Noah is 2

The greenest of green frosting on his birthday cupcake

"I want to sit by Noah!"

Pinning the tail on the donkey... or the wall.

Mmmm, candy necklace

Or, shall we say "No ah" is two, as we are hearing a lot of "no" out of this child lately?  "Is "no" your favorite word, Noah?"  "NO!"  Oh, sweet sweet 2.  Noah has been acting very "two" for a while.  He has a funny personality.  Seriously, I don't know what he's going to be when he grows up.  A comedian?  Salesman?  Heck, he could be President.  Yesterday, he and I were doing a puzzle (one of his favorite activities) and he was drooling and spit a big pool onto the table, so I said "don't spit on the table!" and he immediately rubbed the spit into the table to clean it up.  That is Noah.  He listens, but kind of does things in his own way.  And generally, he likes things the crazier the better.  He loves for me to drop him down into his crib after I sing him a lullaby and laughs and laughs, then blessedly goes right to sleep.  One of his favorite things is to do is jump on the bed and say "Look me!  Look me!  Monkey on bed!  Monkey on bed!  Monkey fall on bed!" his version of "5 little monkeys."  I won't lie that he's kind of been a challenge for me, lately.  He loves to throw things.  He loves to spit.  He loves to hit and put his hands on John Michael to irritate him in any way possible.  Yes, lots of time-outs for this one, lately.  Hopefully some of our discipline is sinking in?

Noah has been going through a serious "Daddy" phase the past few months.  He wants only Michael, which totally hurts my feelings as ehem, I did nurse him for over a year!  I will say that Noah and I have kind of bonded this week while JM is at day camp with Ava across the street.  With more one-on-one attention, his behavior has been much better and I am amazed at some of the things he can do, like put all the puzzle pieces into a 10 piece puzzle, or name colors, or make a tower of blocks "REALLY, REALLY high!!" or just entertain himself.  He really is a middle child; very resourceful, this one.  He's had an explosion of language development these past couple of weeks and is talking SO much.  The other day I counted a six-word sentence.  You can actually have a real conversation with him, now.  On the way to Whole Foods yesterday, I said, "we're going to the store and then we're going to eat lunch outside." To which he responded, "Cow place?" which I assume means Phil's Ice House.  Wow.  What goes on in that little mind?  It's funny he'd remember the cows. One of my favorite things to hear him say is "Et tu," which is how he says thank you.  He is really polite and I love it. 

Noah continues to love his bed and sleeping.  He is the easiest one in this family to get to bed (other than Mike and I, of course!)   All it takes is a story, a song, his beloved paci!, and as aforementioned a dropping into the crib and he's quiet.  He sleeps in late, usually until around 8.  His bed is a haven for stuffed animals and blankets of all kinds.  Last I checked, he has 3 blankets, a lovey, a stuffed frog pillow, a full-size Pillow Pet, a large giraffe, a rubber baby and a stuffed "Simba" in there.   There is barely room for him!   He naps a good long nap, God bless him, usually going for 3 hours or more.

In regard to eating, Noah is just like Daddy.  He would much rather snack all day than eat a full meal.  He has always been this way, even as a baby.  He rarely eats anything, but he loves bagels, pizza, sausage, cheese, pickles, beets and any kind of fruit.  His typical lunch is a plate with a slice of turkey (of which he takes one bite), a slice of cheese, a mound of beets and a cracker.  The first thing he eats is always the beets, which I, a beet-hater, think is weird!   He loves smoothies, so I like to get him ones with kale and spinach to try to make up for his lack o' vegetables.

Last week on our "staycation" we celebrated his birthday.  Before we left, we gave him his present, which is a blue Mini Kick Scooter just like John Michael's green one.  He picked it up right away and is scootering all over the place.  At Lost Pines, all the cousins were fighting over who got to sit next to Noah whereever we went, to which Michael responded, "We don't have any openings tonight, but we can get you in tomorrow at lunch."  Ha.  He is just at that age where older kids are amused by him, little enough to pick up, but big enough that he's a lot of fun. Oh, and he's cute, too.

We love you, silly boy Noah and can't wait to see where you go and what you do next!  Happy birthday!

Swim Nazi- Day Two

In which I become a believer... I watched John Michael swim from Gwen to the wall under water on his own probably 7 times!!! Not as much crying today, either (him or me). I told JM he was born a fish! Maybe this process works after all!!!  I think he's starting to get a little confidence.

And, just in case you didn't believe me

Swim Nazi, Day One

I have a lot that I want to blog about right now: 1. We had an AWESOME and even better, RELAXING vacation WITH OUR KIDDOES!!! at Hyatt Lost Pines last week. It was only 30 minutes from home and such a nice break. 2. Noah turned 2!!! last week and he is doing so many fun things. I will definitely write about Noah, but right now, I'm pooped and the laundry is piling up, so I'm going to write about 3. John Michael's swim lessons with the Swim Nazi that started today.

