Pumpkin Situation

So the weather here has been crazy. 75 degrees and sunny yesterday. It is very weird to go walking outside and see the beautiful foliage and feel kind of hot and sticky. But that's not the real problem. The real problem is our "big pumpkin" totally disintegrated. By Wednesday. It took a total of three days for it to become totally moldy, collapsed, and dripping.

** picture omitted due to exceptional grossness **

This was quite shocking and heartbreaking to Noah. "pumpkin broken!! Big Pumpkin Broken!!! Fix it? Fix it!?"

Unfortunately, there was no fixing it, so we threw it away. Noah seemed to accept this. "Pumpkin trash."

But then about 5 minutes later he was back to pointing to where the pumpkin had been and saying "pumpkin broken!" Then we discussed how we couldn't fix it so it went into the trash (not a lesson I am thrilled about repeating, btw). Over and over and over and over until we all went to the store after dinner and bought a new pumpkin. "New Pumpkin! New Pumpkin!"

** picture omitted due to mommy never thinking to take a picture **

That was Wednesday. He has been repeating this story on average every two hours since then. He'll point to where the original pumpkin was, then "pumpkin broken!" Then some variation of how it went in the trash, then we'll point out the new pumpkin and talk about that for a while.

The child is clearly obsessed.

Also clearly I am teaching him that when things break we throw them away and then buy new things. I am not very comfortable with this being the take-away from Halloween 2010. Could someone please bring out some candy to teach him the real meaning of Halloween?

My favorite part of this conversation was yesterday afternoon I was trying to explain that we will carve the new pumpkin on Halloween ("ween!" "ween!") and he was listening with that expression that makes me think he is trying to pay attention but has no idea what I am talking about. Then he said:

"shabbat candle in there?"

Then my head exploded because he is way more cognizant than I give him credit for.

Updates to follow once some pictures are actually obtained.

Holy Terror

This is the calmest he's been in the past 24 hours, except for sleeping.



oy.

Pumpkin

The problem with writing a state of the toddler post is that you keep thinking of other things he is doing after the fact. He can reliably count to four! The other day he counted to seven! He can recognize about half of the letters of the alphabet! He loves to help daddy make his coffee! Chad taught him how to pretend tap dance the other day and now sometimes when the music is on Noah will tap dance and will say "happy feet" and it is the cutest thing ever!

Basically, there is no hope of keeping up. If only there was some sort of hard covered book in which I could write all of this stuff.. .

... oh wait, I am failing on that one also...

Let's casually change the subject, shall we? Pumpkin Time!!

It's almost Halloween, so we brought home a "big pumpkin!" Noah was very excited about this, though didn't really understand what we were going to do...


But after a bit of instruction he was all in.


If by "all in" you mean highly amused, but not crazy about getting pumpkin slime on his fingers.



I guess I'll give that one to him, sticking your hand into an unknown slimy pit that is twice the size of your head might be a tiny bit intimidating.



After we finished carving the "big pumpkin!", we stuck a shabbat candle (the only kind of candle we have, apparently) inside and lit it up. This was highly confusing, resulting in Noah saying "shabbat!" over and over.


But with some coaching that was replaced with "ween! ween!" (halloween).


In other news, apparently Noah LOVES roasted pumpkin seeds! Clearly he has excellent taste. Now if we could just convince him to at least try on his costume...

State of the Toddler

Noah continues to keep us entertained.

He talks constantly. He he likes to narrate his activities "all done bathroom; monkey in there; big truck Noah drive." He can ask for demand things "draw! draw! New paper! Elmo music!" and will say please if we remind him to say it or tell him no. Example:

Noah: Dide? Dide!? (translation: outside)

Rachel: No honey, it is raining outside

Noah: Please???

He will randomly say "thank you" on his own after we give him something, which is a delight. Most of the time we remind him and he'll say it.

He will pick up random things that we say and repeat them. Example:

Rachel: No honey, it is raining outside

Noah: Honey! Honey!!

Please watch your language around the toddler.

