The green monster

No, not the one at Fenway across town, this one is the ugly green monster that creeps up on you when you least expect it. The green monster that wells up inside you when you want to have the best of wishes for someone close to you, but you'd rather be in her shoes than the ones you are wearing. Jealousy is an ugly feeling, not just because it is unpleasant to experience, but also because its presence can sometimes be hurtful to someone who genuinely deserves better. I have found myself experiencing a lot of jealousy lately and its been getting to be a more frequent and persistent feeling lately than I'd like to admit. And while the objects of my jealousy are more significant than they used to be during my teenage years (envying someone else's clothes or the car their parents bought them, or their hairstyle), the objects of my recent envy are certainly not anything earth shattering. And while I sometime feel less than thrilled with where we are in life, I must say, I have a GREAT deal to be thankful for. I have a husband who loves me 100% of the time (even when we don't always see eye-to-eye), I have a fabulous little man who is healthy and happy and turing into a wonderful human being, I have a very secure steady income, I have lots of love and support from family and friends alike, I really shouldn't be complaining. But one of the funny things about human nature is to always want what you don't have. It really is a gift to be able to live and love the present without a portion of you keeping an eye out for the next big thing. Unfortunately I haven't mastered that ability. Let me know if you've figured it out and how I can get some of that inner peace. For me, its a problem with with work. I am at a place in my career where I feel like I should be onto the next thing, but I am not there and have no idea when I will be heading there. I feel stuck and as a result of my career-related stuckedness, many other aspects of life are on hold. If I don't know where my permanent position will land us, we can't buy a house. If I am on the job market for the foreseeable future, I can't plan a pregnancy. Even if it was a good time to expand the family, since we currently can't buy a bigger house, we have no place to put another person in our apartment. I don't want to have children that are too far apart in age, but if I can't think about getting pregnant in the near future, we are talking about Noah at perhaps 3 or more before another one is even a possibility (AND that is assuming that I get a job this year AND we don't have trouble conceiving). It was hard to be a senior in undergrad and spending time studying for my graduate school entrance exams while other friends were out having fun, it was hard to be in grad school on a next to nothing salary while other friends were in the "real" work world with real salaries, buying houses and nice cars, and having a family right away. Now its hard knowing that all of these friends are well-established in their "real" lives while I am impatiently waiting to start mine still at 30. I know my education is worth it, I know all of these things happen for a reason, but I can't help but be jealous when I hear the news that yet another one of these friends has just bought a bigger house and is now expecting her second little one early next year. Why can't that be me, when can I have my turn, and why can't I just be happy for her and mean it sincerely when I say "Congratulations, I am happy for you"?!?!

Fisher Price Alphabets

Noah loves to play the Fisher Price Alphabets Online game. The website has a bunch of games specifically designed for the very young person to play using the whole keyboard so they don't have to know letters etc. to have fun. Noah is in love with the animal alphabets and has been doing it with our help for quite some time now. He decided this past week that he was big enough to sit in the chair and do by self! He did a really good job, I think I only had to reset the screen once (because he hit the ALT key!).

Seriously Dude...Slow down!

Since when are children supposed to grow up so darn fast??? I always understood that becoming a parent would involve letting go, but I always thought that the letting go would happen slower and when they were older and perhaps a bit more capable of taking care of themselves. It seems I was wrong and over the last couple of weeks, Mr. man has decided to take off and get a life of his own. Apparently he doesn't need his mom or dad any more, that is until he wants a warm meal. Noah has figured out that independence is far more exciting than being tied down by grown-ups who are always going on about rules and what not. Who needs to be clean or learn appropriate social skills anyway? Evidence of this newly demanded independence can be found in a number of different areas, ranging from mealtime, getting dressed and brushing teeth, to more serious things like trying to get medication in him. They don't all hang together or really make much sense to us yet, so bullets will have to do.

