A Case of the Mondays

The cold swept through our house over the weekend leaving everyone feeling pretty crummy. It seemed Em was the only one remaining unscathed, but as I woke her up for a minute feeding Monday night... Fever. Yuck!

Noah started with a cough mid-week. And, when I picked him up from school, his teacher commented on all the snot. I decided to take him to the doctor. The verdict was clear ears, noise and throat. Just a cold. Well, after I had it on Saturday and Daddy had it today, it looks like tonight's the night for Emma.

Noah did so great at the doctor. I think it helps that they've been talking about occupations at school. The last time Noah has been to the doctor was the day I went into labor for Emma. It was his 4-yr old check-up. I'm pretty sure we I had to hold him down to have his ears checked and for shots. This time, he did awesome! Our doctors name is a color, but Noah couldn't exactly remember which one. He kept calling him Dr. Green. Nope, wrong color, dude. He was great about opening his mouth to say "aaahh" and only fidgeted a little when he got his ears checked. Since, we were there, we went ahead with the flu shot. I was wondering if this would ruin our great doctor experience, but Noah took it all in stride. I told him he needed one more pinch. He was super compliant. Pulled down his pants and laid back for the nurse to give him the shot. He did say "ouch," but no tears. He definitely wanted a band aid. He sat up, pulled up his pants and said, "lets go get ice cream." Later when we were talking about it, he easily recalled his, "snoopy bandaid with outer space." And, his "running nose and cough." I was so proud of the way he handled the doctor today. All the way from the wait in the lobby, to the exam, to his flu shot. Great job, buddy!

I should have known he was fine... goofing off in the car today. And, I should have known Emma was bound to catch it. All the brotherly love Noah's been showing lately.

Field Trip - Mounted Patrol

Noah had a field trip on Friday at the Houston Mounted Patrol facility.  Mounted Patrol aka the horse police.  Teachers had prepped the kids by telling them to bring apples, carrots, and peppermints to feed the horses.  We left the house with a big bag of apple slices and a smaller bag of leftover candy canes.  Noah held onto the bags of goodies the entire ride to the facility.  He was super excited.  We arrived early and waited to head out to the barns. 

We sat in the meeting room while a police officer acting as our tour guide went over the rules.  If you have read this blog for any length of time or you know me, you will know… not a big fan of animals.  So, the further along Mr. Policeman went into his talk the more my apprehension grew.  “To feed the horse, place the food in your hand and offer with a flat hand.”  Okay.  “The horses are well trained, but are still wild animals.”  Yikes.   “We have video surveillance if anything goes wrong.”  Awesome.  I am thinking to myself.   I will feed the horses and not project my fears onto my child.  I will feed these horses and not project my fears.  I will feed these horses.

Noah was excited and ready with his bag full of apples.

Until we got to the barn, all those big animals ready to eat out of little hands was a bit much.  To my credit, I did feed about four horses, and then felt the need to hand sanitize in a major way.  I was carrying Emma in the front carrier, so I didn’t feel comfortable helping Noah give it a try.  I think he was relieved.  We made a game of walking up and down the barn naming all the horses.  Noah would say, “and this one is…” And, I would read off the name on the plaque.  He was becoming a bit more comfortable in the barn, and I have been on enough of his school field trips to now that a bit of participation is required. 

Here is Mrs. J showing Noah how to feed the horse.

Notice her hand is above his.  She is an awesome teacher.  They did this several times. 

Now it is Noah’s turn.  Getting ready.

I know him well enough to read his body language.  Not liking it at all.

But, he did it, and then ran over to me, and said, “Momma, hold me.”  I know how you feel buddy.

After feeding the horses, we headed out the barn doors to watch a few tricks from one of the horses.  I have to admit, very impressive.  

Noah even had a chance to pet the horse... with Mrs. J's help of course.  Overall, it was a great field trip and I am super proud of Noah's participation. 

Now I Know My ABCs...

Did I mention that Noah has been into the alphabet lately?  Here he is this aftenoon making letter shadows.  Pretty impressive, I think.  We'll start with an easy one. 

The letter "I."

A little bit more challenging. The letter "Y."

This is what you call complex shadow lettering.  The letter "K."

Tumble Tumble

Momma and her cat like reflexes (eye roll) could not stop this little guy from tumbling head first out of the car yesterday. Luckily, the running board somewhat broke his fall. He was such a big boy when he landed and totally held it together even though it must have really hurt. We ran inside for a cookie monster ice pack, some Neosporin and chocolate milk. This one's going to take a while to heal. He wouldn't be a little boy if he didn't have some battle scars.