Speaking of things he's picked up, he has stated calling Chad by his first name. Usually when he is telling Chad to do something. "Chad! Light off!" or "Chad, open!" I swear I do not talk to Chad this way. Really.

Also, anyone have any ideas about how to nip this in the bud?

Noah is getting really good at playing pretend. His favorite activities involve cooking:

He will pretend to heat something up and then deliver it to one of us and tell us what it is "hot pasta!" and what we should do "mommy eat it!!" He LOVES the game where he takes a cup and pretends to splash one of us with water "big splash!! Daddy all wet!!" FYI, if he tries this game with you, you are required to over-react to the pretend splashing. He'll then repeat and repeat and repeat the scenario.

Noah's memory and language are improving to the point where he can talk about things that happened earlier "big kids playground" or things that he can't see. For example, the other day Chad picked Noah up from day care because I had to work late. Noah saw him and asked "Mommy Yoga?" (I go to yoga one night a week)

Speaking of yoga, Noah can do a reasonably convincing downward facing dog and a terrible but adorable triangle pose. I will capture this on film eventually.

Potty training is going well - he never wears diapers at home and we have just started to take short trips away from the house (over to the playground, to Amelia's house, running to the grocery store) with underpants and regular pants. He still has one or two accidents a day, but is clearly progressing. Along those lines, I have no idea how it might be possible to potty train a toddler if you don't have hardwood floors.

Noah is interested in other kids, but is generally shy when actually around new ones. He is still totally in love with his friend Amelia, and when the two of them get together they alternate between parallel play, cooperative play, and actively ignoring each other. Oh, and arguing over toys.

Noah asks for Amelia about once a day, and also asks about "baby Hanley" (her 1 month old brother). Noah is very interested in babies, and wants to hug and kiss my belly all the time "hug baby! kiss!". This is quite adorable, but as I am a very ticklish person it is also kind of annoying. He loves reading the big brother books we have for him, but is clearly confused about the gender of the coming baby. Between Amelia's "new brother" and his upcoming role as "big brother" he doesn't really understand the concept of sister. We assume he will figure this out eventually...

In baby sister growing news, I am still rather pregnant.

27 weeks and counting, heading away from the happy cute belly trimester and into the oh man this is uncomfortable trimester.

Chopped (again)

Who is that short-haired boy playing with Noah's toys?

After watching Noah brush his hair out of his eyes for the past few weeks we finally chopped it off again. Mommy got out the scissors and we went from this:




To this:

Honestly, I kind of prefer the crazy hair, but I don't think it's fair for him to have to be uncomfortable because I think his little baby curls are cute. You may ask: why didn't you just trim it a little to keep the curls and keep it out of his eyes?


Answer: because I have no skill.

Also, WAH HE LOOKS SO OLD!!

-- posted from the phone

My beautiful, photogenic boy

At the park yesterday, working on his parallel bars routine

Responding to my request to smile and say cheese

Posing for his picture on the swing







For having such a cute kid and such a lovely day, I sure stink at getting a decent picture. I think maybe I should go ahead and throw out that application for sears portrait studio.




Happy Fall :)

-- posted from the phone

Fireman Noah

From the indoor play space that we go to sometimes when mommy is especially tired or out of ideas about what we should do today...


Clearly this is a big hit with Noah due to the availability of a BIG TRUCK and a HAT!!

Not pictured: "Elmo is my co-pilot" bumper sticker...

Shabbat Shalom

So this happened on Friday, leading to what I think is Noah's funniest video yet:

Scene: dinner, the Shabbat candles are lit and on the table
Noah: Candles!
Rachel: yes, those candles are for Shabbat.
Noah: Shabbat
Rachel: Yes! Can you say "Shabbat Shalom?"
Noah: Shabbat Saoh. [pause] HEY! [big grin]
Rachel & Chad: HAHAHAHAHAHA

If you have ever been to Hebrew school or a childrens' Shabbat service, you know at that point we had to start singing. Maybe by the third time around we had stopped laughing enough to get the camera.



He's started singing "bim bahm, bim bahm" to himself a few times since then. Clearly this is our new favorite song.

Good morning song

We get up early at our house, and it's not quiet.



