It Was My Birthday

My birthday was this past Friday.  I really don't care much about my birthday since becoming a mother.  Noah's birthday is far more important to me.  This was actually my third birthday since Noah was born, and the first two were amazing.  There is just something special about spending your birthday as a mother after spending a birthday (or two, or three, etc) wanting to be a mother.  Even though my birthday is not very important to me, there was still something magical about it.

Well, that spell was broken this year.

Frankly, the first half of the day sucked.  Noah is normally incredibly pleasant and well behaved, but he chose my birthday to act like a 2 year old.  He decided to whine and cry over everything he wanted to do or have.  I can't. stand. whining. and. crying.  Especially when it's completely unnecessary.  If you want a freaking apple, just ask for it, don't whine and cry about it!!  If you want to watch Chuggington, just ask, don't whine and cry about it!  His first request for anything was punctuated by whining and crying.  I ended up putting him in time out for 90 seconds, where he screamed like someone was cutting his arms off.  It was brutal, and really grated on my nerves.  The whining and crying got a little bit better after that (after he nursed for a good 10 minutes to "recover" from such an unreasonable and terrible consequence... can you just feel the sarcasm oozing through your computer screen?).  But it was still a very frustrating day.

Thankfully we were invited to my parents for dinner, so shortly after Noah's nap we left to go there.  I knew there would be a drastic difference in Noah's behaviour once we got there, and there was.  No more whining and crying, just our happy, pleasant boy.  So those few hours were enjoyable, at least.  My brother and SIL had come to town (not for my birthday, but because my Dad had his shoulder replaced on Wednesday), and it was nice to see them.

So my birthday was just meh. I don't know why exactly, but I'm in a bit of a funk.  Things from my last post are stressing me out.  Then I had a really stressful Thursday, which I'm not going to recap right now.  I'm feeling easily bothered, and I have very little patience.

I guess it's probably just a mixture of real-life stress and pregnancy hormones.  Everything seems worse when you're jacked up on pregnancy hormones.

Okay, I think I'm going to take this time to try to list some positive things going on in my life right now.  Maybe it'll help me get out of the funk.

1. I'm pregnant.  Hello, that's pretty awesome.

2. I'm pretty positive I've been feeling the baby fluttering around in there for the past week.  I know it's early, but I was feeling little mystery flutters this early with Noah, so it only makes sense.  Plus, considering the size and location of my uterus (the top of it is just about even with my belly button), it makes even more sense that I would feel it earlier than normal.

3. We have an ultrasound tomorrow!  We haven't seen this Bambino in almost 6 weeks, and I'm really excited to see him/her looking like a real baby instead of a kidney bean.  Plus at my clinic they broadcast the ultrasound onto a big flatscreen on the wall, so it's really a neat experience.  And if there's enough time we might be able to see some 3D images!

4. Justin and Noah are best friends lately.  For awhile there (maybe about 6 months ago), poor Daddy was way down on Noah's list of favourite people.  Numbers 1 through 9 were Mommy, and Daddy barely hung onto the number 10 spot.  But no longer!  I am still number 1 (especially when it comes to Noah being hurt or upset or scared, or when he wakes up in the morning or after nap).  But the rest of the time, MAN is he happy to be hanging out with his Dad!  No more whining for Mommy!  In fact, if Justin has to take a shower or go do something else, Noah doesn't give a crap the fact that I'm still there; he just gets sad that Justin is gone.   It just makes me so happy to see them be so close, and it's great timing with the pregnancy and impending baby.

5. We've been able to go to church again for the past 2 weeks!

6. Noah is loving babies.  He gets excited whenever he sees one ("There's a baby!!"  "Hi little baby!").  He asks if he can hug and kiss the baby (ie. my belly).  If he's on my lap he says "Careful of the baby!!!"  And today in the church nursery I was holding a baby boy (about 3 or 4 months old), and he was sooo sweet to him, caressing his face, and leaning forward to give him an adorable kiss on the cheek.  This makes me really look forward to the new baby arriving.

7. Next weekend is Easter, and that means my whole immediate family will be together in one place (there are currently 13 of us, and 2 babies on the way).  Last time we were all together was Christmas, so this will be nice.


Okay, I'm feeling like I'm in a better mood.  I just need to focus on the good stuff instead of the bad/annoying stuff.  Off to do other things!

19 Months Old

It has been extremely difficult getting around to writing Noah's 19 month stats.  I just sent him off with Daddy for an hour, so instead of taking some time to relax or make dinner, I'm doing this. 

At 19 months, here is where Noah is at:

-I haven't weighed or measured Noah this month, but I assume he is just slightly heavier and taller than last month, when he was 27lbs and 35 inches.

