If you can't beat them, join them!

The dishwasher has been one main area of temptation since Liam noticed what it was many, many months ago. After living with, 'Liam, don't touch the dishwasher!' a million times a day, Liam is finally old enough to start touching the dishwasher. He became Mommy's little helper this morning. Hooray!

Play with me Sesame

Liam loves watching Play With Me Sesame in the mornings. This morning he created a new way to sit in his chair.

Liam's new way of sitting in his chair

Playing 'Ernie Says'
Ernie said 'touch your head'

Ernie then said 'open your mouth.' Once he opened his mouth he said 'Ah!' and Liam ran to he bathroom to brush his teeth.

Chocolate smiles

Liam is definitely a Janke man. His favorite food is quickly becoming chocolate chips! He has been doing a lot better the past few days and we have only had one bad night in the last 4. Today he watched me making brownies and kept saying, 'muh, muh, muh' as long as he could see the bag. The picture isn't as clear as I'd hoped, but he was very happily smudged with chocolate on his face and hands after his morning snack of chocolate chips. :-)

Teething

How to tell that Liam is teething on both sides of his mouth at the same time . . .
Picture this with LOTS of biting and fussing . . .

Liamhannes

Sorry for not posting more recently. We have been in another intense phase with Liam. He has shown signs of teething for about 2 weeks (irritability, runny nose, drool to rival Niagara Falls) and today we finally saw what has been bothering him so much . . . Once again he is cutting 4 teeth at one time. This time all 4 canines are coming in. The poor little man has never cut a single tooth at a time. He started with 2 at a time and the last 3 rounds have been 4 at a time.

In addition to the teething, he been acting strangely at night. He will go to sleep as usual, but then wake up after about 1.5 - 2 hours later hysterical. The only thing that calms him down is if he sees one of us. If we hold him or stand in his room he will immediately go back to sleep, but he wakes up the instant we put him in his bed or try to walk out of his room. This has been costing him and us about 3-4 hours of sleep per night. I was so tired last night I struggled to speak to Liam in German. It felt like it took all of my energy just to find words. I knew I was in trouble when I said, 'Du Mund nicht alles in Dein Stecken tun.' (I can't really translate that into English but I was trying to tell Liam he did not have to put everything in his mouth. I made mouth a verb and turned the verb 'to stick' into a noun that makes no sense.)

Due to all this our 'down time' in the evenings has been non-existent, thus no time to update the blog. Hopefully, this phase will pass soon and things will settle down again.

Here is a picture of Liam after bath time tonight. Tobias always thinks it's funny to give Liam a Mohawk with what little hair he has. There was no way to get the pacifier out of his mouth since it is permanently affixed during teething.

Liam Mohawk
(You will need to click to enlarge to see it.)

This and that . . .

'Hah!'

When I was cooking Liam's dinner last night he walked over the kitchen drawer, took out the hot pad, put it on, and walked back over the oven saying, 'hot, hot, hot' (or as he says, 'hah!')

Liam always grabs for my earphones when I come back from running.
Yesterday I decided to let him see what they do.

Not too sure about this . . .

. . . a bit later . . .

And finally, a new play toy for Papi . . .

19 months old - AHHHHHHHHHH

Liam is 19 months old today. He is so active these days. He really seems to be learning a lot right now. Daily activities include: playing outside, exploring water, learning new words, and brushing his teeth.

One of our favorite language developments right now is teaching him to ask for help. We are working to get him to stop crying and fussing when he can't do something. Mom taught him when he needs help to say 'Nanna.' Tobias and I speak to him in German so in German we told him when he needs help to say 'Hilfe'. Every time we say it in German he looks at us and says, 'Nanna'. It's interesting to see that he knows what we are saying in German but he is answering in English.

Liam loves to brush his teeth. At bed time when we say it's time to brush his teeth he jumps up and walks to the bathroom the entire time saying, 'AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH' with his mouth open.