Five Things Friday 01.26.12 - 55 Months

Since I've become a mother of two, my blogging has fallen a bit to the wayside. When Noah was little, I posted cute little stories punctuated with even cuter pictures. Emma's posts are mostly lumped into monthly updates, but at least I'm committed to it. Noah on the other hand, the busiest of them all has been sorely lacking in updates. So, I present to you, Noah - 55 months.

1. Bring on the Underwear. Pull-ups are out. It has all gone fairly smoothly. #2 issues are still being worked out, but underwear is here to stay. What a relief!

2. Alphabet Craze. From an early age, we limited Noah's ABC exposure. We knew it was something he picked up easily and he had the potential to perseverate on. As he gets older, it's more difficult to control how much exposure he has to things like letters and numbers. He is getting to the age where kids start to read and pre-academics is part of his curriculum. And, I also think at some point we just decided to let it go because he seriously loves the alphabet. He has tons of words memorized and does a really good job at guessing what most common nouns and verbs are. He knows a multitude of versions of the alphabet from books, songs, games, and shows. Each one being its own separate alphabet. This child's memory amazes me. His latest craze is the abc's from the show signing time. Nice work for fine motor.

3. Hey Jealousy. We've had a bit of a rough couple weeks. It's a bit of little boy, a bit of expressive language, and probably a bit of jealousy. These feelings have translated into some tantrums and out of character behavior. Just the other day he wrote all over my car seat with green marker. This coming from a child who carried around markers for three years and never wrote on anything.

* Speaking of which, it's been a couple months now, that the pencils have gone by the wayside. Yay!

He's quicker to disconnect when things get boring or uncomfortable or pretty much anytime he doesn't want to do what he's asked. It seems to be often lately, and I hope it's just a phase. I would really like my sweet boy back.

4. Occupations: I'm a reporter. For Christmas, Santa brought Noah an occupation puzzle. (Another alphabet he can memorize.) The R is for reporter. A blond guy with a pencil and a notepad. When he sees it, he says, "It's Noah. I'm a reporter."

5. Catch Phrase. Noah learns language by memorization. It's not that dissimilar from you and I picking up words and phrases from things we hear. But Noah does it for everything, and he copies inflection. His most recent functional phrasing is that instead asking for something by saying "I want _____ ." He says, "I want that ____, and I want it now." He's done this enough times that I know he'll use it consistently a bit and file it away for a future usage. Another one he's been using lately, is "I never" and "I'll prove to you" both said in gruff angry voice with some finger pointing. This is straight from Dr. Seuss's The Zax and most often come out when he's angry.

Driving in My Car

So, where are we headed this time, Momma?

Pick up brother from school. Yay!

As many roads as we run, I am so blessed with a good car rider.



Big Brother-Saurus

Little sister is everywhere. As active as Noah, but at a way earlier age. She requires a ton of attention. I'm happy that he doesn't act out towards her, but I know he feels it. I get a bit of "nooo... don't feed Emma."  I always make him give me an Emma-check when we are riding in the car.  "Eyes open or closed?"  I'll ask.  It used to be an easy question because she was always sleeping, but lately, he actually has to look her way.  And, usually the answer is "Emma's awake."   At home, she's on the loose, and she rathers his toys to anything pink or baby that's for her.  Funny, it's vice versa for him.  As she crawls toward him and whatever he's doing, I usually get a "yikes! Emma!" Most recently, he's become very affectionate towards her. Picking her up and squeezing her tight.  I keep a bit of a close eye, but so far I've been pretty happy with his sweet displays of affection.  This afternoon, he was taking a little down time with his IPhone when she happened upon him. 

Hey brother... what are you doing over there?

Let me see that.

Momma... Noah's not sharing. 

Alright, Emma.

Get over here.

How I Wish I Had a Sarah Claire

If I still lived back home, I would snag this up and coming babysitter quick as lightning.  She just passed her CPR and babysitting training classes.  She was so excited to play with baby Emma, and Emma loved all the attention. 

Are you sure no plans to move to TX, O family?

Thanks Sarah Claire for playing with Emma at the bounce house.  You are going to make an awesome babysitter!

Sky High

This was the weekend of visitors.  First off was Aunt Mo and the boys and Sarah A. and the girls, along with other friends from LA.  There was tons of fun to be had in Houston for the kids ages 6-16, and it all started at Sky High Sports.  It was our first time visiting too, and Noah had a blast.  After 2.5 full hours of running and jumping with only a couple brief water breaks, he walked off the mats, and said, "Momma, let's go get food."  The boy knows what he wants.  Here are my favorite pictures from afternoon of bouncing. 

For the party, our group had the dodgeball court reserved.  Noah did lots of running from tramps to mats and lots of dodging of big kids and balls.  He only got trampled about 1.5 times. 