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

-He wears size 2T and 3T clothing.  Most 2T clothing is too short, though.

-He wears size 6 shoes.

-He nurses on demand, 4-6 times a day.

-He exclusively feeds himself his solids, either with his hands or with a spoon and fork. If he is given a utensil, he will always use it.  He also drinks out of a regular cup quite well, although we try to use a sippy cup as often as he will let us since we run less risk of him purposefully pouring out his water.

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

-He broke his leg on Saturday, September 24, 2011.  The diagnosis wasn't confirmed until the following Thursday.  He is doing a lot better now, but he is still limping.

-As of his 19 month birthday, he had been on a nap strike for 15 days, where he absolutely refused to nap unless he was actively nursing or in the car.  I think we might have beaten that now, though.  Update on that separately.  Soon, hopefully.

-Half of this month he was been sleeping 11 to 11.5 hours at night, getting up to nurse twice.  I went along with this because it started happening right after he broke his leg.  But when naps went to crap and Noah woke up wanting to nurse already at 11:30pm, I buckled down.  Since then he has been sleeping straight through the night 2/3 of the time and getting up to nurse sometime after 5am 1/3 of the time (one nurse a night is normal for him and I don't mind it).

-Bedtime is after 8:30pm most nights, and we've been sleeping in until about 8am or later every morning.

-He no longer signs to nurse, eat, or for water.  He's strictly verbal.

-At 15 months Noah was saying 18 words. At 16 months he was saying 42 words. At 17 months he was saying 79 words. At 18 months he was saying 137 words.  

-At 19 months Noah is saying way over 300 words.  However, I am not very good at writing them all down, and I need to find a way to automatically alphabetize them on the computer because it's really hard to go through the list to see if a new word is really a new word or not.  As a result, I have only recorded 281 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, 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), pool, eyes, nose, rice, pour, no, apple, bath, heck, help, eat, T.V., pup, corn, cook, moon, sun, on, off, mouse, brush, ice, neigh, push, yay, peach, buddy, you, hi, mess, flip, hose, toast, home, see you, pieces, pear, foot, me, tape, open, meat, ok, out, street, outside, keys, bits, pee, flies, away, whoa, cheerios, cut, gas, wet, hey, bless.

-Some of his new words are: plate, baby, kick, acorn, grass, light, dark, medicine, horse, cake, after, bar, house, two, three, go, doctor, windy, lid, hide, Elmo, get, it, fix, button, thank, beep, one, cookie, high, chair, highchair, whack, walk, tower, cute, breakfast, bawk (chicken), back, moose, lion, tiger, dinner, pocket, Ernie, draw, wall, welcome, Granny, Matt, Lynsey, aunt, Giliane, Nick, Hilary, cuddle, boat, pen, puck, ready, picture, coming, dude, cool, clothes, soother, green, purple, blue, both, you, I, love, fries, toys, red, playdoh, stick, hockey, hit, ribbit, frog (which comes out as f#ck), colour, found, plug, pizza, coffee, cricket, broke, ring, hug, rice, watch, arm, leg, ear, closet, open, dukie (dutch slang for washcloth), chicken, Abby, sweep, music, Emmie, Lexie, other, room, welcome, rain, clap, table, yellow, crayon, crib, music, lotion, cube, self, ice cube, new, giraffe, bite, blanky, dance, meow, cow, dog, rabbit, tomato, tree, bathroom, cup, window, honk, pretty, grape, fork, spoon, knife, goose, bang, Scout, peek-a-boo.

-In case you didn't read through that long list (I don't blame you), Noah says frog, but it comes out as "f#ck." Quite perfectly pronounced, too.  It has embarrassed me several times.

-He is putting many two word phrases together.  For example: thank you, bless you, get it, get you, got you, hang on, etc.

-He knows that poop and pee go in the toilet, and he shows interest when we go to the bathroom, but I haven't gotten him a potty or even started to bother training him.  I am in no hurry.

-His verbal comprehension continues to be amazing. He understands everything we say to him. We can even reason with him.

-He still wants gets into everything, but he is continuing to obey the word "no" more consistently.

-Currently, his favourite "toys" are our Dyson vacuum cleaner, my hair dryer, any cleaning implement, or anything electronic that isn't meant to be played with.

-He just jumped for the first time, actually getting air.  We weren't trying to teach him, he just suddenly decided to stand there on two feet and figure out how to jump up and land again.  And he did it.

-He loves to colour with us.  We colour with paper and crayons, or on his big AquaDoodle mat.  I love AquaDoodle.

-He knows most of the main colours: green, orange, blue, red, yellow, purple, and black.  He spends most of his time concentrating on green and orange, though.  Especially orange.