• Its been ages since we have been allowed to feed Noah. He does everything himself, with or without utensils, depending on how hungry and determined he is feeling at the moment. In the last couple of months, he has taken to sipping a bit from a straw in our cups when out at a restaurant. Lately though he has been balking at the concept of us holding the cup while he takes a drink. So while out grabbing burritos this week, we finally gave in and let him hold the covered cup in the high chair with him while he was drinking. Of course as soon as he was finished drinking it found its way back on the table and out of reach. Since when did my little man turn into such a grown up??
• We have also started to notice an increase in the number of hissy fits that are occurring when it is time to get dressed. I sincerely don't think it has anything to do with the choice in clothes, I really think it is more that he wants to be able to put the clothes on himself, but isn't quite there yet with the coordination. Poor dude, he is working on it, we just have to make it to the point where he is able to do more himself.
• We are trying to work with him and make what he can do easier for him. As one of my more recent projects, I painted him a stool to put at the bathroom sink. Now he can reach enough to play in the faucet water and this has helped keep him relatively focused on the task of brushing. Speaking of brushing, we lost the right to help him brush a while back. While I realize that we could realistically force him to let us help him so that we are sure it is done well, but we made the decision that we didn't want to introduce the idea that brushing teeth is a traumatic process that is forced upon him. Instead, we have tried to find creative ways to ensure that not only is brushing is something that Noah does himself, but that it is also effective as well. A bit of reading around the internet and I discovered that many parents also struggle with this topic and a fairly popular solution seemed to be an electric toothbrush. Enter the coolest toothbrush I have ever seen. Its a Crest Spin brush in the shape of a fire truck. Not only do you push the fire fighter to turn it on, but it also has flashing lights to make it even more interesting. Thus far we have been very successful with this strategy, he keeps it in his mouth and switches locations so we are getting the teeth as clean as we can expect at this point without screaming and fighting everyday!
• Unfortunately the limits of our creativity are getting pushed on a daily basis lately. One of the more difficult battles is when it is necessary to give him something for the teething pain (did I mention how much I hate molars??). Noah has recently decided to start refusing liquid medication, and now requires that we give him the chewable tablets that are supposed to be for 2 year olds and up (it only took a few days of fighting and bargaining and 1 unsuccessful attempt to figure this out). Thankfully he has surpassed the 24 lb. minimum weight and can safely take the lowest dose, we just have to watch him like a hawk to make sure that he isn't running around and choking on the thing before it melts away.
• He has also decided that he is too cool to share chairs or sit on laps with big people anymore. He needs to sit in chairs by himself, especially ones outside on the patio, even if that means me sitting directly next to him clutching his chair so that he doesn't shift too quickly and topple the whole thing, which would result in precious baby head smacking patio concrete.

So while the capacities and creative thinking skills of two parents are being pushed to their limits by a clearly independent little dude, so far between the two of us and some serious googling, we have been able to keep the upper hand and find a middle ground. Isn't that half the battle. We are firm believers that children grow up to be respectful and responsible if they are treated fairly and with respect their whole lives. So we win battles by getting clean teeth and safe behaviors, but Noah gets to test out his independence a little bit at a time. Hopefully we are succeeding in finding that hard fought middle ground and we can all be reasonably happy with the outcomes.

Craft Project Update

A while back, I had posted a list of some projects that I have been meaning to get done, but simply were put on the back burner while I was teaching last semester. I must say after looking back on, I am quite impressed with my progress. I even managed to find a couple of additional projects that have been planned and completed as well. Of course there are items on the list that I haven’t gotten to yet, but there is still time before the start of the fall semester when things will pick up speed again. Here is what I have been up to in the craft-y department lately.

1) Choose & order pictures for Noah's first year scrap book. UPDATE: Pictures have been chosen, but have not been ordered because I am afraid I will change my mind as soon as I order them. I plan to get this on ASAP while I work on item #5, which is also unfinished.

2) Sew the ribbon edges on to finish the duckie blanket for Noah. UPDATE: Original top-stitching seams needed to be ripped out to avoid them showing beyond the edges of the ribbon. The old seams have been ripped out and the ribbon edges were sewn on and the blankie is DONE!

3) Make diaper & wipes cases (supplies purchased, pattern acquired, need time for sewing). UPDATE: The pattern was written with incorrect dimensions (the words I had for the designer at the moment I discovered this fact were not very mommy-like), meaning the first round of 5 cases were all too short to fit the wipes case and 2 diapers (as it was designed to do) and still close the flap. I redesigned the pattern based on my own measurements and re-made the 5 cases so that I could not only fit 3 diapers and a plastic travel-size wipes case and can still close the velcro tab to keep things neat and tidy. Overall a very frustrating process, but I am quite pleased with the end result.

