Halloween costume?????

Sadly, our son makes a fairly convincing Elton John in Laney's pretty pink heart sunglasses...

Family Elton outfits this October?  It's on the radar now!

Beautiful poem about children

"Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. 
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.” ―Khalil Gibran

Sayonara Paci

Success!  2 whole days of him not even asking for his beloved paci.  Ahhhhhhh.  One less thing to lug around with me while we are out and about.  For the last few days he has asked for his paci a couple of times and then rejected it immediately after putting it in his mouth.  He just can't get the same suction with the whole in the tip now.  I am so glad we stuck to our guns with this one, because P and I almost gave up 3 nights ago when Liam woke up in the middle of the night and wasn't able to sooth himself back to sleep.  Fortunately we have had to sleep train this kid more times than I can remember, and the sound of him crying lulled me back to sleep.  There were really only 2 bad nights of sleep before he figured out how to sooth himself during the night.   He has also started talking a lot more this week, communicating with us in more than points and grunts.  He tells us "I big boy", "I did it!" and today he announced "I funny."

Bonus:  after Patrick did the bedtime ritual with him 2 nights ago, Liam asked for mommy.  This probably wouldn't have happened if he had his paci to console him.  When I went into his darkened room, he said, "mommy sing?"  I cuddled him through a few of his favorite lullabies and then snuggled him into his crib.  A tiny voice in the darkness rang out:  "Mommy, I love you!"  {which actually sounds more like, Mommy? I wud doo.}  See!  Giving up that paci may have been rough for a few days, but it was worth it for our new nighttime ritual of saying I love you.  Last night after I put him in his crib I said I love you, and then he repeated it back.  We say it to each other a few more times, and after I close his bedroom door he yells, "Mommmmmmy!  I looooove yoooouuuu!"  Nothing better in the world than hearing your child tell you they love you for the first time.  Thanks paci!

Bye bye paci.....I hope

My newest idea for breaking Liam's bad pacifier habit:  skewering them so they lose their suction.  So far he puts it in, pulls it back out and stares at it, throws it on the ground and walks away.  Pray that it will really be this easy!  Updates to come later in the day...I may have to pacify myself with a cocktail to get him through this.  Any suggestions for a new recipe?  I will name it "the Paci"

Trip to the Beach

We live under 10 miles from the beach, but haven't been able to go since Liam was born because of either his age or *ahem* his behavior {sand eating!}  Today we tried it again and were successful!  L, L and I went to South Ponto for 1.5 hours this afternoon after lunch and it was a hit.  I did end up holding Liam most of the time as he was unsure of walking in the sand and why it wouldn't come off of his toes.  He also did not love standing in the waves but was sort of amused by them if I held him.  Laney did some body whomping {a word coined by Mike Perry} and had a fantastic time running around in the slop, making fast friends with the other preschoolers on the beach.

The thing that they both liked were sand crabs.  I must have collected millions of these guys as a kid along the North County shoreline.  They were fodder for hours of entertainment for me as a child, and I made sure to pass that tradition along today.

I showed the kids how to find evidence of them by looking for the v-shaped indentation their antennae made in the swash zone of the tide.  Armed with shovels, they eagerly dug down to find the little squirming crabs and filled up their pails until the water was a swirling mass of tiny gray crustaceans.  Liam didn't really get the hang of holding them as they would speed off the palm of his hand and dive back to the liquid sand, leaving him looking confused and a little annoyed.  Laney really liked holding them, squealing as they tickled her hand, looking for a place to burrow in.  "They feel like tickles and I want to come back and find them again" Laney told me as we headed back to our car.  

Mission accomplished!  I must note that while Liam didn't really like playing in the water, he did find much enjoyment in sitting on his beach towel and eating.  Go figure.