Walk Along the River, Part One

My dad had a business trip in San Antonio over the weekend, so I decided Noah and I needed a change of scenery.  I loaded up the car on Friday afternoon, and we headed west.  The drive was painless.  Noah is and always has been such a great traveler.  Our accommodations were awesome.  A small hotel, right on the Riverwalk.  The Watermark.  I pulled up to the curb on the alleyway/one-way street, rolled down the passenger window and told the nice valet that I was checking in and I was loaded down with luggage and a two-year-old.  Do little ones require a ton of stuff or what?  We had one medium sized suitcase, a pack and play, computer bag, diaper bag, a backpack of toys and books, a stroller, two cloth grocery bags filled with milk, juice, peanut butter and jelly, bread, sippy cups, etc.  See what I mean... a ton of stuff. 

Noah and I checked in at the front desk and headed up to our rooms.  Oh, the magic of a fresh hotel room, and all the treasures you can find inside. 

Beautiful accommodations.  We shared an adjoining suite with my parents... all the more space to run and jump.

Since Noah has counting by tens down, he has decided to move on to telling time.  Just kidding... I hope.  For your information - If your hotel ever has these cute little vintage clocks, don't be fooled.  They may or may not still be fully functioning alarm clocks that may or may not be set for 4:30 AM, and that may or may not inadvertently wake up your two-year-old at said hour... I'm just saying.

It has been a while since I've stayed in a hotel, and it totally slipped my mind that hotel rooms are teeming with pens.  Pens just happen to be Noah's stick of choice of late, and pens just happen to be where Momma puts her foot down these days.  Let's just say that taking away all the pens does not make the vacation highlight reel. 

Hello.  Housekeeping, please.  Umm... yes, can you send up some more writing materials, stat?

Look Who's Talking 01.13.10

For a child that doesn't actually communicate verbally, Noah never... NEVER... stops talking.  If there is not a sip or a snack in his mouth, there is constant stream of words coming out.  And, sometimes, if I am lucky, I can actually understand what he is saying.

Tonight while I was tossing grapes in the air and catching them in my mouth, Noah said, "Uh oh. Spaghetti-O's"  when I missed and a grape fell on the floor.  Not sure he knows what a spaghetti-o is, but I do know he got that saying from me.

****

He is into labeling everything as Momma's.  He reaches for my watch off the bathroom sink, "Momma's clock"  He grabs my huge Sonic diet coke off the counter, brings it to me and says, "Momma's drink." 

****

He counts to 10 in Spanish.  I have no idea where he picked this up from, but I mentioned it to one of the administrators at his preschool.  She said that Noah does have a bilingual little girl in his class, so one of the teacher's sometimes speaks to her in Spanish.  During art this week, his teacher started talking to Noah in Spanish, labeling colors.  We'll have to wait and see if his red becomes rojo. 

****

Noah and I sing all the time.  Lately, he is singing all the words to Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas, Somebody to Love from the Glee Soundtrack, Skinnamarink which he sings while I do the hand motions, and the "oh, oh, oohhhs," from Beyonce's Single Ladies complete with dancing and hand shaking.

Canaille

Pronounced KAH NAHY.  It's from the Cajun French dictionary meaning mischievous. It's a word my grandmother sometimes uses to refer to my nephew Zachary.  My sister threw it out there on her blog post about Z today.  It was so cute, funny and apropos that I thought it only fitting that in honor of his birthday, I give you a perfect example. 

Zachary is my godchild.  Dean, coincidentally, has a godchild almost exactly the same age, so for our wedding we asked both of them to be ringbearers. 

Here are Zack and Don at the age of four.  How cute are they?

 During our vows, the priest invited the entire wedding party to stand on the altar. He made sure to include everyone, even the little guys.  They look a little bored in this picture, but don't you worry.  Little Zack's mind is in motion.  Notice his right foot.

 All you need to do is take a step down.  Then take a step up.  Step down.  Step up.  Come on Don! This is so much fun!

 OK... if you say so.  This does look like fun. Up. Down. Up. Down. 

 Oops.  Were we not supposed to be doing that?  Zack's daddy quickly put a stop to those shenanigans.  The funny part is that Dean and I said "I do" totally clueless to the little guys next to us.  It wasn't until we finally saw the pictures that we got the whole story. 

Happy Birthday Zachary

Dear Zachary,

Here is a special blog post just for you to wish you the happiest of happy birthdays, and to let you know that you are awesome (but you know that), and that you totally rock (which you also know).  I hope you have an awesome golden birthday... 11 on the 11th! 

It seems like just yesterday, I was standing in the Vandy gym for your christening.

And, now you are all grown up, but still as sweet as ever.

