Liam is at the age where his vocabulary and his ability to communicate are exploding.  He adds new words and phrases to his repertoire every single day, and it can be hard to keep up.  It often happens that we suddenly understand something he says, and realize that he’s been saying that same thing for days, with an increasing level of frustration on his part, since he’s talking and we’re not getting it.

Today, we had another one of those.  The boys were playing together this afternoon, and Benjamin looked over and said, “Liam, I love you”, to which Liam replied, “I too!”  Oh my goodness.  I was in mommy swoon overdrive when I realized he was saying, “I love you, too” in Liam-ese (and that I’m pretty sure I’ve heard him say it before, I just hadn’t made the connection).  I wanted to be sure, though, so (good scientist that I am) I tested it — I asked B to say it again.  Same response.  We did this a few times (B loved it) and it worked, every time.  By the time we’d been through this a few times, we were all giggling, smiling and hugging.  It was super awesome.

And, of course, I wanted to hear it for myself, too!  So, I tried:  “Liam, I love you”.  Nothing.  Tried again.  Nothing.  Hmm.

B wanted to help, so he said, “Liam, do you love Mommy?”  No response.  Hmm.  Ok, no problem.  Part of me selfishly wanted my own expression of Liam love, but I can’t deny that it’s pretty darn sweet that his first dozen or so declarations of “I love you, too!” were set aside solely for Benjamin.  So, it was ok.

But then, B tried, “Liam, do you love Daddy?” to which we got an enthusiastic nod.  Hey!  Wait a minute!  He wasn’t even THERE.  He was at work, being all productive and stuff.  And there I was, sitting on the floor, trying to not be jealous and failing miserably (and feeling pretty silly and selfish for actually feeling jealous, which I was . . . a little).

It was ok, though — throughout the rest of the afternoon, I was treated to the, “Liam, I love you” from Benjamin followed by, “I too!” which certainly made my day about 1,000,000 times over.

Then Dan got home, and he tried.  “Liam, I love you!”  “I too!”  Hey!!!

But then, this evening, after dinner, I tried again, and finally got my own, “I too!”  (Happy mommy.)