All the kids ran out on the tramps and after about 2 minutes were dripping with sweat.  There was a lot of bouncing going on.  Noah played so hard and was totally pooped by the time we left. 

I'm pretty sure he had a blast though. 

One of his water breaks.

Seth getting air.

High five.

Mad skills.

Great party Zack!

And by special request, here is Z doing his back flip. 

Emma - Seven Months

She crawls.  She waves. And, just today, she claps.  Seven months old and clapping.  Noah and I were singing “if you’re happy and you know it,” and she was watching us.  And, then she mimicked our clapping.  What a baby genius our sweet girl is.  Honestly, I have no frame of reference for all this social behavior.  Joint attention.  Reciprocal language.  As a parent, these have always been things that I’ve had to work really hard for.  And, with Emma, it is as if God touched His hand on her to say, “this you do not have to worry about.” 

But, isn’t there always something to worry about?  With Emma, it’s slow weight gain.  I feel like she is so busy crawling and being social that eating is just not a priority. She is still hanging on to the bottom of the growth chart, somewhere between the 3-5 percentiles.  We are going to meet with a pedi GI doc in a couple months to rule out anything major.  She is still exclusively breastfeed, and Dean dropped this on me the other day, “hey, do you know the definition of insanity?  Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  Thanks Albert Einstein.  So, I’ve started regularly taking fenugreek which makes me emit a nauseating smell of maple syrup.  Seriously, I keep wondering who had pancakes for breakfast.   I’ve started a bit of baby food and am hoping to encourage more of the higher calorie fare.  Avocado is next on my list, and finally I have found a bottle she will take.  It’s more of a training cup with a bottle like spout.  It’s funny, when I nurse her; she eats best in complete quiet with little distraction.  I finally got her to take a bottle by sitting her upright in front of her big brother.  The more distraction the better.

She's not a big fan of spoon feeding, so I mashed up a banana on her tray.  I figured she could rub her fingers in it, and sooner or later she'd put her fingers in her mouth for a taste. 

 

She's such a happy baby, and it wasn't until this past weekend that I had any idea how attached she was to her Momma.  Aunt Mo, Sarah A, the boys and the girls were in town, and Emma shed more than a few tears when Momma was out of sight.  I'm afraid that Aunt Mo got the worst of it.  It's not her fault she sounds almost exactly like Momma to E's little ears.  Unfortunately, once she turned around for a peek, Emma knew that those arms did not belong to me.  I've never seen such tears from this little one.  Sweet little one... spoiled for her Momma. 

Finally, what a busy little girl Emma is turning out to be.  I guess I can go ahead and check "sitting" on the developmental checklist, but she seriously doesn't stay still long enough to tell.  In closing, at seven months, the number one thing I can say about our girl is that whether crawling or pulling up or rolling over... whatever the case she NEVER. STOPS. MOVING.  I wouldn't be too surprised if walking is in the very near future.

Swingin'

While Noah was at school, Emma and I hit the park with some friends.

Emma's first time on a swing.

Not too sure about it. 

It looks like it has potential.

Happy Girl

One of the things every mother wishes for is for her children to be happy.

This little one is well on her way.



And that makes me very happy. 

Play With Your Friends

About a year ago, I asked four of my very good friends, if they'd like to start an informal play group. I'd been part of playgroups before, active ones with lots of fun activities. Big groups with lots of different faces at each meet up. I decided that in order for Noah to make some friends, he needed repetition and consistency. So, I asked my friends. Seven kids. Five boys. Two girls. Once a week at a different house each time.

The kids have become close. I think it's been good for all of them. And, for us mom's too. It's pushed Noah a bit. And, he's grown a lot socially in the past year. He's definitely the loner of the group, but the kids are so sweet and either don't notice or don't mind the disconnect.

Today was our day to host. Noah is always super excited to "play with your friends," but usually when they're upstairs, he's down, when they're inside, he's out. But lately, he's been trying to connect a bit more. He's becoming more and more aware of the kids and more interested in playing what they are. As always with Noah, it a consistent move forward. Two great moments today:

One friend got upset because Noah was doing something. He started crying. Noah went up to him, and said, "M... Why are you sad?" (a script from Yo Gabba Gabba, Party in my Tummy, but completely appropriate) and "Are you ok, M?"

Second, another friend arrived late to the backyard wearing his cowboy boots and holding one of Noah's toy robots. I told Noah to tell him hello. He walked up to him and said, "Hi H! What are you wearing? Cowboy boots. Wow! And a robot. Cool." There was no pause or opportunity for H to respond, but definitely made me proud of my sweet boy and his attempt at socialization.