Children's Museum

This week is my February break, so I took the opportunity to take Liam to the Bangor Children's Museum with my friend Angie and her kids Eliza and Sammy. Eliza also brought her friend Catherine. It was a great day of fun at the museum. Liam was thrilled to be there with Eliza and Sammy, who he idolizes. He had no trouble leaving my side to wander the museum but would never travel far from the proximity of the his friends. Liam was a huge fan of the giant Lite-Brite that was in one of the sections. He was also really into the example of a 10 foot long earthworm that was/can be(?) found in the Australian Outback.
There was a Charlotte's Web room as evidenced by the picture of Liam and Sammy on Wilbur.

Other highlights include Liam running out of a giant mouth in a room dedicated to the human body. He thought it was a riot to run on the giant tongue.

You will notice some pictures of Liam playing in some flour. It should be noted that I was not intending to let him play in flour. Those pictures are direct evidence of what happens when you are not paying enough attention to your child. I was literally 10 feet away from him but my view was blocked. I happened to be loading up pictures from the museum to send to Angie and I noticed that Liam was being awfully quiet. When I peeked over the counter I saw Liam and a big floury mess! Enjoy.

Liam makes his pick

This photo appeared in an online photo gallery of one of our local papers. It was taken during the caucus the weekend before last. (Thanks for the tip, Chris!)

Liam's first ski

Liam had another exciting first experience today - downhill skiing! (on a first-time, toddler, scale of course). We spent the day at Hermon Mountain near Bangor. Mountain is being rather generous, it's a big hill with one lift, a t-bar and 7 or 8 trails. Not where you want to go for thrilling downhill, but great family skiing. Liam got a free ticket because of his age, and we rented him some tiny downhill skis. He seemed to do OK in the lodge while we worked on his boots, but for some reason, as soon as we went outside, it was an utter meltdown, which we're sure was boot related. So, off went the downhill ski boots and back on when his snow boots. Luckily, our friends brought a small pair of skis with a softer, strap-style, binding that worked well over his boots. That seemed to do the trick because we went right back outside and he commenced to 'ski' for a good couple of hours.

For a while, I just let him shuffle around in his skis so he could get the sensation of having them on his feet. Tara and I took turns hanging with Liam while the other did a couple runs, then we would swap. Both of us would fish-scale up a tiny grade, either holding Liam or pushing him up the hill. Then we would put him between our legs and ski back down to the bottom. Tara, who is the pro ski instructor for kids, skied backwards in front of him while he more or less skied down , facing Tara on his own power. The hill was so shallow and he's so light, that sometimes he needed a little push or tug to keep his momentum.

So, aside from the real ski equipment, he had a great time. It was a kick to get him out on skis. It was hard not to think about him becoming a confident little skier in just a few years, trying to keep up with his older cousins and friends and leaving his parents in the dust.

Little video below - you can hear Liam mistake the snowboard instructor for daddy.

Words and Songs

Liam was positively gleeful after being allowed to climb up the stairs in his birthday suit on his way to the bath. (the leaf is a bit of photoshop by the way, not a leaf stuck on with scotch tape)

It's been rather rainy here since late January, so we haven't had many skiing adventures with Liam, except for this weekend. He and I went for a ski on Sunday afternoon, and he happily rode along in the baby backpack. At one point, I heard him say 'uh-oh', to indicate that his shoe was falling off. Boy, was I glad he let me know his boot was falling off - it would have been a drag to ski back to find it.

Liam has been starting to find his voice over the last few weeks. When we go out and about around town, he'll say 'hi' to passing strangers, and people we meet. He will point and say something in toddler talk, and then we'll look together and try to learn the word. His new language acquisition is ramping up too. We taught him to say 'Obama' the other day, and 'touchdown', complete with arms raised in the touchdown signal. He's learning a couple of nursery rhymes - Twinkle Twinkle and Ring around the Rosie. Instead of 'Ashes, ashes', it's 'Ash-y, Ash-y, all fall down!' And then he needs s little help to fall onto his bottom. That and the refrain of 'Twinkle Twinkle'. Every now and then he'll shock us with some word or short phrase we had no idea he knew - like 'jack-in-the-box' for example. Today it was 'egg' and the other day 'cracker'. He already had 'cheese'. And he knows that 'outside' means he has to put on his 'hat', 'coat', and 'shoes' or 'boots'. And to our surprise, he said 'yes' this weekend; not, however, in response to a question, but in repeating 'yes' as he heard Tara or I say it. His favorite word, by far, is 'no'. Although half of the time, it's sort of a generic response to any statement from mom or dad that sounds like it might be a question.



We're also in the process of shoring up our babysitter pool. A friend of ours and professor at College of the Atlantic posted a note to the COA email-message board and we got five responses in just a few days. So far, we've met two of the students and they seem really nice. We're going to meet one more on Friday. Ideally, we want to find first year who will be around for a few years, and who doesn't have school nights or school athletics like our high school babysitters tended to have rather frequently.