School's Out!

School's actually been out for a week or so, but I haven't had a chance to blog.  I still can't quite believe the school year's over.  The last couple of months were such a crunch, trying to cover all the material to be covered, prepare for finals, grading, and comment writing.  There was so much to do and I was so looking forward to being done with comment writing that there wasn't any time to think about the fact that school was almost over and that I would not be returning in September.  Although I'm glad that the year is over, I know that I will be a bit sad in the fall.  It's always so exciting starting a new year with new students, new classes, new everything (even if it gets old really quickly!).  But, I will have a new baby then and I'm sure that she will bring all kids of new excitement.  Noah will also be starting preschool at a new place, two mornings a week, and I'm sure that will require a lot of my attention. 

Since our daycare does full-year contracts, we decided to keep Noah in daycare for a full year, meaning he will be at daycare the entire summer and I will have one final vacation....at least until the kids are old enough for sleep-away camp. :)  And it's a good thing too, because in the past few weeks, picking up Noah frequently has really taken a toll on my back.  With him at daycare, I can suffer the inconveniences of pregnancy alone. :)  Okay, so I'm not really suffering... it's just the back pain/possibly sciatica. 

Once August rolls around though, I will likely be enslaved to baby duties for a full year.  I ended up nursing Noah just about the entire first year, and never really got him used to drinking from a bottle.  The plus side was that I didn't have to worry about weaning him off the bottle; he went straight to a straw cup.  I also could never really figure out a good system for nursing and pumping without making the milk supply crazy.  The down side was that I couldn't leave him with anyone for long periods of time.  Looking back it seems really crazy that we did that, but it's over, I survived, and I barely even remember that time anymore.  Since we are 99% sure we will not be having anymore babies, I think it'll be a bit easier this time around. 

It's weird that when you have very little to do, it takes so long to do it!  When I was working, I woke up at around 6:30 everyday, worked pretty much a full day, picked up Noah, went to the supermarket, usually tried to cook, and did dishes, laundry, etc.  These days, it's a whole undertaking just to buy some groceries or return library books.  Ah, the life of leisure.  Hahahaa... I'm going to enjoy it while I still can! 

21 Month Update

Driving a school bus.  Noah loves buses!

Here he is doing the "round and round" hand motions to the Wheels on the Bus - his favorite song.

Hanging out with me because he was home, sick with a fever.

So I'm a week or so late on the update, but better late then never!  Especially when so much is happening every month.  Noah is talking more and more these days, and now will at least try to say almost anything you ask him to.  Even things you don't ask him to.  The other day I might have kind of been road-raging while driving and I was like "Come on!!!" and then Noah goes "Come on!!!"  Oops.  I've already been careful about what I've been saying because I know he understands a lot, but it's starting to get very dangerous!  We've also started having spell words out, like "strawberry" or "Thomas" (for Thomas the train) because he will often drop everything to eat strawberries or watch Thomas.  And I mean everything.  If he has food in his mouth, he will often spit it out when he sees something else he wants to eat.  Once when he was in one of those shopping carts with kiddie car attached and didn't want to get out, we said he could watch Thomas in the car if he got out and he immediately got out.  We let him watch Finding Nemo recently and now he's all about Nemo.  When we get in the car he'll say, "Nemo?"  If we say no, he'll say, "Water?  Shark?  Turtle?  Whale?" Peter got me a toy Nemo years ago when he was in Disney World for some sort of work training thing and now Noah sleeps with it.  I think Noah may have watched Finding Nemo twice last weekend because we spent so much time in the car.  I know, we're rotting his brain.  We do try to limit it to just in the car though, since there isn't much else for him to do but look for buses and trucks on the road (which he actually finds very exciting sometimes).

Noah is becoming more and more independent these days.  While this sounds great in theory, it can be kind of frustrating because, well, he really doesn't know how to do anything.  He always wants to feed himself, or as he says, "felf."  A lot of times he refuses to eat and will only eat if he has control of the spoon...which he then abandons after I give it to him because he'd rather eat with his hands.  He also likes to eat with his hands while still holding on to a toy, usually one of his trains.  Another thing likes is to walk by himself instead of being held or having his hand held.  Again, this sounds great, but it also means he's constantly wandering off, trying to run into the street, or trying to run off to the playground when I'm trying to take him to his daycare classroom.  If we don't let him do things himself, crying, kicking, and screaming ensue....it's difficult to decide when to give in and when to stay firm!  My decision making process is usually based on how much patience I have at the given moment.  Peter is definitely a lot more patient than I am.  I think I have to give him full credit for teaching Noah how to spoon yogurt into his mouth because I just couldn't deal with the mess.  But now Noah's pretty good at eating yogurt!  It's still a bit messy, but pretty good.

Noah loves songs.  Sometimes he'll randomly say "Daddy, singing" or "Mommy, singing," basically saying he wants us to sing something.  Sometimes he'll randomly start saying/singing the lyrics to songs he likes.  One day I started singing "hickory dickory dock..." (not sure why), and then Noah said "mouse...up" and then when I finished the rest of the song and ended with "hickory dickory dock" again, he said "tick tock, tick tock."

The last thing I wanted to add was Noah got into his first scuffle at school today.  Well, at least the first one that got physical enough to inform parents....and he was on the receiving end.  When I went to pick him up from daycare today, his right arm had a bunch of scratches on it and I was informed that he was scratched by a classmate either because he had taken a toy from the classmate or the classmate wanted the toy from him.  It's a bit unclear to me right now exactly how it started, just that there was a toy involved, and Noah was scratched.  Even though he  wasn't seriously injured and most likely forgot about the incident already, I'm kind of traumatized!  I know that the kid who did it doesn't know any better, I know that Noah is just fine, and I know that these kinds of things happen, but I have to admit that I lost a little bit of trust in his daycare today.  This is also combined with other recent incidents though.  Noah was in a time out a few days ago when I went to pick him up, for spilling other kids' drinks.  I totally agree that Noah should receive some consequence for doing something wrong, but just yesterday I saw another child push Noah down (not by accident) - and he didn't end up in a time out.  In fact, I often see this particular child pushing and hitting other kids when I go to pick Noah up, and I've never seen him in a time out.  All of this kind of makes me feel like the teachers aren't always treating the kids fairly, and it makes me wonder whether or not the child who scratched Noah received any sort of consequence at all, while Noah's getting time outs for spilling milk.  Sigh.  I'm trying really hard to not cross over into crazy parent land, but everyday I'm finding that it's a really fine line to walk! 

Okay, very long post this time.  Sorry to end on a sad note.  Hopefully I'll still be sane next month!