4) Help design, order supplies, & assemble earrings for Katherine's wedding jewelry. UPDATE: The earrings have been completed, Katherine is now married, and has returned from her honeymoon with rave reviews of the earrings from many wedding guests who wondered where she found them!

5) Make a family mini-book with a story about and pictures of all of Noah's closest friends & family. I have covertly acquired pictures of just about everyone I think (which was much harder than I thought it was going to be) and have to just sit down and upload the pictures into the book project that I have already created online. This is well on its way and shouldn’t take long to finish up!

6) Make a ring sling to add to our arsenal of Noah carrying equipment. This has become quite a necessity lately due to Noah’s recent overwhelming desire to be carried places at length. Its hard to say no when he is so busy most of the time and finally decides that he desperately needs to be close. Since my arms can only hold him up for so long and I have recently discovered that my back can’t handle a 24 lb Noah in the backpack carrier and since Noah has certainly surpassed the weight limit on the Baby Bjorn, the ring-type sling seemed to be a good option to try out. In looking around to find one to purchase to save myself from adding on another project, I discovered that a nice quality one ranged any where from $60 to $130!!! Enter a new item on my list since I could certainly find a couple of rings and 3 yards of fabric for much less than that. It was a process with some speed bumps along the way again due to more problems with the pattern, but the end result is quite cute and seems to be very functional and more importantly Noah seems to be okay with using it!

7) Buy and decorate an unfinished wood step stool for the bathroom. Given his new independence streak a mile and a half wide, Noah has started demanding to brush his own teeth and wash his own hands. Assistance is no longer desired (not that it isn’t still necessary sometimes though). Needless to say this is a bit of a problem given his height-challenged status, enter the need for a bit of a boost! I found a decent plain stool at the Mill Store that is tall enough to provide the necessary boost and big enough on the top to provide a safe amount of space. I have big plans to redecorate Noah’s future “big boy” room in a monkey theme (I do love the monkeys!!). I have a couple of items and have plans on purchasing a few more from Babies R Us’ Mod Pod Monkey collection. Since the monkey pattern in the collection is not only super cute, but also super basic, I figured I would try and decorate the stool to match. I painted the base a nice sage green and the top an off white and then 4 coats of paint in each color later, the monkey face came out amazingly well. There was some tracing and a lot of touching up some oops, but I am declaring the end result a success. Three coats of polyurethane should do the trick in protecting all of that hard work and making clean ups easy.

8) Also related to the little dude’s independence streak is a bit of the terrible twos…a bit of stubbornness, some ill-conceived nos, and a bit of pent up frustration taken out on unsuspecting books, toys, and parents. All of this leads to a new need for decorum in the house thus was born the official “Time Out.” We are trying to take a conservative approach to the time out really, with every attempt made to avoid them and have the little man make the right choice in the first place. In any case, there wasn’t a functional place for this time out to occur that would signify its importance, but also allow him to safely enter and exit the location on his own, which I think is important to him gaining an understanding that his behavior is ultimately his choice and there are consequences, both positive and negative, for each choice he makes. I found a perfectly sized unfinished oak chair also at the Mill Store that I wanted to decorate to signify its function. Since it will certainly be used for whatever little people need time outs in the house, I decided not to personalize it too much. Just a couple of coats of red paint on the rungs and the seat and some stick-on white letters to spell out “Time Out” on the seat made it a super simple project. Again, 3 coats of polyurethane should keep it in good condition for quite some time. Check out how official it looks!