Thanks for always being such a sweet big cousin to Noah.

Happy Birthday Z!  We love you very much and hope to see you soon!

Five Things Friday 01.08.10 - Totally Random

1. Brrr... It's cold out there. Houston is seeing some pretty uncharacteristically low temperatures this week. Noah is still wearing his pajamas, and I am feeling comfy and cozy in yoga pants and a t-shirt with no type of physical activity planned for the remainder of the day. The temperature outside is 29 degrees but according to the weatherman FEELS LIKE 18. I am just going to go ahead and take his word for it. In fact, I am seriously considering staying indoors until this front passes. You didn't hear it here, but I may be missing Miami today.

2. Happy Birthday Elvis. Or more importantly... Happy Anniversary to my big sister and my favorite brother-in-law. Today, they are celebrating 17 years. Wow! Let's just put this in perspective. On your wedding day, I was in 9th grade. My bridesmaid dress was drop waist. My hair was coiffured with the aid of a topsy tail. Good times. Happy day you guys! Thanks for all those years of letting me be the third wheel. I like to think I helped contribute to your years of wedded bliss.

3. Cognitive Jump. Noah and I spent a good part of the morning meeting with a couple therapists from the local early intervention program. Today was his annual evaluation, and although we have not been with this program an entire year, only four months, it has been one year since his initial evaluation in Miami. The evaulation was a series of standardized test. Questions are grouped by age and scores for each question are either 1 or 0. Once three zeroes are scored in a section, that particular test is complete. The areas of development being evaluated are cognitive, expressive communication, receptive communication, motor, social/emotional and adaptive. So, how is he doing? Since the first evaluation with the program in September, Noah has either stayed the same or improved slightly in all areas. The one area that he has had the largest jump is his cognitive development... thinking and learning. Four months ago, he tested at a 21 month level, and today he tested at a 31 month level. What a big jump in such a short time, and the one category he scored age appropriately! Way to go sweet boy!

4. Family Moment. Earlier this week, Dean made it home into for some family play time with Noah. Dean and I were trying to get Noah to play with us, and we made a big production about tickling each other. Momma is going to tickle Daddy. Tickle tickle tickle. Noah started really laughing, and joined in on our tickle game, taking turns helping us tickle each other. It was really great. His interaction with us has really improved since the holidays, and we couldn't be happier.

5. Join the Crowd. One of the first things I did when moving here was join a gym, and before this week, I had been... umm... never. So, this week a bunch of girls from my mom's group started talking about how they'd joined the same gym and had started going regularly. I had been using the excuse that I was not sure how Noah would handle the child watch or more accurately, how the child watch would handle Noah. Well, on Tuesday as we pulled away from the parking lot of Noah's not in session school (a whole other story), I made the last minute decision to continue on to the gym with Noah in tow. I dropped him off at child watch, made the nice lady aware of the color in his hand, and made sure they knew that he was indeed only two and not three despite his size. He did fine. And, I did ok. Maybe next time, I can get a complete workout in without having to go and check on him twice.

Hang On To Your Hat

You may have noticed in the previous post that Noah is wearing a hat.  Are you as shocked as me?  Well, maybe you cannot fully appreciate how momentous this is, but seriously, Noah has not allowed ANY type of headwear since about 9 months.  And, now suddenly, he tolerates it and not only tolerates it, but likes it.  It all started earlier this week.   I had him in a gray hoodie sweatshirt, and I flipped up the hoodie.  I fully expected him to pull it right off, but unexpectedly, he kept it on for at least 5 minutes.  Then the next day, we went to a New Year's Eve playdate, and they had party hats.  He immediately picked up one and put it on his head.  I was so excited.  So, yesterday, he comes out of our closet with two LSU purple hats.  Noah hands one to Daddy to wear, and then lets Daddy put one on his head.  I think he wanted to be like his Daddy.

Momma is so proud of you for trying new things and I think you look so cute in a hat.  I will be getting you your very own LSU cap in your size.  So, you can still be just like Daddy, but...

Possibly see where you are going as well.

Let's Go to the Movies

Today Dean and I took Noah to his very first movie.  We saw the new Disney movie The Princess and the Frog.  Dean has been wanting to take Noah to the show for quite some time, and I thought that a Disney movie would be a good choice. 

It was a really cute show.  Set in New Orleans, with tons of insider Lousiana jokes.

Daddy and Noah hand in hand heading into the theatre. 

Getting our snacks.  Popcorn and M&Ms.

Ready for the show.

Noah was so good and only started to get restless about an hour into the show.  He loved all the music in the film, and he ate at least half of a medium size order of popcorn.  What a fun family outing.