The Latest Trick

Noah has always loved the water.  Swimming, bathtime, the sprinkler, the toilet, Rudy's water bowl... You name it, he will play in it.  His latest water accomplishment is floating on his back.  Obviously in the bathtub, he is lying on the bottom of the tub, but he does it in the pool as well, with Floaties of course.  He will arch his neck all the way back until his head is completely underwater.  Then he will come back up and just laugh.  He thinks it's great.  And I almost forgot, last week he jumped off the diving board for the first time.  Like I said, he loves all things water.  

18 month stats

We finally went to the doctor today for Noah's 18 month check-up.  Here are the stats:

Weight:  29lbs (80%)

Height:  2ft 9.3in (75%)

Head: 49cm (75%)

He did okay.  This was the first time he has ever experienced any stranger anxiety with the doctor, but I guess an 18 month streak of complete cooperation is pretty good. He got one shot which he of course cried for, but quickly bounced back with some Handy Manny stickers and a trip outside.  Last check-up until TWO!  He is getting so old!

Pizza, pizza

Noah has never been a fan of pizza.  He has never really liked it (Not totally convinced that he is mine) and has definitely never said the word.  The other day, I wasn't feeling well and didn't feel like making dinner so I asked Brian if he would pick up a pizza on the way home.  

 As soon as Brian stepped out of the car with the box in hand, Noah started exclaiming "Pizza, pizza!"  We sat down at the table to eat, and he put away almost two whole pieces.  I'm not sure where this child came from, but I think there is more of a chance of him being ours now.  By the way, if you have not had a Hot-N-Ready from Little Caeasars before, you are missing out.  So good, so easy, and so cheap.  Yummy!  

18 Months

A year and a half.  Really?!?!  Wow.  I am a little slow in getting this up, but he hasn't changed too much in the last week and a half. :)  Here's what he can do...

-  He has added several words to his vocabulary.  He can say Mommy, Daddy, Rudy, doggie, bird, ball, Bible, car, moon, choo-choo (for train), Uh-oh, poo-poo, tee-tee, something that means milk but does not sound like it at all, cheese (both the food and smile at the camera variety), bye-bye (he gets very excited and into it), hi (which he likes to say over and over), keys, shoes, hop, helicopter (pronounced ha-cop), and cheetah (I know, random).

-  He knows several body parts... belly button (his first to learn), eyes, ears, nose, mouth, teeth, head, hair, feet, toes, hands, fingers, and I think arm.  We are working on knees.

-  He loves to make animal sounds.  He can do dog, cow, horse, elephant, monkey, owl, snake, sheep, bird, chicken (sort of), and lion.  I think he is starting to do cat now too, but it doesn't really sound like a cat.  

-  He is still not much of a climber.  He loves to be on the couch/bed, but never tries to get on them himself.  

-  He is somewhat of a picky eater.  He eats A LOT of the foods he likes, but doesn't like to branch out to much.  He loves cheese, cheese quesadillas, mac n cheese (are you seeing a trend?), spaghetti, most fruit, and is pretty good with vegetables now, at least with green beans, peas and lima beans.  He is not a big fan of meat and he doesn't always like sweets.  Sometimes he eats them, sometimes he doesn't.  Weird.  He is a very suspicious eater.  He won't try new things if we just give them to him.  We have to leave them on his plate on the fork for him to examine and study before trying them.  You would think we were trying to poison him with the way he carries on when we are trying to get him to try new foods.  His two favorite foods right now would probably be mac n cheese (which he can eat an entire box in one setting if given the opportunity) and amazingly enough, lima beans.  He can put away some lima beans!  This picture makes me laugh because there used to be peas and carrots on his tray.  He ate every single pea and left every single carrot.

-  He is still a good sleeper.  He usually goes to bed around 8:30 and wakes up about 7:30ish.  He just recently transitioned to one nap a day and it is usually 2.5-3 hours.  Fantastic!

-  He has been getting his molars in now for about a month.  They have come one at a time, just drawing out the agony and crankiness.  I barely knew when he was getting his other teeth, but the molars have been a different story.  Awful!  

-  He has started becoming a little awnry at times.  He likes to scream, an act that we are trying to discourage, so if you see us and he is screaming, please don't laugh.  I know it is funny, but please don't egg him on.  He doesn't need any encouragement.  He also likes to hit when he doesn't get his way, another act we are trying to discourage.

-  He still bites some, but not as much as before.  Still only Brian and I and only when he is wrestling with Brian or really tired.  

-  He absolutely LOVES Rudy.  They are pretty much best friends.  They play together, wrestle together, sometimes eat together when Noah sneaks into the kitchen to get a handful of Rudy's food.  Noah loves to get a goldfish in his hand, show it to Rudy, and then run away as fast as he can holding it out taunting Rudy and laughing hysterically the whole time.  His other favorite thing to do is walk Rudy.  When we go for walks, he always has to be holding the leash.  Sometimes if Noah is driving us crazy, we make Rudy "take one for the team," leash him up and let Noah walk him around the house.  Sometimes I worry that Noah is driving Rudy crazy, but Rudy seems to enjoy the playmate and is very protective of him when strangers are around. 