-He'll count "one, two, three..." but most of the time when he's counting he says "Two, two, two, two..." as he points to different objects.  This slays me.  It's hilarious.

-He loves to play with playdoh.  I bought it when he broke his leg and wasn't supposed to walk.  I bought a Sesame Street set of shapes and cutters and things, so when he wants to play with playdoh he'll usually say "Elmo!  Cut!"  

-He L.O.V.E.S. Sesame Street.  He either asks to watch "Street" or "Elmo".  He absolutely adores Elmo, and his second favourite character would probably be Abby Cadabby.  He even knows that if I spell "E-L-M-O" that spells Elmo.  I tried spelling it so he wouldn't hear the word, but he figured it out pretty quickly.

-This is the very first month he has shown an interest in loving stuffed animals.  Before now he was only attached to "Pup," his lovey.  And that was only after having him in his crib for months and months.  This month he fell in love with a puppy at Build-A-Bear, so we made one for him.  He adores that puppy.  He hugs him and kisses him and cuddles with him.  We call him "Scout," which Noah pronounces something like "Suck."

-Time outs are still extremely successful around here. They've been so successful, we don't need to use them that often anymore.

-No illnesses for Noah this month. The count is at 13.

-He is getting much less shy, but he still has separation anxiety from me.

-He is such a smart, sweet, gentle little boy who just loves other kids and babies.  He shares, he's nice, he's empathetic... I'm so proud of him!

18 Months Old

At 18 months, here is where Noah is at:

-He is about 27lbs.  This shocked me this month.

-He is about 35 inches tall.

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

-He wears size 2T and 3T clothing.

-He wears size 6 shoes.

-He nurses on demand, 5-7 times a day.  When he nurses he is constantly playing with my face and ears, especially when he's nursing to sleep.  He will be sleeping, but he is reaching up with an open palm that just gently strokes my ear and earring, over and over.

-He exclusively feeds himself, either with his hands or with a spoon and fork. If he is given a utensil, he will always use it.

-He's cooperative about drinking from a sippy cup early in the day, but once the afternoon and evening hits he wants to drink from a regular CUP, darnit, just like Mama.

-He has 16 full teeth. The only ones left are his 2 year molars, which I think he is actually already starting to work on (although I am mostly in denial about this).

-He has one nap a day, usually about an hour long.

-This month he's been sleeping 11 to 11.5 hours at night, getting up to nurse once, sometime after 5am. Bedtime is after 8:30pm most nights, and we've been sleeping in until about 8am or later every morning.

-He still signs for water and to eat, even though he says the words just as easily.  He almost never signs to nurse anymore.  He said asks "Nurse?"

-At 15 months Noah was saying 18 words. At 16 months he was saying 42 words. At 17 months he was saying 79 words.  At 18 months he is saying 137 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, 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).

His new words are: pool, eyes, nose, rice, pour, no, apple, bath, heck, help, eat, T.V., pup, corn, cook, moon, sun, on, off, mouse, brush, ice, neigh, push, yay, peach, buddy, you, hi, mess, flip, hose, toast, home, see you, pieces, pear, foot, me, tape, open, meat, ok, out, street, outside, keys, bits, pee, flies, away, whoa, cheerios, cut, gas, wet, hey, bless.

-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.

-I'm pretty sure he knows exactly what pee is, and he knows it goes in the toilet.  He'll open any bathroom door, point to the toilet, and exclaim "Pee!!!"

-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 amazing.  He understands everything we say to him.  We can even reason with him.

-He still wants gets into everything, but he is continuing to obey the word "no" more consistently.

-He hardly ever plays with his toys.  Currently, his favourite "toys" are our Dyson vacuum cleaner, anything electronic that isn't meant to be played with, any cleaning implement (like Swiffers), or kitchen/bathroom gadgets.

-He loves to run, climb, swim... anything active.

-Time outs are still wildly successful around here.  They've been so successful, we don't need to use them that often anymore.

-One mild illness for Noah this month.  The count is at 13.

-He still has a thing for pretty blonde women:)

-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.

18 months old!  I just can't believe my little guy is a year and a half!  I still think of him as my baby, even though he is such a toddler.  The nursing, cuddling, and snuggling him as he falls asleep in my arms really helps us both ease this transition.  Everyday he does something that just makes my mouth hang open, because, "Oh my gosh, he is a little boy now!"

I think this might be my favourite age so far, at least since he has become a toddler.  He is so incredibly entertaining.  I love watching him do such grown up things.  I love listening to him talk and learn new words.  I love his long gibberish sentences.  I love observing him as he assimilates new information into his existing knowledge base so quickly and easily.  I love how he is just so darned silly.

