Please Stand Up

     We resumed our music classes this week.  I couldn't believe Liam's transformation in his class.  He was eagerly pointing at the basket of animal puppets we use when singing "Old McDonald" where I vividly remember him being afraid of those same puppets on the first day of class back in September.  He also put out his hands to shake with the other kids during our "Good Morning" song where he used to pull his hands away when other kids or parents in the class would try and shake.  Liam really wanted to play with the balls on top of the cabinet, so much so that he said "ball" for the first time.  Even our teacher noticed how much Liam wanted to use the balls to sing "Roll Catch".

     We've been listening to lots of music and I really believe that music has a calming effect on Liam; at the very least we know he is enjoying his class and listening to music at home as he mimics one of the songs on Christian's old Music Together CDs ("bah, bah, bah, ba ba ba ba bah").  His vocabulary has grown so much in the last week: baby, cake (for rice cake), Paul (for the baby boy doll Paul), mommy (instead of ma and ma ma), bee (for Ruby), and stop (one of the more frequently used words used in our house while refereeing the two boys) adding to some of the words he already knows such as hi, Kee (for Kiki), cheese.  Liam is also moving to a new physical level.  On Monday he tried to stand up by himself and managed to stay up for a half second.  He loves playing with his Radio Flyer push wagon, cruising around the coffee table and standing on the couch.