-   He loves the show Handy Manny.  He has the toolbox and tools and he carries them around with him all the time.  Everytime the tools sing on the show, he starts dancing.  His other favorite toy would definitely be his trains.  He plays with his train table almost all day long.  I can't figure out why kids like trains so much.  It's not like they see them a whole lot in real life.  It is a mystery to me.  He always tries to put the cars on the train track.  They fit, but they don't have magnets to hold them to the other cars and he gets really frustrated when they get left behind.  He still loves to play with all his Little People animals from Noah's ark and the barn.  He knows the names of all the animals.  He can't say them, but if you ask him for a particular animal, he usually gets it right and brings it to you. 

-  He loves music and loves to dance.  

-  He loves to give kisses.  They are open mouthed, slobbery kisses.  When he does, there is always the fear that he is going to bite down as hard as he can on your cheek.  He rarely does though. :)

-  He loves to read.  He will go back into his room by himself and just read books.  His favorite books right now are "Before I Go to Sleep," which he got from my mom and "My Very Own Name" from Aunt Beth.

We love you Noah and have so much fun with you!  I am so grateful that God has given us the chance to be your parents.  Although everyday is not always fun and easy, we treasure every moment we have with you.  Thank you for being our son.  

After I wrote this, I realized that all the pictures were in his high chair.  I don't think it is because we spend that much time eating, although he is no lightweight.  I think it is becaue that is the only time I can get him still long enough to take a picture.  One of these days I will actually take him to the doctor for his check-up and get some stats on height and weight, but we have just been so busy lately.  

Wow.

I never knew a haircut could be so traumatic, but apparently it is.  I decided today that I was tired of hearing Brian say that Noah had a mullet and a rattail and started calling haircut places to find out how much they were and if they cut 18 month old hair.  First I called the kid place, "Pigtails and Crewcuts."  I thought it was a little expensive so I kept calling...  Sports Clips was three dollars cheaper and told me that since it was his first haircut he could get the MVP package for the price of a haircut.  Hmmm, "What is in the MVP package?" I asked.  The response was, "we give him a hot towel to put on his face"... Yeah that will go over well.  No thank you.  Next was Wal-Mart.  It was six dollars cheaper, but I had my reservations.  The last place I called, the girl told me that they would start over his ears because that is usually the spot that irritates them the most.  If he freaked out, then they would just stop because their "scissors can cut to the bone" and they would "hate to cut his ear off."  Yeah me too.  I talked to my sister-in-law who said that it was worth the extra six dollars to take him to the kid place so we loaded up and headed there.  He was so excited when we got there because they had a train table to play with.  In hindsight, perhaps we should have waited to let him play with it so we wouldn't have to rip him away from the train to get his hair cut.  

Mesmerized by the train.

Cheese!!!  So happy, for now...

Miss Lisa came along for the adventure and thankfully so.  She became the official photographer and bubble blower.  I don't think she knew what she was getting into.

The happiest face we got, in the first 30 seconds before he realized what was going on.

 Things started going South after that...

This picture cracks me up because I am so over the top excited and happy and he just isn't.

Resorts to trying to dive out of the chair.  I think he is trying to spit out some hair that he got in his mouth.

The next three are definitely my favorite.  Bless sweet sweet Shelly who stuck with him through this and kept cutting away, unphased by the screams and attempts to break free.  By the way, my child was the only one in the store that was screaming.  I just don't get how everyone else has such perfectly calm collected children.  What am I doing wrong?

My sister-in-law had told me previously that they had TV screens for the kids to watch at the place she goes.  Afterward I told her that they didn't have them at this place, but from the previous two pictures, it appears as though they did.  I guess maybe he wasn't quite bad enough to pull out all the stops. :)  We only got suckers and bubbles which, as you can see, were not completely effective.

Things got a little better once the cutting stopped, but were much improved once he was out of the chair and had some Cheerios and water.  Still not happy though.

After the haricut, we went to Panera where Noah was treated to his all time favorite, Mac n Cheese and he was allowed to eat it however he wanted, aka with his hands.  

After lunch we headed home for a nap.  He was asleep before we pulled out of the parking lot.  I guess 20 minutes of crying, screaming, and flailing your body around uncontrollably will tire you out.  Sweet sweet Shelly told me to give them a couple of tries before I gave up and went somewhere else.  Don't worry Shelly, we will definitely not be going anywhere else, for the sake of embarassment and Noah keeping both his ears.  

17 months and 22 days

Last week, Noah was sick for the majority of the week.  He was already a little cranky because of teething and the splitting headache from his aforementioned tumble off the chair, but add 102 fever to that and it is just plain unbearable.  He ran fever for about 3-4 days straight and was miserable.  The only silver lining for me, I guess, is that for the first itme in his life he actually wanted me.  The downside was that he wanted me ALL DAY LONG and did not ever want me to put him down.  I took him to the doctor early on to have his ears checked out- they were fine probably just a virus.  And of course I, being the pediatrician, accepted that as true and didn't worry about his ongoing fever... FALSE.  I would love to say that I gleened from all my training and knowledge and applied what I would tell every other kid walking through the door to my own child, but that would be a lie.  Throughout those four days, I diagnosed him with a cheek abscess, a brain abscess, mastoiditis, and meningitis.  Even Brian was having to tell me that he was alright and to settle down (usually the roles are reversed).  

