at the JCC, all Liam does is take care of baby dolls.) Once we went into the toy store, all Liam wanted to do was play at the Thomas train table and all Gavin wanted to do was walk around everywhere and pull on anything within his reach. So I took Liam over to the baby doll section, but he either lost interest or decided that big boys don't own baby dolls, because when I asked, "Do you want to pick out a baby doll?" he answered, "No, I want this truck!" The workers must have thought his father was attempting to steer him away from "boy" toys. (Of course, when we went back out to the car, Liam decided he did, after all, want a baby doll, which we duly went back in and purchased. Liam takes good care of "Baby Girl.")
Gavin climbs onto the fireplace every five minutes, and he knows he is not supposed to--he gives a look over his shoulder with a smile that lets you know that he knows this is not right.
It seems like, in the week surrounding his birthday, Gavin's ability to walk has simply exploded. He is getting so fast with better balance every day. "Da" is his favorite sound. He will stand at the couch or ottoman and put his face down and then pop it back up, expecting one of us to say "Peekaboo!" or "There he is!" He cracks up.
