Growth

I put Liam on the scale yesterday and he is over 26 lbs now. I think that is about 2 lbs since his last appointment a couple of months ago. In my last post I mentioned some troubling new issues which have continued this week. Basically, Liam has been crying in situations that he was happy with before. The gym class he goes to has a 5 minute separation period where parents go off to one side and the kids play. Liam has always been absorbed in playing and never cared (or noticed?) that I am not near him. In the last 2 weeks however, he has been frightened and has come looking for me crying. I just started working out at gym that has child care and each time we have gone, Liam has become hysterical and clings to me so that I have to pull him off and leave the room quickly. He settles down after a while as long as one of the care givers holds him the entire time I am gone. The minute he sees me when I come back, the hysterics start all over again. Another brand new source of stress for him is the bath. He has loved his bath since he was about 6 months old, running to get in and never wanting to get out. But, the last 2 weeks he has tried to run away from me when I come to get him in it and is hysterical for the duration. I cannot even distract him with his bath toys! He has also cried a couple of times when Daddy left for work this week which is a new thing. I realize he is going through some separation anxiety phase (I dont get the bath thing though.) and maybe it is another way he is dealing with sharing us with his brother, or maybe its a normal phase that happens at this age. Anyone have any thoughts?

One possibilty is that Liam is making developmental leaps in other areas. And he really is! Other than mamma and dadda, we have been waiting for him to say other words. It is possible that he has been all along and that we just didn't know what he was saying but last week he started saying a few words. (or we finally recognized them as words) The first was A-Boo = balloon. Then we were playing open and shut with his legs and he said Ah Dut. He had been saying mamma for quite a while but we think now that some of the time he has been saying "meeh meeh" meaning more, more. This week he said Ba Ba and did the sign for baby. And just this morning Gigg told me he said yes.

Liam has also started to connect things he sees in his books to things around him. For instance he points to a window in his book and then to the window in our living room. He was doing this with the Christmas tree a few months back but he is doing it more and more. He also recgonizes Barack Obama, the Patriots and the Red Sox on tv. I get the Patriots and the Red Sox since he has seen them alot and heard Daddy and Mommy cheering but I'm not sure about the Barack Obama thing. It's not like we jump up and down yelling "Go Obama!"