Why is it that all training, knowledge, logic, and reason fly out the window when it is your own kid?  I can only hope that the next time I won't be so crazy.  One possible bonus from Noah's sickness and Mommy phase is that after 17 months and 22 days, yesterday he FINALLY said 'Mommy.'  I heard it multiple times and it was witnessed by Brian as well.  He may never say it again, but I know that he can and that he does in fact know who I am. :)

Not the best quality of pictures, but good enough to show that he is defintiely much happier now.

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A couple nights ago, we decided to wash the car together as a family.  It ended up more like one of us wash while the other watch Noah.  He was pretty excited about all of it, especially the puddle that formed in our driveway.

His favorite thing to do was actually to lie down in the puddle, but this was as close as we got to capturing that.

Finally, he started pulling his own weight and contributing to the car washing efforts.

He was very proud of himself for handing the sponge to Daddy.  

It was good to be outside.  It has been so hot lately that we haven't been out nearly as much and we have all been missing it.  Trying to continue our nightly outdoor activities, we went on a walk the next night.  It was not nearly as enjoyable as spraying each other with the hose while washing the car.  Brian keeps coming up with ways that we can install a pool in our backyard so we can go swimming every night.  It is obviously not going to happen, but wouldn't it be nice.

Brian's Birthday

Brian's birthday was this past Sunday.  We went to church, went out to eat, and then just hung out at the house for a while.  In the late afternoon, Brian's sister and her family came over for some cake and ice cream.

Noah mesmerized with the candles.

Noah's cousin and buddy Solomon.  Noah still mesmerized by the candles.

Brian's cake with all 32 candles on it.

Blowing out the candles.  Noah still mesmerized.

Victory!!!

After cake and ice cream, we all loaded up (all nine of us) in Rob and LaRhesa's van and headed to the ball park to watch the Traveler's play.  A little history, Brian grew up going to the Traveler's games.  His dad was the team chaplain, and when Brian was younger, he was the batboy.  When we started dating and early in our marriage, we would go to the Traveler's games a lot.  A few years ago, they built a new ballpark in North Little Rock.  We haven't been to very many games since then.  It was not as convenient to get to, you had to pay for parking, and we were just down-right boycotting the closing of Ray Winder field.  Rob and LaRhesa had eight free tickets and wanted to take us for Brian's birthday so we went.  Immediately we were loving the new park.  We had never been to a game with a child and soon learned that the berm section is perfect for them.  

Noah picking flowers.

Fern, Solomon, Tessa, Brian, and Noah watching the ominous sky.

Under the shelter during the rain.  This picture cracks me up because the girl in it looks just like my sister.  

There was a little bit of a rain delay, but it didn't last too long and then the skies cleared and it was a perfect night.  

Noah supervising the tarp removal.

Noah and Solomon getting the water off the chairs for everyone after the rain.

After the rain, we had so much fun.  The kids ran and played.  We ate hot dogs and polish sausage.  Oh, and watched some baseball.

I am not sure if Noah is getting in trouble in this picture or getting a lesson in the game of baseball.

Watching the game together

This picture didn't turn out very well because I was zoomed in all the way on my phone, but I took it to show how Noah would clap after every play.  He loved it!

He was very busy all night running around the grass.  

His new hairdo courtesy of his cousin Tessa.

Everything was perfect, UNTIL about nine o'clock that night.  Noah was sitting on one of the metal chairs in the front row.  We looked away for one second and he decided to nose dive off the chair onto the concrete.  By the time Brian picked him up (which was about 1 second later), he already had a knot the size of a golf ball on his forehead.  He scraped his face on the concrete and nailed his head on the corner of it.  Poor baby!  We ended up leaving the game after that to the sound of Noah's screams, all the fun forgotten in the moment.  After we got home, he perked up some and started acting a little more normal.  We didn't have any Motrin in the house so I headed to the store while Brian played with Noah.  Thank goodness for 24 hour Kroger!  We kept Noah up for a couple hours just to make sure he was okay and acting normal. He went to sleep a little after 11:00.  This is a picture of him right before bed.

By the time he went to bed, I was exhausted!  When we went to bed, I was out and didn't move until the next morning.  I learned the next morning that Brian had not been able to sleep very well all night because he was worried about Noah and had been up three times during the night to check on him.  He is such a great Daddy.  Noah has since been pretty cranky, a combination of teething, having a cold, and a huge headache I imagine.  He has been through a lot lately and I hope he feels better soon.  It is so hard to watch him not feel well and not know why.  The good news is, his head is looking much better now and we did actually have a good time at the ball game.