Our newest experiment

Over the last 6 months or so, I have become less and less enamored by the idea of using disposable diapers.  Now, I am by no means trying to become the crunchy, preachy type of mom who looks down on anyone who doesn’t see the world from the same view, but I have started to feel some serious guilt about my own personal contributions to the future world that Noah will be inheriting when I am no longer around.  I recently read a little fact that scared me into action.  Did you know that if Christopher Columbus wore disposable diapers they would still be sitting in a landfill somewhere today?  That is a sad and scary fact.  I certainly see the benefit of using cloth diapers, the cost effectiveness via reuseability, the elimination of all kinds of chemicals which have unknown effects on little people, and more importantly, the elimination of the huge and disgusting amount of non-biodegradable stink bombs going to the local landfill.   What I also think about is the amount of time and effort that goes into cleaning and maintaining the cloth diaper supply in the house.  Both Tim and I work full-time and try to maintain the house in a somewhat sanitary fashion, which leaves very little time for fun and negligible amounts of free time as it is.  As a result of all of this, I have been stalling and researching and my guilt has continued to be unresolved.  After a bit more research and a compromise on my part, I have finally made a decision to take a step off the curb in a direction and see where it takes me.  I have discovered a middle ground between the cloth and disposable camps, and it was probably created just for someone like me who is worried about the time and energy cost of cloth while simultaneously feeling guilty about the cost on the environment.  I never thought I would say this, but I am in the midst of testing out the G Diaper.  They claim to be a hybrid diaper between cloth and disposable.  There is a cloth cute outer cover, a waterproof snap-in liner to keep things clean and contained and then flushable/biodegradable insert that sits just inside of the snap-in liner.  You can toss the insert, flush it (with a bit of finesse), or compost the wet ones and they will disappear in less than 150 days or so.  We aren’t far into our experiment, we’ve only used it once thus far, but I must say Noah’s little behind did look quite cute in the thing and there were no leaks thus far.  I even managed to flush the insert with no problems to report!  I think I need a bit of practice in putting it on to avoid the red marks around the front of his waist, but the key is that he didn’t seem to be bothered one bit by the change of product.  I even discovered that the G Diapers come with cloth inserts now, so if things continue to go well, I may try these out as well as a test to see how much effort the whole cloth diaper route will be.  Who knows maybe we’ll move on from the basic starter pack that only has 2 covers, 3 liners, and 10 inserts.  It’s a diaper test drive, I’ll keep you posted.  In the meantime if anyone can give me a time investment estimate for the all-in-one or pocket-type of cloth diapers, we may take a test drive with a couple of those as well.  

Noah's first block party

In lieu of competing with Boston's world-renowned fireworks on the 4th, all of the cities around here tend to do their own July 4th celebrations.  Given the fact that Boston's fireworks don't start until 10:30 at night and are witnessed by inconceivable masses of people, we decided to fore go the late-night overtired baby tantrums and claustrophobia in favor of Somerville's MUCH smaller celebration.  Instead of close to a million people to deal with, it was only about a crowd of 10,000.  Originally, the celebration was supposed to take place on June 28th, but what with the lovely weather we had through the month of June, it was no big surprise that it got rained out on the first try.  It was rescheduled for this past Thursday, July 9th.  Its not quite the same as partying on the 4th, but it was still a good time.  You had your local youth singing group, the local "we've almost made it to the big time" rock cover group, and lo and behold the horribly cheesy father-daughter over patriotic song singing trio, the ones with the shiny flag sequined vest and all...see (I know...try to stifle the laughter long enough to fully appreciate the matching hat people!)

We figured we would go right after dinner and stay until the little dude wasn't having fun anymore.  He lasted like a true party animal.  He spent the majority of the night freaking out about all of the "T-rucks" he kept seeing every where.  The public safety officials were nice enough to invite the little man to test out the wheel in a couple of the vehicles.  He got to sit in and "drive" the little EMS suped-up golf cart.

We walked around some more and down a quiet side street we found a couple of fire fighters hanging out with a truck.  Apparently they were letting kids take turns checking it out, so we made sure to let Noah sit in it and check it out.  I think he was still a bit young to fully appreciate how cool it was, but he certainly was very impressed.  (Hey, I was impressed...I don't know if I have ever sat in a fire truck before).

We also checked out all of the fun hoses on the back of the fire truck too, but that wasn't nearly as impressive as all of the fun buttons in the front of the truck.

We were very impressed that Noah lasted as long as he did.  Usually he melts into a puddle of unfortunate baby goo at about 8:30.  The fireworks didn't start until 9:30 and he started losing it around 9:20!  We decided to stick it out at least until the fireworks start to see how he would handle them and see if he liked them.  He was impressed, and then the tired baby fatigue set it and we decided to head out about 10 minutes into the fireworks.  We avoided the crowds leaving and got Noah into bed about the time that the fireworks ended (the party was only about a 5 minute walk from our place...quite convenient).  

