Ode to Liam James

Mini's Martini
No, it's really a ginger trifle that I made for dessert when
we had friends over for dinner on Sunday.
Note the loyal yellow sippy cup in close proximity.

Poor Liam already has Middle Child Syndrome. He is so easy going, often submits to Colin's outrageous demands and is generally just a sweet, adorable little guy. Of course he also runs around like a whirling dervish, pouts for hours if I have the nerve to tell him no, and crosses his arms in indignant stubbornness at least a dozen times a day... but no one's perfect. Case in point, this week he has refused to drink out of anything but a YELLOW sippy cup and since we only have one, you might imagine the injustice he suffered tonight when I offered him purple instead.

Colin gets a lot of attention because he has oldest child "I'm the center of your universe" syndrome. He also doesn't nap anymore so he gets me one-on-one for at least 3 hours a day when the little boys are sleeping. Eamon gets a lot of face time here on the blog and at home too, mostly because he is so unbelievably jovial and just... edible all the time. There is a reason we call him "pumpkin pie" and "apple strudel"; he's just so sweet and his solid little chub demands to be squeezed and nibbled and photographed all the time. But Liam... whether from his lack of sedentary nature or the fact that his incredible language explosion is difficult to capture on film (er.. in jpeg formatting?) has gotten short shrift on here. So, today's post is for my Liam!


This past weekend we got invited to five (yes, five!) parties, all on Saturday. Chris took Colin to his company kids party (It was only for kids age 4+ and they needed a day alone to have some "manly" (rollerskating, ha!) fun. I'll leave it up to him to blog away about their incredibly action-packed day). I was on Liam and Eamon duty and we party-hopped to three consecutive fetes before we called it a night. (Hey, I DID say no to the fifth invite, and we were running so late, we all-but-missed the second party of the day too. I feel like I have to explain this to reduce my motherly guilt about over-scheduling my tots.) Much to his credit, as we staggered out of the last party of the day, Liam said to me with a bit of twinkly anticipation: "Mommy, we go to ANOTHER party now??". That's my soon-to-be pub-crawling boy!

"The Braun" tries to figure out that darn ball-popper. Success!

Anyway, it was so lovely to have some time to spend with Liam where he got to express himself without being strong-armed (hmm, strong-worded?) by Colin. And Eamon was a peach as usual so he hardly took away too much attention from "Little". Liam has taken a formal turn lately and only refers to his elder brother as "Colin Michael" and refers to himself as "James Arnold" (we don't know where the Liam went. Then again, we NEVER know why Liam does any of the things he does.) Conversations go like this: "Colin Michael, you no touch me!" "You being crabby, Colin Michael? Yeah, you CRABBY!" "You want to cook hot stuff with me, Colin Michael?" It's taken me a while to define it, but Liam's speech pattern is exactly like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his early years here before he mastered English and became a politician. Prepositions are to be used only under duress and pronouns used interchangeably at the speaker's whim. It's damn cute though. In a 2 year old.

Liam got his VERY OWN present. A rarity and much appreciated by him especially since it was a new Mickey Mouse that he LOVES. (He's gotten so good at enunciating that he calls him "Mickey Mouse" now and not "Hot Dog" anymore... sob, he's growing up...)
A big thanks to Jenn for the photos of Party#1 AND for Mickey!

This week Liam has done a ton of painting including a very... brown... Christmas stocking-shaped coin bank. Everything Liam does ends up brown, or black. (To put this in perspective, Colin would DIE in a pool of liquid horror before he let his paint colors mix together). He also helped me wrap a lot of gifts for his cousins ("Mommy, me ASK Emme if me open her presents?" "No, Liam, you can't." "Mommy, Ryan cry if me open his presents?" "Yes, Liam, he will". And on it goes...). He also cut me to the quick this evening. While he was napping, Colin and I innocently painted some sun catchers from the Dollar Store as our daily naptime project. Many hours later, after Liam woke up, had dinner, and played, he saw the drying suncatchers. A very confused look came over his face and he came right up to me and said, "Mommy, you do THIS without me???". He summarily broke my heart at that moment and this Mommy vowed get my ass out in the foot or more of new-fallen snow tomorrow to buy replacements. He was instantly mollified and told his brother: "See, Colin Michael? Mommy buy more for ME tomorrow at Dollar Store!!" If only $1 and a little Mommy time would keep him this happy forever.

Liam's dark inner feelings about non-yellow sippy cups.
Expressed in a finger paint medium.