I got my hair cut pretty short recently, something Liam wasn’t expecting when he came in the door two nights ago from his group-based trip to see polar bears. It was quite comical really the way he was looking at me. He grabbed my face and examined my head from every angle while running his hands through my hair. My older son Jacob told me he liked the cut earlier that day but Liam I could tell was none too thrilled. Several times on Saturday, Liam felt it necessary to express his deep displeasure by exclaiming “Mommy grow long hair” as though I could do this immediately. Today, he is no longer mentioning my hair but still examining me with a cute little look that can only be described as a combination of curious and searching. I think he’s debating whether or not he’ll be able to let this go without too much of a fuss. So far so good.

Liam has recently taken an interest in photography. While he’s always enjoyed looking at pictures and scrapbooking, it has only been in the last few months that he’s picked up our digital camera at home and attempted to take pictures. On his polar bear trip, he decided he wanted to take a camera along with him. So this morning, he was pretty obsessive about getting the pictures printed so he could do some scrapbooking. (By the way, his scrapbooking is hilarious! Liam has the unique ability of putting together a scrapbook faster than anyone else on the planet. You can sit beside him and watch him put it together but you must not advise or help the process in any way, shape or form.) Anyway, Liam tends to drive me batty when we are getting ready to go out, especially when he’s, shall we say, over-thinking a desired event or item. When he’s ready to go, he has the tendency of putting on his shoes and running outside and I don’t trust Liam alone in the yard because of his penchant for running onto the road. My older son Jacob is great in these situations because I usually have him run outside to watch Liam while I finish getting ready. The problem is that Liam’s anxiety rubs off on me. I find myself panicking when I’d normally get those pre-outing things done at my own pace. What I do is force a slower-paced calm that I’m not really feeling. I actually have to fight down the urge to run manically around the house trying to do ten things at once; instead, I walk slowly, ever so slowly, over to the first thing I need to do and so on. Does this work? Sometimes, depending on how much more I remember I have to do. The difference between me and Liam? Liam is selective and serial in his obsessions while I like to randomly obsess over everything. Go figure.