It was an excellent conclusion to the Independence Day extended festivities.  So glad we got a chance to get out as a family for the evening!

Where's that noise coming from dude?

Just when you think life is boring and nothing interesting ever happens (not that I think that, who has time?), something actually interesting happens to remind you to stay on your toes. This morning when I went in to rescue the wee man from his crib so he could begin the daily marathon I heard a very faint music. I listened harder, but was having trouble hearing it. I turned off the white noise machine and the fan and listened a little more carefully. Whatever it was was playing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on repeat...a non-stop repeat. I dug through the various stuffed animal friends trying to figure out what was playing the music. Each time I picked one up I realized that it wasn't the source. After searching all of them and then digging through the blanket and around the edge of the mattress I was getting a little frustrated and to be honest a bit freaked out. Was it Noah? Did he decide overnight to turn into a musical toddler and pick an annoying non-stop repeat of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star to be his representative mantra? Finally it dawned on me! I pulled the pacifier out of his mouth and put it to my ear. IT WAS SINGING TO ME!!! What the???? I distinctly remember quite a few months back when I was sitting on the glider with Noah and I dropped the pacifier on the floor only to have it play the song once and then never do it again. Tim accused me of losing my mind, but I SWEAR it happened. Now I have my proof!!!! Only this time it is on a non-stop loop of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star over and over and OVER! Both Tim and I have tried everything we can think of to make it stop, or figure out how on earth Noah got it started in the first place. I left for work about 8 this morning and it was still playing. Today is Daddy-Noah day in the house and I just got a text from Tim saying it was still playing!! Never been so glad that I work on Wednesdays in my life...Have fun with that sweetie! :)

Incidentally, the pacifier came from a mom-run company in Washington state called Lots to Say Baby, which sells adorable pacifiers with great sayings on them (the one in questions is red and has "No Comment" printed on the center). I highly recommend them, and Erin, the owner gives amazing customer service...I need to order a couple more of them since our supply is aging and while I am at it I should email her and find out how to turn off the music perhaps??

Our "real" July 4th Celebration

Our "real" 4th of July celebration actually took place the next day, on the 5th of July! We were a day late, but at least Tim had the whole day off! And aside from missing out on some fireworks, we had all of the requisite pieces for the summer holiday...family, warm and sunny weather, and a cookout lunch! Uncle Po Po and Marian came back over for the grill fest and Noah even got a visit from Pepere L. & Nana. While all of the boys were together, we were able to get a nice picture of them.


It was all fun and games once Noah woke up from his nap. He ate some lunch while the paparazzi snapped pictures and then he played for a while with his car again. I think Uncle Po Po might be jealous of his ride, don't you?


Noah played in his house a bit, making sure the ATM window still worked (it does!).


Then, it was finally nice enough outside to put out the sprinkler. This is surprisingly the first time this year (or not so surprising if you have experienced the weather here lately).


Noah seemed to be having a great time running around and he got himself thoroughly wet, squishy shoes and all!




All in all, it was a nice make-up day for the missing fun we didn't have on the 4th. Glad we got together with family for a tasty grilled meal and some fun, but now that the holidays are over for a few more weeks, I am in need of a nap and a babysitter! :)

