Liam is one!

Liam on the day of his birthday. Enjoying dirt, sunshine, fresh air, and hose water.

Liam's first birthday setup. It got so much messier once we added the birthday boy. :)

(Actually, Liam's birthday was on May 26, but I get around to posting when I can. Sometimes that's three weeks late.)
It's hard to believe that we've already gotten to spend a year with Liam! I went back and read my old blog posts because in the haze of sleeplessness and chaos, sometimes it's easy to forget the newborn days. He certainly has changed a lot!

Liam may have started out quietly, content to just look around and learn about the world, but that is certainly not Liam now. He is loud. No, he is LOUD like you wouldn't believe. I've never heard babies with this kind of volume. When he wants to be heard, or sometimes when he's just happy or excited, he BELLOWS. He can be heard outside across parking lots or in busy grocery stores. There is no mistaking Liam. He gets it from the Cespedes side, which he still very strongly resembles in looks. My guess is it comes from the Filipino side of the family, but all I know is the boy has lung power, and if he doesn't do something with it when he grows up (Singer? Actor? Coach? Drill sergeant?) it will be a waste of natural talent. Can you imagine if he had Filipino lung power and his dad's Welsh singing voice? That would be amazing!

Liam with his "mouth blanket," so named because
it's almost always in his mouth (and it smells like it!)
He wads it up in his mouth and
sucks on the silky edges like a pacifier.

Liam has a drop-dead gorgeous smile, the kind that makes older ladies stop to complement him all the time. He is very free with it too. He is shy with people at first, so he'll do a bashful smile and hide his face in my shoulder. He seems to have topped out at eight teeth for the time being. His eyes are giant and just incredibly, beautifully deep blue. He drools like a faucet. It never stops. He really hasn't grown much in weight since his six-month checkup, though he may be starting to stretch out a bit. Almost all Liam's development in the past few months has been cognitive, and it really shows!

Liam doesn't talk much, certainly not nearly as much as Diana did at his age. He can say "Mama," "Dada," "Dana," "dog," "cracker," and "TOAT!!!" pretty well. ("Toat" = toast, but it's always said with utmost excitement because it is one of his favorite things.) He gets along very well with hand gestures and monosyllables. I can almost always understand if he's gesturing for rice, Goldfish crackers, graham crackers, his water cup, his blanket, a book, etc. He very obviously understands what we say, though. If I ask him what he has in his mouth (there is almost always something), he'll smile at me and fish it out, then put it right back in. I can even tell him to give a toy to the dog and he'll comply without hesitation. He's a wiggly boy who doesn't like to hold still, so he's always standing up in his high chair. I just have to tell him to "sit down" and he does... at least for a moment, and then he stands up and starts jigging again in a happy, rascally way. I've taught him some unofficial sign language, waving his hands back and forth for "all done" (eating) and opening and closing his hands if he wants more of something. He picked it up pretty quickly.

And oh, does this boy have personality! He is always on the go now that he can crawl, pull himself up, walk along things, and walks while holding on to people's hands. He loves getting into everything, sometimes with the help of his sister, who he simultaneously idolizes and loves to antagonize. He loves to laugh. He loves playing with everyone and wrestling and roughhousing with daddy. He will happily go off and play with other kids (he adores big kids!), but if he's been apart from me too long, he'll crawl back for a quick reassuring snuggle and then go back to play. He rarely has patience for an entire book, especially when Big Sister is so much more interesting, but sometimes he'll just pull out book after book from his shelf and hand them to me with lots of energy and a "DA! DA!" that clearly means he wants to read a book. Mostly books keep his attention if there are lots of sound effects and hand gestures that go with them, and even then he only has the patience for a few pages. He may not speak much, but he does love making sounds for everything. If you hand him a toy car, he gets a fond, knowing twinkle in his eye and a little half-smile and he starts driving it around making car sounds. He indicates dogs by making a high-pitched bark, which is usually followed by a "shhhh!" and putting a little finger up his nose (to imitate us laying a finger in front of our lips) since barking dogs are almost always shushed. He likes making buzzing sounds for bees or flies. He's even invented a raspberry-like sound whenever I pick up a Kleenex since with allergy season I'm always blowing my nose.

Liam's eczema is virtually gone now that we've pinpointed most of the causes. When I was nursing him, too much dairy set it off. Now it mostly just appears to be acidic foods. If he eats anything with tomatoes, parmesan cheese, grapes, oranges, strawberries, peaches, craisins, lemon, etc. he'll break out. It's so much more manageable than Diana's eczema since we know what to avoid. If he eats contaminated food, he'll get some red bumps on his cheeks or look like he's been punched in the eyes and start scratching at his face, but it usually fades after a day. People mostly don't even notice he has eczema. I think his is a little more common for kids and I'm confident he'll outgrow it. He's also pretty allergic (though thankfully not anaphylactic) when it comes to peanuts, so it looks like we'll just never have peanut butter or peanut oil in our house again. Lol!

We certainly have a fun little boy. I've loved enjoying him as my "baby" this past year, and I can't wait to see how much he will grow and change in the next year.