Happy Birthday, Liam Og!

Today Liam turned 10. Ten!!! It's hard for me to believe I have two children in the double digits.

When I was pregnant with Liam, I had had an ultrasound done and one day I had the most frightening phone call. My doctor was on holidays and this woman says to me she is filling in for her. Straight to the point she says she has the results of the ultrasound and the baby's head is shaped like "a lemon." Now in my head I am picturing a football, and if Family Guy had been around then, my image would have been of Stewie. She says I need to come in for some tests, it could be Down Syndrome, or possibly Spina Bifida, although the spine looked fine in the ultrasound. Waiting for those results was the worst week of my life. I had to have another ultrasound, where I found out the sex, and do some blood tests. The ultrasound was fine, I was told that it must have just been an inexperienced tech and a bad camera angle. Still, even though you know, you spend the next 5 months wondering "what if...?"

But he was fine.

Liam was an angel of a baby, as long as he was near his mother he was perfectly content. He was also my easiest labour, so I will forever be grateful to him for that. Only 9 hours, he was. Induced, and they had to use a vaccum to pull him out, but still easy.

He weighed 9lbs 9 oz. and I am sure a good three pounds of it was in his cheeks, they were that big. He was a lovely baby, the softest skin I had ever felt in my life.

He was a very pleasant child, and remained that way until he was 6 or so. I don't know what happened then. He went through a major personality change when he started Grade 1. He had always hated school, cried everytime he went to 3 year old playschool right up until Febraury, when he came in the morning of his birthday and said to his teacher "I'm four!" He was great for the rest of the year. I thought he's find 4 year old playschool great, but cried most days up until November. He thought Kindergarten was okay, but was really only there for playtime and to see his friends. Grade 1 was a whole different story. His dad and I had seperated, so there was alot of stress there for him and he was struggling in school. He also had to go through alot of testing to see if there was something wrong. He hated that. Did you know that when a psychologist does testing they comment in their report on the child's appearance? I had no clue, but thank God he looked good that day. I would hate to be that parent who's report said "Joe was wearing ripped sweatpants and had remainders of his lunch on his face." Which could quite often be Liam, I am sure, with the exception of the sweatpants. Jeans or trackies, and if they are ripped it's even better. In his world, anyway. So anyway, losing track of the story here, Grade 1 was hard. And he became a wee little shite. It didn't last very long, thankfully. In general, he's a pretty good kid. Except that he now refuses to clean his room. Or the basement. And he won't do his home reading. And he will only wear soccer jerseys (it was painful for me the day he discovered his Liverpool shirt no longer fit, and I am sure it was even more painful for the people who had to see him in a too small shirt.) And he has this weird obsession with money. And Yu-gi-oh cards (which he spent $60 of his birthday money on.) But you know, I still am rather fond of him.

Oh, and his middle name isn't really Og. That's what my dad calls him. It used to be Liam Mor, because he was such a big baby, but he's a short kid. Takes after the mother, not the father. His 2 year old projection was only 5'6", whereas Taylor's was 5'11". Poor thing. I wonder if that really is true. Hopefully not, for his sake. And the sake of my future grandchildren.