Happy 4th of July

Much like the weather around here for the past month, our 4th of July family bike ride was an epic failure. It was a well-intentioned outing, a way to celebrate the holiday in a small way since Tim had to spend the majority of the day at work. The plan was to get the basics packed up and go for a ride around a portion of the Minute Man trail. We'd get out of the house, enjoy some of the sunny weather for a change, and have some pre-bedtime fun on the holiday since Noah DOES NOT do well out past his bedtime (leaving the fireworks out of the question). Unfortunately fate and the gods of irony would have other ideas for us, and it was bad right out of the gate. Before we could even get to the end of our street my bike chain fell off while changing gears and we had to turn around since I had forgotten to grab the sunscreen. Attempt #2 was met with an equal amount of failure. Newly sun-screened, we headed back on the road and got about a mile away from home only to have my bike seat loosen to the point of tipping back every time I sat on it! I called the ride a failure and suggested we stop for ice cream instead, so we walked the bikes a couple of blocks and had a treat. We figured since we were out, we could walk over to a nearby park and let Noah play for a bit. Everything was fine until we tried to head home for dinner. Noah wasn't having it! With a park full of kids and parents watching for amusement, he proceeded to pitch a fit like we were murdering him every time we came near him with the helmet. That boy did NOT want to put that helmet on to save his life. After 15 minutes or so of attempted negotiations, we called it quits, strapped him in the bike seat helmet-less, and walked the bikes home the whole mile. He shook his head no every time we asked him if he could please let us put the helmet on, he was a man on a mission, and that mission certainly did not include that bike helmet!!! It was well past dinner time once we finally made it home and cooked the food on the grill, but we got the little dude down to bed with a huge sigh from both Mommy and Daddy. Not my most favorite holiday celebration ever, but with a margarita in hand and the Boston fireworks on TV, it could have been much worse!

Lord of the Baby Dance!

Last week I mentioned that Noah has taken to dancing when the mood strikes him, but I hadn't been able to get it on video. We now have a bit of video evidence of the little Noah jig he does when he digs the beat. Its not perfect, and we had to edit the part out where he whacked himself in the head with the tongs (you had to have seen that coming, honestly...but if I had taken them away, he would have thrown a fit and we wouldn't have seen the dancing, it was a toss up!). Hopefully at some point he will get more consistent about it and we can get a good video for posterity, but for now, this will have to do. Enjoy and Happy 4th of July!

Noah at 18 months

As Christina has stated already, we just had Noah's 18 month appointment on Wednesday. It's scary to think that our little man is already a year and a half old. There also isn't a day that doesn't go by when I am not impressed with how far he has come in the last six months. I think back to his first birthday and remember how we were still waiting for him to take those first steps. Well, we waited another two months, because it was well into February before that happened.

Noah -

You amaze and mystify me on a daily basis. I look at you and am sometimes left speechless with how smart and perceptive you are. I love to watch you grow and develop. It's the little things that you do that make you so much fun to be around, like stopping in the middle of playing to give me a hug and a smooch, or seeing your face light up and watching you come running to me when I come to pick you up from daycare. I know that we still have many more milestones to come, but when I look back at the last six months I find it truly amazing to think of the accomplishments that you have made. You have taken your first steps, and started to learn your first words. You are so close to making that leap to language, and I can't wait until you do so that I can teach you all about the world. You are getting so big it's scary. I love you very much, and miss you greatly when you are not around.

Daddy.

In honor of his 18 months, I thought I would create a video to share with all of you, so without further ado, here is our little man, and some of the changes that he has made in the past six months.

18 month Check-up & Noah's heart

Until a couple of months ago, I thought Noah was perfect in every way.  I prided myself (perhaps quite falsely) in all that hard work breastfeeding and pumping in an attempt to provide him with the best health and the least chance of having extra illnesses and needing extra doctor's visits.  So far we have been doing amazingly well, only 2 ear infections in 18 months, and other than those, nothing more than the usual flu bug or cold that passes through, oh yeah, and that little bout with roseola.  Nothing serious thankfully!  

This month Noah weighed in at 24 pounds, 4 oz. (25th percentile and up 1 pound 6 oz. from 3 months ago) and was 33.5 inches (81st percentile and up 1.5 inches from 3 months ago) long.  Apparently they stop measuring head circumference now, since she never even pulled out her tape.  I can only imagine it is still huge and is probably still tipping the scales some where in the 90th percentile.  

At his last well-baby visit at 15 months, I wrote about my new found distaste for the nurse practitioner we saw, the one who first noticed Noah's heart murmur.  The pediatrician listened to it himself back then, told us it was nothing to be overly concerned about and said he would check it again at his 18 month visit.  I had been anticipating this visit for the last week or so, mostly in the back of my head, and was hoping that the doctor would no longer be able to hear a murmur, meaning that it had resolved itself, or that it would be softer, meaning that it was on its way to recovering and theoretically shouldn't be there 3 months from now.  Unfortunately, the murmur didn't seem to sound any different based on his reading of the notes from last time.  And while he still didn't seem overly concerned, he has placed a referral for Noah to be seen with the Pediatric Cardiology department downtown for some tests and a second (more experienced) opinion.  While there is no doubt that I respect his proactive stance, at the same time I can't help but feel a little worry in me that it is something more serious that will result in lots of future visits with specialists.  I am trying to keep those thoughts way in the back of the brain some where and while they don't come often, it will be nice when we can make it past that first (and with any luck last) visit to the specialist at the end of August.