I am not going nearly as crazy as I was a few months ago.  Noah is much more obedient now.  He still does things I don't want him to do, of course.  But it's no longer only going from one restricted activity to another restricted activity.  There are a lot of things he will stay away from now.  And when he's not listening, times outs really work for both him and me.  I rarely end up at the point where I want to bang my head against the wall, because a quick time out stops me from having to stop him from doing the same thing 200 times in a row.

Everybody is telling me I should be buying Noah a potty.  He is showing so much interest in poop, pee, the toilet, and seems to be grasping the whole concept.  He definitely grasps that we use the toilet for poop and pee, anyway.  And he'll wipe his diapered crotch with toilet paper.  This made me laugh so hard.  I am in no rush for this.  Potty training was something I wasn't even thinking about until sometime after he turns 2.  Next summer seemed like a good time to try, because he could run around outside all day with no clothes on.  Maybe if a good potty goes on sale I will pick one up and see what happens.  I'm not convinced, even though all his aunts, uncles, and grandparents seem to be.

I'm looking forward to what this next month will bring.  I am constantly reminded that my Mom and sister in law both had their second babies when their first was 19 months old (my mom actually did that 4 times in a row).  I just can't even imagine having a newborn in a month.  I'm happy to be able to concentrate on Noah for awhile longer.

Backyard, Pool, Sickness, and a Funny Kid

-It's my 11th day of being sick today.  I still feel terrible.  I don't think I've ever been this sick this long.  I've been sicker than this, for sure, but I've been fairly sick with no letting up for 11 days now.  It's really getting on my nerves.  And it's keeping me from getting a decent night's sleep, which in turn makes my nerves easier to get on in the first place.

-My backyard is a disaster.  The guys are off for the next three days because of the long weekend.  In the meantime, my backyard looks like this:

They're killing the grass we have left, which was previously quite nice.  And there is no usable space for Noah to play in.  Meanwhile, it is freaking 110 degrees outside (literally), and my pool, which would be so wonderful right now, looks like this:

Not exactly swimmable.

Everything looks so small in those pictures.  Granted, the pool isn't enormous.  It's only as big as the town's bylaws will allow because of how far it has to be from the fence on all sides (and we are putting a fence down the middle of the yard).  But the pool seems much larger in person.

It's hard to believe it will be up and running in a week.  And after watching them work for the past 5 days, Justin and I are actually shocked at how little we are paying.  It's shocking to see everything that is involved in installing an inground pool. 

-The swimming pool fencing bylaws in my town are very strict.  You can see in the one picture that my deck is 6-7 feet above grade  It then has a 42 inch railing.  We were going to put a 5 foot fence all the way across the middle of the yard.  Apparently this is not good enough.  Apparently the deck has to have a 5 foot railing. Personally, I think this is ridiculous.  If someone can manage to scale the railing as it is, they will plunge to their death by falling 10 feet onto concrete.  They will definitely not be drowning in the swimming pool.  

My contractor was trying to find some way around this new section of the bylaw, like having an alarm installed on the sliding door.  Apparently that was rejected by the inspector.  So their new plan is to create a new 5 foot railing to go along the one side, only bring the fence up to the bottom of the stairs, and then skirt the one side of the deck that faces the pool, using fence boards.  I am crossing my fingers that this doesn't cost me extra money.

-We also have to install child safety locks on the four windows that face the pool.  Apparently it doesn't matter if they're second story, main floor, or basement.  I find this annoying, and I will not be keeping them on once the pool is finished and the inspector has come and gone.  They're supposed to prevent the windows from opening greater than 10cm (about 3.5 inches).  That is ridiculous.

I just want this to be done with.  This has been a long week and this coming week feels like it's going to feel like a month instead of 7 days.  Blaaaah.

-This post is most definitely coloured by the persistant throbbing in my head, which, as I mentioned, has been going on for 11 days.  I've taken 1000mg of tylenol four times today, and have not been able to get rid of it.  And I'm pretty sure I have PMS, as I'm expecting my period in 3 or 4 days.  Which also sucks.

-The good thing is always this:

His new thing is standing still for pictures (but not necessarily smiling) if I tell him he can see them afterward.  This facial expression cracks me up:

"Ok, I'll stand still, but I don't like it.  And I really want to see the picture right now."

He makes me laugh every day.  And he is starting to obey much more, which makes it much more tolerable when he doesn't obey, since that's no longer the 'rule'.  Time outs really have worked wonders in this house.

-We had a family photoshoot done on Wednesday.  We've never had out pictures done professionally before, and our photographer does amazing work.  I am very excited to see the pictures!  

Alright, I'm out of here.