A Fun Friday

We were supposed to have a playdate all morning today, but found out at 9am that Noah's little friend Ethan had a fever.  I made the mistake of telling Noah that Ethan was coming over around 7am (when he wasn't due to arrive until 10).  Normally I don't tell him someone is coming until 5-10 minutes before they're supposed to arrive, because Noah loves having visitors and he'll just wait by the door for them for a long time, or constantly ask when they're coming.  I follow the same routine if we're going anywhere, too, otherwise he's following me around as I'm trying to finish getting things together just begging to leave right away.

Anyway, since I had built up Noah's expectations about the day, I had to replace the playdate with something fun.  Strawberry picking it was!

This was actually our second time going strawberry picking.  We went with my Mom last Tuesday as well.  Noah loves strawberry picking.

I hadn't gotten around to posting the pictures from our last trip, and I didn't take any this time, so I'll post the pictures from the first trip to illustrate:

The weather was much cooler last time!  Today it was over 90 degrees... definitely no hoodies!

Noah does pick some berries off the bushes, but his main activity while strawberry picking is picking the strawberries out of my container and putting them into his.

Showing me his strawberries:

So, back to today.  After strawberry picking we came home and each ate a big bowl of strawberries.  Then we went swimming for an hour and a half.

Today was a big day for Noah - he is now swimming all around the pool all on his own!  Wearing a life jacket, of course, but without holding onto my hands or anything.  He will swim the 18 feet across the pool totally independently.  And man, he is incredibly proud of himself.  It's completely adorable. (Obviously I have no pictures of this, since I was alone with him and was in the pool).

Even after an hour and a half of exerting himself while swimming, he only slept for half an hour.  After waking up at 6:30 am (and going to bed at 9pm), and not going down for his nap until 1:45.  The kid is super human.

Since he woke up from his nap early, we were able to bring the van to Justin at work so he could bring some stuff home (we had van shenanigans today), so that he wouldn't have to drive home and then drive back to work with the van.

After that we ran some errands, played with the hose, and then went swimming for another hour and a half.  Noah demonstrated his swimming skills for his Dad once he was done training his client.

We came inside for a little while, and then decided to go out for dinner.  I have been really tired today, so not having to cook was a nice treat for me!

After getting home Noah wanted to blow bubbles for awhile, so we headed to the back deck:

It looks like he got some sun, despite me applying SPF 60 to him twice today.

Blowing bubbles... His mouth looks like that because he basically makes the "Fffffff" sound in order to blow the air out.  It's hilarious, but pretty effective.

Looking longingly at the pool... apparently 3 hours of swimming in one day wasn't enough for him:

Waiting to pop Daddy's bubble:

Thinking it's pretty funny:

We had a full, busy, fun day, despite our cancelled playdate.  I am thoroughly enjoying my last summer with just Noah, and he really seems to be, too!  Normally I love the idea of summer but end up staying inside a lot because of the heat and humidity.  This summer, with the pool, we are able to have a lot of fun outside!  I am so glad we put the pool in last year, despite the expense and some of the annoyances.  It has seriously improved our quality of life... I'm really not sure what Noah and I would fill our time with on these hot summer days if we couldn't go out to the backyard and go swimming!

Fun in the Spring Sun

(I've been awake since 5:45am.  I couldn't get back to sleep because I'm too nervous/excited about my ultrasound this afternoon.  I'll be glad when it's over!  Because of the early wake up, I decided to get a blog post done before Noah wakes up.)

Besides that one incredibly hot day a couple of weeks ago, the weather here has not been very summer-like.  The temperatures most days are in the teens (I always have to look up conversions since the majority of my readers are American... that's in the 50's or low 60's, fyi).  However, when it is sunny, our backyard is a lot warmer than any temperature reading you'd find online.  For one thing, the little town where I live is almost always 5 degrees warmer than the city where our parents live 20 minutes away.  They have the lake, which cools them down.  And then our backyard is usually at least a few degrees warmer than our front yard, simply because it's so sheltered.  This is exactly why I wanted a pool, by the way.  In summertime our backyard is absolutely unbearable.  In fact, our whole town is pretty much unbearable.  But my backyard is worse.

I digress.  The point is that despite the still coolish temps we've been getting, our sheltered backyard has allowed us to pretend it's already summer!  And boy, have we been busy pretending!

