HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LIAM!

I have mixed emotions about today. I'm so totally excited to celebrate my adorable little boy who is turning so quickly into a little man, but also I am feeling sad. 2 years down of probably the sweetest age. I am lucky though. Liam is still a great cuddle bug. I love to squish my face against his soft cheeks. He's a good leaner. As soon as you pick him up he leans into you. He lets me give him lots of kisses. I can picture his cute sweet little straight-lipped smile and squinty eyes he makes when I ask him if I can have a kiss. What a handsome prince he is. Yesterday Liam and Julia were playing outside and Julia got hurt. Because I was too lazy to slide down our slide (which is currently in place of our stairs) I asked Liam to go give her a kiss. He quickly ran to her, wrapped his arms around her and gave her a big kiss on the lips, bowling her to the ground. When he started walking away Julia yelled, "Prince Phillip! Come back." Oh how we all love our sweet little prince.
This morning M,J,L and I were all playing on the bed and I did a deep (only slightly mischievous, not quite evil) laugh, "Ahaha" and Liam said, "you're not a giant!"
Liam loves dinosaurs. He plays with them all day and I love to listen to him making conversations between them. The dinosaur convos range from introductions, to fighting, to running away from bigger dinosaurs, to "will you be my friend? yes. oh, will you play with me?" One day I think I heard his dinosaurs telling the story of the 3 bears.
He loves to run and hide. He's always saying, "We gotta get out of here!"
He doesn't get hide and seek though. While counting he keeps his eyes open and follows you. When I try to get him to stay in one spot and keep his eyes closed he says, "I can't."
He says, "I can't" when I ask him to do anything he doesn't want to do.
He likes to buckle his own seatbelt. He LOVES "being the driver" and sitting in the front seat of the car. (not on of course. Just anytime I'm outside I let him play in the car.)
He finished his swimming course last week and did GREAT! I'm so proud of him, but now even more nervous around the water because he can't swim but now thinks that he can. He can hold himself against the wall of the pool and crawl along it. They called it monkey crawling and he loved it. It took a long time to convince him to put his head under the water but was all too eager to "swim" under the water from me to his teacher (just passing him from one person to next, always holding him). He absolutely loved that and monopolized the teacher's time and always wanted to be first. he loved swimming on his tummy and could kick, kick, kick like a pro. He didn't like floating on his back. We'll have to keep working on that. He loves to jump in the water.
Liam loves to play outside. He loves to go to the park. He loves to climb the stairs, run across the bridge and go down the slide. He does it over and over and over. He doesn't switch up his route either. He's got a routine he likes and he sticks with it.
One of his new loves is Dora the Explorer. Liam and Julia both love it. Liam was playing with a Dora toy that Julia wanted and she cried and cried because Dora is a girl so she wanted to play with Dora. Liam told her Dora is his favorite. However, when they play Julia is always Dora and Liam is always Boots (her sidekick). The other day Liam corrected me when i called Julia by her name. Liam told me, "No, her is Dora!"
He also likes to pretend he is Bolt. He told our neighbor he was Bolt, "a super super hero dog." Poor kid. People keep thinking he's saying, "i'm bored" instead of, "I'm Bolt." I absolutely adore the way he talks. He can't say his "k" sound. He replaces it with a "t." It took me a while to figure out he was telling me he was the "camp champ" which sounded a lot like "tamp, tiamp."