Doesn't this make you want to come visit and stay in the room across from Noah's?

(In our defense, we did keep him downstairs and relatively quiet until shortly before we had to leave. Then I thought it appropriate to allow him to wake up the house with a drumming song)

Tania came to visit!

We were delighted to see Tania when she came into town for a conference.


And not just because we seem to make chocolate cake whenever Tania is in town.


Mostly because we just have such a good time.

more almost adorable moments

This is an even better example of how showing up with the camera can ruin a great moment

talking to Elmo

Today's video is a prime example of my getting to the scene with the camera too late, after the cutest stuff has already happened.

Yesterday Noah asked for Elmo to sit on the chair in his room, and then proceeded to read to him and point out pictures (e.g. saying "Elmo, Seeba!!" while looking at Elmo to be sure he was paying attention, then pointing to a picture of a Zebra). It was heartbreakingly adorable. As soon as I turned the camera on he started talking to me instead and the moment was lost. He's done that a few more times since then, today I managed to catch the very tail end.

At any rate, here you go. It feels a bit like he's performing for me or the camera. Someday I will capture him pretending when he doesn't know I am there, and you will see awesome things like him scolding Elmo for biting the table (Elmo fell over so his mouth was over the edge of the table). "No! Elmo Table! No!"

Ladder

The playground across the street from our house has two sections, one for toddlers and one for bigger kids. Of course, Noah refuses to stay on the toddler side. I tend to let him run around the big kids side (assuming it's not too crowded) and deal with the playground equipment that is too old for him by just refusing to help him. This has worked pretty well for us - Noah gets to play on the bigger slides that he can handle no problem, and is self-regulated away from the equipment he can't manage. I figure he can't fall off the ladder and break his neck, because he is clearly too young to get up the ladder by himself.

It seems it may be time to revise that strategy.



Huh.

Homecoming

This past weekend we headed to WPI so I could catch up with some teammates and get a medal.


The dinner was very nice and people said very nice things about me, which was certainly a treat. But my favorite part of the evening (other than watching Beth Gilbert make faces at me) was sitting at the Boynton and laughing so hard that, well, let's just say I am happy I have been doing a good job with the kegals this time around. My teammates are a trip and it was awesome to see them.

We then stuck around for homecoming, and introduced Noah to WPI by letting him hug the goat and buying him a Tshirt with equations on it.


We went to a bit of the football game (Noah's opinion of football: eh. Noah's opinion of the pep band: DRUMS!!! DRUMS!!! NOAH DRUM!!) and walked around in the nice fall weather and generally got sentimental about how much we both really liked WPI. It is a place that just has a good attitude.


Note to Bonnie - we didn't find our bricks. Apparently they have moved them due to all the construction. Either that or we were totally swindled. We'll have to make it back in another 5 years or so to double-check.

Monday.

Monday mornings have become a real challenge around our house. This is kind of a surprise, as Chad and I have always gotten up early and were never really the sort to be all "ugh, Monday." Maybe it's because we always seem to be so busy on the weekends that Monday isn't actually any less restful.

At any rate, turns out that Noah does struggle with Monday mornings now that he is going to day care on Mondays. I don't think he has any problem with actually going to school, but he DEFINITELY does NOT want to put on pants and does not want to use the potty and he wants to play with the zipper on that bag and no he is not hungry and mommy put the water in there NO, IN THERE and he wants to read a book but not that book and he wants to take a shower and where is the kitty and NO HE DOES NOT WANT TO GET DRESSED NO NO NO NO NO NON NONONONONONOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH

!!!!!!

And then we are standing there, with a screaming toddler smearing boogers all over daddy's shoulder, wondering what the hell happened.

And then we force him into pants and get him downstairs and into the stroller or the car because that is what you do when you are a working parent, and all of a sudden he is totally fine and chatting about the weather.

(it was raining)

The moral of the story: toddlers are confusing.

I will leave you with a picture from happier times (aka Thursday afternoon), with the expectation that Mondays are actually more traumatizing for me than for Noah and things will be totally fine tomorrow.