The water was 57 degrees this day, but that didn't stop Noah!

This picture slays me:

I love the way he blows bubbles:

"Look at my bubbles!!":

"I wanna feel it...":

"It's cold!":

On another day I decided to bust out a kiddie pool, as I'm not too fond of going in frigid water (although it is up to 64 degrees now!):

Noah still thought it was pretty cold:

Those last two are iPod pictures, hence the poorer quality.

Anyway, days like we've been having are one of my very favourite parts of being a stay at home mom.  Having no "schedule" I have to follow, going outside when Noah wants to go outside, running around in the grass in bare feet because we had no shoes by the back door, getting about 10 sunburns already by May 11 (man that sun has been strong!)... I am loving life lately!  I am looking forward to a long summer growing our baby and hanging out with the most awesome toddler ever created.  Cherishing my last days as a Mom of One.

17 Months Old

At 17 months, here is where Noah is at:

-He is probably about 24lbs.

-He is about 34.5 inches tall.

-He is in size 4 diapers during the day and night.

-He wears 24 month clothing, for the most part.  He still fits into 9 month shorts, but they have gotten pretty snug.  I'm trying to get through the rest of the summer with what I have, though.

-He nurses on demand, 7-8 times a day.

-He pretty much exclusively feeds himself.  Using a spoon and fork has become less messy this month, and he really enjoys it.  I can get him to eat pretty much any vegetable if I give him a spoon or fork to eat it with.

-He has 16 full teeth.  The only ones left are his 2 year molars.

-He has one nap a day, usually about an hour long.
-This month he's been sleeping 11.5-12 hours at night, getting up to nurse once. Bedtime is after 8:30pm most nights, and we've been sleeping in until at least 8:15am every morning.


-He still gets up to nurse once a night, but he seems to be consistently pushing this later for the past week and a half.  Almost every night he has slept 10 hours straight before getting up, sometimes sleeping until 7:30 (and then going back to sleep until 9:30!).  I'd like to think he is maybe night-weaning himself, but I know better than to think this will last.  Over a year ago he was consistently sleeping 10 hours straight before nursing, and that didn't last!

-He still does just three signs: nurse (the sign for milk), water (waves his hand up and down), and eat (sticks his finger in his mouth).  I don't do any other signs, because he picks up language easy enough.

-At 15 months Noah was saying 18 words. At 16 months he was saying 42 words.  At 17 months he is saying 79 words.

His old words that he's still saying are: Mama, Dada, uh oh, more, this, that, cat, night night, hot, up, yes, woof woof ("what does a dog say?"), baa ("what does a sheep/goat say?"), moo ("what does a cow say?"), car, ball, shoes, cracker, Noah, water, orange, clock, blech, hi, done, dirt, Bert, puff, swish, fluff, book, buzz, Papa, Nana, boo, fish, phone, again, home, sunglasses, Gramper, sit.

His new words are: stretch, glasses, food, laptop, love, hair, quack, bye, tshirt, shirt, aunt, poop, slide, cheese, Colton, danger, banana, feet, please, clock, cold, toes, ooo-ooo-ahh-ahh (monkey sound), bad, burger, boo-boo (as in, an owie), nurse,  block, fly, stuck, chalk, out, fit, hat, bye-bye, and shit (yeah, I'm not proud of that).

-After he poops (and sometimes beforehand) he will inform us by saying "Poop!  Poop!  Poop!"  He still doesn't really care if you change his diaper or not, though.  I think he might actually be content with a poopy bum all day long.

-Noah still loves to point out things that are hot.  He waves his hands around saying "Hot!  Hot!" and then blows air out his mouth like he's trying to cool something down.  He really pronounces the "t", and the way he says it is sooo cute.  He looks so proud of himself for knowing everything that is hot.

-His verbal comprehension continues to be above average.

-He still gets into everything and anything, but he is starting to obey the word "no" more often (up until the past few days, he seemed to think it was optional).


-He is a super-climber.  He wishes our entire house was his jungle gym.

-He loves pools!  He loves to swim.

-We started doing time outs this month.  Just 1 minute in his crib when he's been disobedient.  I resisted this for awhile because I didn't want him to have bad associations with his crib.  But then I figured it was much better for both of us if I did it anyway, rather than letting my frustration turn to anger and build to a boiling point.  The time outs are working, and I stay very calm.  I've felt much more 'in control' for the past month than I did before.

