The weekend before Christmas, Liam and I had the pleasure of taking the train to Baltimore in the wake of the biggest snow storm the east coast had seen in years. Overnight it had snowed over 20 inches in Baltimore and just under 20 in New York, and we were scheduled to take an early train out on Sunday morning. After a three hour delay at Penn Station we finally got on the train, and eventually (after further delays at each stop) made it to Baltimore. There, slowly, each of my siblings trickled in from their various cities around the U.S. after travel delays of their own. The next few days leading up to Christmas were a total whirlwind. Our house was jam-packed full of people and everyone was trying to get ready for Christmas. Liam was a little slow to adapt to the chaos. There were constantly new people around, he missed Jason who was still in New York, I was no longer enforcing much of a nap schedule, and he rarely had any sense for what was going to happen next. The result was a very clingy child who, after two nights, wanted to be awake at 2am each night. But despite his disorientation, Liam still seemed to be having fun. Generally, I think he liked having a lot of people around…as long as I wasn’t too far away. He especially liked it when everyone was paying attention to him, laughing at his silliness, and catering to his needs. The main highlights of the days leading up to Christmas were Jonas and Brittany’s engagement (WoooHooo!), seeing Liam’s extremely strong attachment to Klaus, Liam getting his first pair of real big-boy shoes, Jason’s arrival from New York, and Helki trying to trick Jonas, Brittany, and me into going to a “rave” with her.
As usual we spent Christmas Eve with my family and then split Christmas Day between Jason’s families. Although Liam was totally exhausted, he had a blast opening gifts. I’m not sure he totally understood the concept of tearing the wrapping paper off, but he took the time to play with each new toy that emerged. His play with each toy was only interrupted by the appearance of another new toy. I, however, watched in horror as I pictured toys spilling out of every corner of our tiny little apartment (to spare everyone the suspense, now that we’re home and unpacked, all of Liam’s new toys did end up fitting nicely into his space and we still have an apartment that looks like it belongs primarily to adults – just how I like it).
After Christmas Jason headed back to New York to work and Liam and I hung around Baltimore for a few days. On the 31st we all (Liam and me from Baltimore and Jason from New York) woke up early to catch flights down to Austin. As I woke up and looked out of the window at the freshly fallen snow, I slowly started to sense a pattern. Again, Liam and I were three hours delayed on the ground at BWI as we waited for plane de-icing. Liam was crying and arching his back and flinging his body out of our seat by the second hour. The lights on the plane were off so that people could sleep – and out of embarrassment I was *this* close to asking a flight attendant if Liam and I could just get off the plane (we were still at the gate after all). But once the plane was finally taking off, Liam settled in for a nap and things got a little better. We arrived in Dallas and met up with Jason – who had purposely missed his connecting flight to wait for us and had already rebooked us all on the next connection to Austin. As soon as I saw Pia and Jill waving to us in the airport in Austin, I felt like all the agony of the flight was totally worth it.
Jill had rented a house near the Lake in the beautiful Hill Country so that we would have a place to celebrate Josh’s birthday and New Years Eve. We spent two nights at the house. Jill had invited tons of people and we had a really fun (though changing) crowd of people each night. Everyone showed up with food and drinks and we grilled, played games, and counted down to the New Year. Liam never really warmed up to the large group because the faces were always changing. At night he was so exhausted from all of the activity that he zonked out, totally exhausted, in his borrowed pack-and-play which we had set up in the bathroom (to try and minimize the noise from downstairs). After the two nights at the lake house we spent two nights with Jill and Josh at their apartment. There Liam’s real personality reemerged as he began to feel more comfortable again. He really bonded with Jill and Josh. He also fell in love with their kitty, Lucky, who unfortunately did not feel the same about Liam. Lucky hid under the bed as Jill tried to coax him out by calling his name. It didn’t take long before Liam was mimicking her: “Duuu-tty”.
It was sad to leave Austin because it will probably be quite a while before I see Jill and Pia again. Those girls are like my sisters and I miss seeing them on a more regular basis. But who knows…. by the end of 2010 I should be rounding the final lap of my dissertation and therefore also making big career decisions. Who knows where life after grad school will take our little family ;)
The snow was almost as tall as Liam.
Just a couple of fiances!
Liam enjoying Christmas.
Liam and his best friend Maggy.
Bathing Cousins.
Reminding Liam of what trees are.
Liam hanging with the girls in the Texas hill country.
Liam hanging out waaay past his bedtime :)
You can't tell from the picture, but we were about to stuff our faces with eggs and waffles.
Chris let Liam play with his keys. They became buddies quickly.
1 comment:
I love Liam's face in the "Bathing cousins" photo!
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