Between England and Istanbul there was all this!

There have been so many little things I wish I had posted in the past month or so, especially things that Liam has been saying.  Unfortunately I don't end up doing it at the time and then I forget because new things are happening for him. 

Speaking wise he has become so so verbal and quite clear about things.  He tells us clearly what he wants and doesn't want - "Liam doesn't want to take a nap now. I all done".  He is also good about recalling different events that have happened.  I always ask him what he was up to when I've been gone an hour or so, and he is actually quite good at telling me what he did!  Of course he gets his timing mixed up and will recall things at very random times.  The other day he spent about 15 mins telling me all about his time and what he remembers of our trip to Barcelona, for example.  He will also share bits about his friends, or what he might be wishing he was doing like being in Stirling's ball pit with her and Drake. One of the funniest things he said recently was in response to me saying "lets do it!".  He totally randomly and unprompted said: "lets fall in love!"  James has been singing and playing that song for a while and I guess he just picked it up.  It was truly one of the cutest things I've heard.  He also often walks around saying "say what you say".  And he always requests the song Big Girls Don't Cry.  Funny little guy.  At night he says his prayer quite well with us, and then he is quite particular about which songs we'll sing and in which order.  For me it's either Blessed is the Spot and Twinkle Twinkle, or Oh God Educate These Children and Twinkle Twinkle.  For James he requests Mr. Sandman, Rockin' Robin and Twinkle twinkle.  Speaking of Twinkle twinkle, he is still, and has been for about 2 months, calling stars "wonder what you are".  I kind of love it since no matter how many times we say star, he still says it.  I also had no idea he knew almost all of Blessed is the Spot until he just started saying "and the house, place, city, the heart, mountain..."  Just out of nowhere!  He is also good about making good eye contact, and then with his finger wagging and head nodding telling you what you'll do for him!

These are a bunch of random pictures from November and early December including Jen's birthday outing to Milan, Thanksgiving dinner with the Walsers and Doves, my birthday, and a few random in betweens!

Liam at the playground with James - we've had a pretty mild fall and start to winter so it's been easy enough to still be out and about.  In fact we still haven't used his snow pants!

Just a random picture of me at 26 weeks along

Jen's birthday lunch at Peck in Milan

Jen's birthday Milan trip - Liam got to hang with sleeping Cassidy!

Helping make pancakes on the weekend - he is always eager to help with cooking, vacuuming, sweeping, emptying the dishwasher etc

Thanksgiving dinner was a group effort hosted at Leigh's house - Stirling, Liam and Drake had a great time, as did we!

Lots to give thanks for - it was a lovely meal and great company

Some of the wee ones at my birthday brunch hosted by Beril and Michael - Stirling, back of Drake, Isla and Liam

My birthday was a gorgeous day to be out for a walk!

Someone donated a Christmas tree to us so we spent an evening decorating it and cleaning up broken balls as Liam tried to throw them or bang them together.  Oops.

Besides all the talking we have had quite a lot of transitions and changes thrown our way.  In a quest for some child care help we have been quite frantically exploring as many options as we can come  up with.  One of those was to try out the Red Cross daycare where Drake had also recently started.  The idea was that 2 mornings a week they could both be there and that would give me a little free time when baby 2 shows up.  Unfortunately the whole experience was more traumatic than anything else.  Since Liam is so social I assumed that he wouldn't have a lot of trouble adjusting to the environment, but whether it was because Drake wasn't adjusted either, or because he actually didn't like the place, our 2 weeks trial wasn't so successful.  I felt terrible because whenever I asked him about it he would say:  mummy leave Liam and Liam crying."  or "ciao ciao holding Liam and Liam crying".  We think that he named one of the women there ciao ciao because she was always saying ciao around him, and he definitely wasn't happy with her.  And all of this drama was with me leaving for 5 -15 mins at the most and just waiting outside to see what happened.  So perhaps it should take more than 4 times for adjusting, but seeing him unhappy, and hearing him sob and say that he wants to go home broke my heart and my will power.  I think that option is done and we are now onto the next ideas. 

The other news is that we got Liam his big boy bed - a lovely trundle style twin bed that sat in his room for the past few weeks so that he could get used to the idea.  He has now spent 3 nights and 4 naps successfully sleeping in his new bed.  The first nap he took in it was Dec 27th and he popped out of the room in a matter of 5 mins.  We talked and I mentioned that he needed to stay in bed and call for us, and so far at least, he has done just fine.  We are leaving the crib in the room a little bit longer to make sure he has a slow and easy transition there, but it will eventually come into our room for baby girl.