-Every month Noah gets better with strangers and with separation from Mommy.  He's much better when it's on his own terms, though.  He's still not okay with being left in the church nursery, but we're working on it.  For now, I'm spending most of the church service in there with him.  I'm not going to force it and make him scream for an hour and a half.  It will come.

-No more illnesses this month!  The count is still at 12.

-He has a thing for pretty blonde women.  I'm sure it's because I am blonde.  It's really funny though, how he'll warm up to a blonde who is about my age in about 30 seconds, and want to sit with them and cuddle with them.  Actually, come to think of it, we have a gorgeous model friend who is a brunette, and he has a thing for her, too.  What can I say, my boy has discerning taste;)

-He is such a cuddly, affectionate little monkey.  He loves to hug and be hugged, loves to get and give kisses, loves to sit in our laps.  He such a sweet little boy.

Summer Updates

I haven't posted in a whole week, and I have several things to write about, so this will be a catch-all post.

Swimming

In the past week Noah has spent a lot of time in pools, and boy has he had fun!  4 out of 7 days he was in a big pool, and at 16 months he has gotten to the point that he is jumping off the side of the pool into my arms... or not even into my arms (!!!! kind of alarming). 

I need to get him some sort of floaty device.  I tried putting a life jacket on him, but he hated that.  It was too big and bulky.  I'm thinking one of those bathing-suit type things that has the removable floaty pieces? 

Since the pool scare last Friday, Noah has ended up underwater many times.  While he doesn't like it, he gets over in it about 4 seconds.  He hates floating on his back though.  I think he hates getting water in his ears (he also hates if I try to lay him back in the bath tub).  Who knows.

Napping

Unfortunately, this week we also hit a yucky nap regression.  Today was day 5 in that saga, and I am really hoping it will be over soon.  It started out the first two days with him only napping 45 minutes (as opposed to his usual hour).  The third day it was 35 minutes.  The past two days he has been waking up before the thirty minute mark.  Today he woke up 15 minutes after I left his room.  I have left him to cry it out but I don't think he really falls back asleep.  He'll be quiet for 5-10 minutes, and then start screaming again.  This goes off and on for an hour.  It's stressful for me.

At first I thought he was napping less because he had a few nights of sleeping 12 to 12.5 hours at night, and 12 to 12.5 hours is all the sleep he usually needs in a 24 hour period.  But then that was over and he was back to his normal 11 to 11.5 hours at night, and his napping got even worse.  So now I don't know what to think.

Without getting into too much detail, I have noticed in the past couple of months that Noah definitely sleeps like crap when he is overtired.  He was not overtired at the beginning of this craptastic napping spurt, but I think he is on his way in that direction now.  Luckily his night time sleep has not been affected as of yet... knock on wood ...

Playing

I am still making an concentrated effort to get out of the house with Noah on an almost daily basis.  He didn't used to need this, but as he gets older it becomes apparent that he is much happier when he gets to participate in activities outside of his regular routine.  Hence the swimming at various people's houses.  And playdates.  And going to the park.  Actually, about a week and a half ago Noah decided he didn't need his Mommy's help at the park anymore.  Suddenly he was going down big slides all on his own, not holding on to anyone's hands.  And climbing up 6 foot tall rock walls to the top of the playground.  All. On. His. Own. 

No, these are not things we urged him to do.  The slide - well, he just climbed up to the top of the playground and suddenly went down the slide before I could get around to hold his hands.  He just wanted to do it.  He would grin and go, "Ahh, ahh ahh" in a tiny, high, excited voice, and then go down the slide.  His grin would be replaced by a look of panic, accompanied by splayed elbows, as he was sliding, and then a joyful smile at the bottom.  "More!!!"  Back up, rinse, repeat.

The rock wall - I showed him how to climb it by doing it myself, and then I was sitting at the top of the playground and he just climbed up to me.  Saying "Mama.  Mama.  Mama.  Mama."  the whole time.  Justin was there by then, and was standing behind him to make sure he didn't plunge to his death (or a broken leg).  But he didn't even need to touch him.  I still can't believe Noah figured out that rock wall all on his own.  He climbed up it about 8 times.

