Megan&Marcus Co.

Liam adores his new baby sister, he loves holding her, he always says "Bless you A-dell." when she sneezes, he makes sure I don't forget the powder, and is always telling me 2 things: "A-dell so-so happy!" and "She likes me Mom!” I knew he would love her; he was being a fantastic big brother to her even before she was born. He would kiss my belly, sing her 'Bob the builder' into my belly button, and jiggle my stomach while yelling "Wake up A-dell!" I was a little nervous though that he would be jealous because he is my little cuddle bug and how would he feel once I couldn't hold him every time he wanted? When we brought our new baby home though everything was great, he was very go with the flow and seemed to be very well adjusted. Uuuuuuuuntil about 2 weeks ago. My sweetest baby Liam, I think, is turning into a twerp!
He has been (not horribly, but definitely markedly) defiant, argumentative, a bit moody, clingy and a little mean (mostly to Neil). I can ask him 5 times to...say, take his shoes to his room, he will ignore me to the point where I begin to doubt myself and I think "Maybe he really doesn't hear me". This worked for a while, I wasn't used to Liam ignoring me, but one day I decided to use the same tone of voice and ask him if he wanted a cookie, after I asked him to pick up his trains about 1/2 a dozen times. Lo and behold, he jumped right up for that. I'm on to him now. I think he is in that phase where he is 1/2 baby 1/2 "big boy". I remember when Neil was going through it, Ruth went on a play date with one of her friends, and Neil watched her leave. After she was gone he turned to me and asked if we could go to the D.I. and find him a soccer ball and a friend. *heartbreaking* Some girls at church are starting a joy school, I initially opted out because he is little, and I have a newborn, but I may have to re-think it. Quite possibly the worst thing is, he refuses to allow me to call him Mr. Baby. Yesterday was a hard day for my Mr. Baby...I can say that here, he can't read yet. (Though if you asked him, he would probably argue that he could.)
Neil got to go out to lunch with his friends Reese and Gage to McDonald's. When Reese's mom came to pick him up, Liam ran to his room and grabbed his shoes, then fell apart when I told him he got to stay with mom. I think my hormones are still out of whack; I'm getting misty again thinking of his disappointment. We had to go pick Neil up from Lunch early to take him to School, and when he got in the car with a new Lego car from his happy meal Liam couldn't understand why there wasn't one for him too. Liam also can't understand why I don't let him go to school with Neil and has little fits when we leave him. "Don't leave NEIL!" It smarts a bit to think that he doesn't like hanging out with mom anymore. I'm going out of my way to try to make "our time" the time both Ruth and Neil are at school, fun. But there is only so many times you can go to Sam's club to get samples and ogle the enormously disgusting cow tongues in a week! (like my 50 lb. bag of sugar? Go buy your sugar people, the prices are gong to go up! And I have a problem, I need to go on a sugar detox...once I'm done with this bag.) So Liam is getting horribly spoiled, I owe him a hot wheels car from Target that he wont let me forget about,(because of that darn happy meal toy Neil got), I buy him french fries whenever we drive by a "Burger's King!" I feel like I'm having an out of body experience watching myself at the drive through thinking "What are you doing, you never do this for the other kids! STOP!" but I can't resist him! You wouldn't either, I know it.
The final blow for Liam yesterday, yes, there is more, Neil had been talking up going to the "Nun-chuck buddy bash" at his karate class ALL week. It is basically babysitting from 6-11pm, where they play with the nun-chucks, video games, have pizza, do puzzles and in general had a fantastic time. Liam wasn't going, and I just couldn't tell him after the day he had; I made Marcus tell him. He was sitting in the car with Adele and I when Marcus took Ruth and Neil in. He made one last ditch effort to be allowed to stay, but I told him he was too little. He got all indignant with me and his little baby mouth said: "I not too little! I two and half - OK!" This time I had to chuckle. Marcus made it all better by taking us out to "Chicka-flay". I don't know how long it is going to take for him to be okay with not being the baby anymore, but I hope he still likes to sit with me in the rocking chair when he does.