It's Uncle Po Po!!!

I missed by weekly update last weekend, but it was for a good cause.  We had a bit of chaos with Tim's schedule, what with him randomly switching to working nights on Saturday night into Sunday that kind of put a halt to my free time during the days during the weekend.  We also had a lot of catch up work to be done around the house and errands that have been needing to be run for weeks.  The bad news is that aside from and obscene amount of rain, a fever of 103 or so between late Friday afternoon and Sunday late morning, and some grocery store car cart driving on Monday nothing really interesting happened.  The good news is all of the basic household upkeep nonsense that we haven't had time for is finally done and while it is still currently raining (hello summer?  did you not get the memo that you were supposed to have shown up at least 3 weeks ago????), the weekend weather is supposed to be looking much nicer and I have some adorable pictures of Noah from the last couple of days.

After all of the chores were done over the weekend, we had some company who came up for a visit from down south.  Uncle Chris and Marian came into town for a visit with the little dude and a Red Sox game.  They arrived on Tuesday and spent some quality time with the wee man on Tuesday evening and all day Wednesday.  They got a true look into the life of a home with a toddler, including a few meltdowns and everything (what? Did I just admit that Noah has meltdowns??? As in ones where you swear his head is about to detach and spin around in a couple of complete circles?  Oh, I didn't mention that, oh good...I wouldn't want anyone to think that he isn't perfect or anything!).  If they really are planning on having kids someday, let those 36 hours be a dose of reality for them both, don't say we didn't warn you about those things fair and square! :) We all had lots of fun playing in the backyard, having dinner, hanging in the living room, and going to the Children's Museum (because it was raining yet AGAIN!!!).  After the typical temporary shy period where he buries himself in my leg, he naturally became best friends with both Marian and Uncle Chris (who we have decided should now be known as Uncle Po Po since he is after all part of the PO-lice!).  Marian was even lucky enough to get Noah smooches and he went over very willingly to hang with her while waiting for Daddy and Uncle Po Po to come back from dropping off the car at the museum.  

Noah showed Uncle Po Po and Marian his house and played some peek-a-boo through the door!  (P.S. These are pictures from Uncle Po Po's new camera, which we have decided we are insanely jealous of...it takes beautiful pictures and they haven't even read the manual yet...right Marian???)

Uncle Po Po took Noah for a ride in his car, which we finally got around to making a pseudo-garage for under the deck.  Now it is actually out and ready to be played with as opposed to before where it sat in the basement and was accidentally forgotten about.  

Since the Boston/New England weather has been so cooperative lately, and it decided to rain yet again on Wednesday, there wasn't much we could do with a toddler with cabin fever.  So we made use of our membership again and all went down to the Children's museum.  We tested out the bubble room this time since Noah is getting a bit bigger.  Everything was going well and Noah was fascinated by the bubbles, that is until he decided to start tasting the bubbles and then things went south.  Mommy cut him off from the soap in the mouth and we washed up and moved on for his own good!

We tested out some real musical chairs, and while there was some chair switching as is traditional of the game, these chairs actually played music when you sit in them.  Noah got really into some of the music, doing his cute little baby jig...too bad Daddy forgot the video camera in the car!!!  Noah is sitting here with Mommy and Marian checking out the beat in his own chair.  If memory serves me correctly, he liked the beat coming from my chair better and kicked me out, where does this child learn his manners??

After he finished booting me from my chair, we went over to the construction site area and Noah had an absolute blast crawling through the big tunnels.  (Isn't it sickening how much nicer the pictures are from Uncle Po Po's new camera?)

After the museum, we got stuck in rush hour traffic and then had a dinner with Memere L. and Tom, who drove Uncle Po Po and Marian back for a couple of days of visiting up in Maine.  

Too bad Noah was over tired and clearly not paying attention, but we tried to get a nice picture of all of the boys.