Developing Talents

In an effort to plan out Liam's entire future - you know, career, hobbies, wife, number of kids, etc. - we have started introducing Liam to a number of things. Actually, that is fairly inaccurate, Liam introduces himself to a number of things and we inevitably end up running damage control. So, just to name a few....

Painting. With an Artist for a mother, this one was inevitable. It actually started with Denise giving Liam the brushes for her blush, and now he cries if he gets a hold of a brush and you take it away from him. However, his first stroke in this photo went right on Denise's painting, then the second stroke went on her face, but finally, on the third stroke he actually made a mark on the paper. Mostly he just likes to chew on the bristles. But we keep trying...

Dancing. The best part about this video is that this is literally the first time we realized that he likes to 'dance'. We have always danced with him to music and he seemed to enjoy it, but this is the first time that he volunteered to do it on his own. I was playing with this graphical-techno-beat-generator-doohicky when Liam came out to play. We have since realized that he dances almost every time he hears music, even if it isn't techno. In reality this is all just an attempt to get him to like our music enough that he doesn't ask to listen to Kids Bop tunes further down the road.

Playing the piano. This talent came about when he figured out how to pull himself up onto things, and remains to this day one of our go-to distractions for him when we need to get things done.

Playing the guitar. I am so proud. What you can't tell from this video is the hours of training I had to subject him to in order to get him to strum instead of grab and pull on the strings. Just today he helped me play the saz that Mark got me from turkey.

And of course, playing soccer. Sadly, when Liam starts playing for real I won't be able to run around the field swinging him at the ball. Luckily he should be able to walk by then (perhaps this is foreshadowing? stay tuned to subsequent posts!).