liam is two

On Sunday Liam turned two. To celebrate, we took the family to Chuck E. Cheese and the kids had a blast. Of course it was crazy, but I stressed less about this party than any other I’ve ever thrown. All I did was make a cake (in the shape of the easiest ball I could think of).

His actual birthday was a regular Sunday, but I did make chocolate chip pancakes and made sure to take him to the park. It was a good day.

Liam turning two isn’t too big of a deal, but it does feel momentous in that two is the age where kids really start to seem more like kids and less like babies or even toddlers. And since I’m not sure we will have any more babies, if I think too much about it I’ll probably get sad. So instead, I celebrate all the awesome things about Liam at this age!

Liam is awesome because:

He lets David put him to sleep and will stay in his own bed for at least half the night. (We are still working on the second half of the night.)
He is so affectionate. He can be very cuddly and forms tight bonds with people like his grandparents and his daycare teacher. He also sometimes gives Meredith unprompted hugs.
He is a great eater. His favorite things are meat and yogurt.
He likes to dance. Meredith is only just now becoming comfortable dancing in front of me, but he will sometimes dance even if there is no music on.
There are a few things that he really, really loves: any and every kind of ball, Little Einsteins (he calls it “pat pat” because that is something they do in the show), trying on shoes and hats, playing with hair, and treats (he calls them “num” because he was trying to say “gum” one day).
He is a fast self-soother. He sucks his thumb and twiddles his hair and it calms him down. And for whenever he isn’t calmed, he is pretty distractible.
He still likes to nurse and asks for “mo?” (He never learned to say “nurse.”) But if I tell him no, he’s fine with that.
He gets SO excited about everything.
It’s really good for Meredith to have another kid around, and he can finally kind of play with her.
His baby talk is super cute right now. He has a lot of words but they aren’t always intelligible. He is also starting to put together simple sentences.
Almost every day when I drop him at daycare he gives me a big hug and says, “MY mama!” to anyone around. But then they serve him breakfast and he is happy to leave me behind. :)