And last Saturday, July 30, Noah's Dad, Gramper, and Papa built him his own playground!!!  I haven't taken an actual picture of ours yet, but it is this model:

Noah is a big fan.  Unfortunately, the slide is actually really tall, really steep, and really fast (it doesn't look like it in the picture, but it is).  So Noah can't go down it independently this summer.  Next summer I'll let him, but not this summer.

And he doesn't like the swings.  He's never been a huge fan of swings.  But he likes to climb up the rock wall/ladder and play in the fort.

******

So, that's what's been going on in our neck of the woods.  Tomorrow we head out of town for a family reunion.  I'm hoping we'll actually get to socialize, and not just chase after our adventurous 16 month old the whole time:)

Beware the Pool

We had such a fun afternoon today!   We went over to my friend Jenn's house right after Noah woke up at 3pm. Noah had such a fun time with her 4 year old daughter Ava. She was sooo good with him. When Noah was younger Ava was not very interested in him, but she was just doting on him and taking him all over the house, bringing him new toys to play with... it was adorable.

We swam in the pool for awhile. Noah ended up having a LOT of fun. He has never liked being in a pool before, unless he's on the steps splashing or in a kiddie pool.  However, I want my kid to like swimming, so I always bring him in anyway. This pool was the perfect height, because in the middle of the pool it was only up to my shoulders. So it was really the perfect height to walk around comfortably and still be immersed in the water. Once Noah got used to the temperature of water, he was so happy, splashing and kicking and wriggling his body with excitement, while laughing the whole time.  I wish I could have gotten a video.

After we were basically done swimming Jenn was sitting by the side of the pool holding sleeping Ethan (10 months old), and Ava and Noah were sitting on the side of the pool splashing their feet in the water. I was standing in the pool next to Noah, but talking to Jenn.   Suddenly she said "OH NO!!! GET NOAH!! HE'S IN THE POOL!!!" I looked to my left and Noah was floating about a foot under the water. He had literally just slipped in.  He was right next to me, but I didn't even notice because they were doing all that splashing!   Luckily Jenn was actually looking at the kids and told me as soon as it happened.   Noah was underwater for a maximum of 4 or 5 seconds.  Not too long, but still freaky

When he came up he was upset, but he didn't really even cry. He more complained, and seemed a little bit scared.   He asked to nurse right away (a comfort thing), so we did, and then he was totally fine.   I took him right back in the pool because I didn't want him to be terrified of the pool, and he was completely unaffected by it all.

I should mention that Noah HATES putting his face in water or when he gets water running down his face at all. So I really thought he would scream!  Crazy.


You know that surge of adrenaline you get when your kid is in danger, and your heart falls into your stomach??

I didn't get that. I was like "Holy shit!" (in my head, not out loud), and just picked him up and checked him out to make sure he was okay and started breathing again (he had kind of a hard time starting up breathing again for a couple seconds, but he didn't even cough or choke or anything, so he must have held his breath the whole time). My heart was pounding harder, but I didn't have that intense feeling that I usually get when Noah is in danger.

I was talking to my mom about how I didn't get that feeling and how I thought that was kind of weird.  But she kind of clarified it for me.  I grew up around a lot of water.  I was always around pools and on docks, and I saw little kids falling into the water off the docks fairly frequently (I also hear the stories fairly frequently).  And my parents/aunts/uncles would just reach in and pull the kid out. So it is just an idea that I am used to, I guess.  Sometimes kids fall into water when their parents are there, and you just pull them out again.  No big deal.

Plus I knew that Jenn told me that it happened right when it happened. If I had randomly looked and seen Noah floating under the water I would have had a friggin heart attack, because it would have been unknown. Like, was he dead? How long had he been down there??? But because Jenn told me right when it happened, I knew Noah had just slipped under, and it wasn't really a "near drowning" experience. So I didn't have that panic feeling. I just knew he was okay, because he was only under for seconds.
Anyway, that was our excitement for the day!  You can bet that I will be keeping an even closer eye on Noah when we're around pools from now on.  It's not like I was ever negligent, but now that I have actually had the experience of being right next to my kid and not even realizing he had slipped into the water, it makes me much more aware of how accidental drownings can happen, even when there are tons of adults around.