Oh, you don't know the Swim Nazi? There is a lady in Austin known as the Swim Nazi, Gwen Hurst. JM's cousin Madeleine took lessons from her last summer and within a week went from scaredy cat to swimming bravely underwater across the pool. My mom couldn't believe her progress and has been talking about it ever since. Then, the other week we went to a swim playdate at a classmate of JM's house, and everyone who had lessons from the Swim Nazi was swimming... everyone who didn't was floating around in floaties or on the side. After the playdate, I asked Madeleine's mom for the Swim Nazi information and by luck, somehow Aunt Kim had two spots reserved for this week's session and gave one to me.

Anyway, the Swim Nazi pretty much teaches by forcing the kids to swim in four short lessons that are 10-15 minutes long. It is painful to watch. Today, we went to an elegant home in Westlake and I watched her take JM's head and push it underwater and shove him in a glide towards the wall multiple times in our 10 minute session. It was horrible. He cried a lot. I wanted to cry and would have if I had not been distracted by having to nurse Aaron and simultaneously keep the homeowners' pet pig!!! from drooling on my carseat and nibbling at my purse. Yes, that's right I said pet pig. He was grazing in the lawn when we got there, took a dip in the pool during another kid's lesson and even had a doggie door to the house.

Why am I doing this torture to my precious child? 1. My biggest fear as a parent is one of my kids drowning in a pool. 2. JM is a weenie and as a former swim teacher and coach I don't see a lot of natural desire in him to want to swim on his own. We took lessons at the J last summer and I feel like they were kind of a waste of money, as he returned immediately from lessons to put his floaties back on. 3. I've heard that most kids who've gone to Gwen love her at the end of the week and are also swimming confidently on their own by then.

I'm supposed to wear my swimsuit Thursday and he will swim to me. Really?!!! I'm somewhat skeptical. Tomorrow we have Day 2, which is supposedly the hardest day. JM went from crying hysterically this afternoon, to us getting ice cream to saying he never wanted to go back to swim lessons to saying he wanted to take his goggles tomorrow. We'll see.

Aaron is 2 months old!

Or, shall we say, the Smilingest Baby on the Block post....
Aaron is two months old! Seriously, he is the happiest little thing. After my boys rode the train (they are obsessed with that train!) at Lakeline Mall today, I was telling this random mom who was also nursing her baby in the indoor playscape that I had no idea that it was possible to cook dinner with an awake baby. With both of my other boys, I feel like even after they ate, there was only a small window of happiness before we moved to cranky and tired and needed to be held or in the sling while I attempted to safely grill a grilled cheese juggling them. Aaron, when he wakes up, cries to let us know that he is awake, but then gets happy immediately. In utero, he barely moved, which scared the bejeezus out of me. I was constantly prodding down there and downing orange juice. His personality out here in the world is just chill, too.
His contentment may also have something to do with the fact that he is a chunker. Or, by my babies' standpoint, he is a super chunk. We had his two month well check yesterday and he is 12lb 5 oz (at birth 7lb 14), a whopping 55th percentile! Michael and I are amazed that one of our babies is actually ABOVE average weight as a newborn (only by a little bit, I know, but this is exciting for us!). Reference: at 2 months, John Michael was a dink. I don't know what weight he was, but his arms were probably the width of my big toe. I can't believe he survived. I had no idea what I was doing. Noah was normal for weight, but still a pound lighter than Aaron at this age. The nurse at the doctors office gave Aaron his vaccinations and was commenting on his chubby legs. "We get so many babies who have skinny legs at this age," she said. "It's nice to see a chubby baby." Really?!!! :) I loved that!
Okay, so I'm proud. "Above average" was not easy to earn. Last month, Aaron was pretty much attached to me by the breast close to 24 hours a day. But hallelujah, now that he's over "the magic 11 pound mark" as my pediatrician calls it, he is sleeping WAY better and not eating as much during the day. It was hell when I was going through it (ehem, Aaron's eating every 1.5 hours at night for MULTIPLE nights in a ROW!), but now things are a lot more tolerable. He was sleeping one long stretch from like 6 to midnight, but my mother in law had the brilliant idea to try to wake him in the late evening for one last feeding to see if he'd sleep more on my schedule. We started waking him to give him a bath around 9/9:30 and he's been sleeping from like 10 at night until 3 or 4. One waking a night is totally do-able for me. I feel like I'm functioning with almost 100 percent of my brain, again. Yay for two months! My college roommate, Karen, used to have a poster in our room that said "Truth visited. On the other side of hell lies paradise." Isn't that the truth about so many things in our lives?

Aaron's Baptism