27 Months Old

Our little rascal commemorated his 27th months of life by getting lost at Whole Foods.  He ran off in the produce department and after a few minutes of trying not to yell his name too loudly and sound like a total crazy person, an employee found Noah in the dairy section.  I thought maybe he'd be a little scared or something, but no, when he saw me, he was still laughing.  I tried to explain to him that he could get lost and that he can't run off, but he just kept laughing!  Then I said that if he were lost, there would be no more mommy, no more daddy (is it too mean to say these things?), no more Monkey, no more Spencer, no more Whiff, and I continued to list out the names of his trains... This time he didn't laugh.  He started crying, but said, "My Spencer.....my Spencer...." Geez.  I guess he wouldn't miss his parents!

The things that Noah says these days are hilarious.  When we ask him to do something that he doesn't want to do, he says, "Uhhhhhh....no genks."  What is he thinking over anyway??  Peter will ask him for a hug and his response is sometimes, "Uhhhhh....uhh...no genks."  Recently he started saying "Uhhh...ok fine," so I guess he really is deliberating.  Haha.  When he really wants something, he often says, "Pwease!!!  PWEASE!!!!" accompanied by whining and crying.  When he wants something to be moved out of the way, he says excuse me, but it sounds more like "cue me."  He says this not only to people, but to things as well.  "Cue me box.... Cue me chair... Cue me book..." We got a new TV recently and the box for the TV was in his way so he said, "Cue me, new TV."  If he doesn't know the name of something, he says, "Cue me, this."  It's the best when he wants something out of the way urgently: "Cue me, this.  Cue me, this.  Pwease!  PWEASE!!!" and then he starts whining and crying because the thing that he wants to move over can't actually move.  Now we have to work on pairing the polite language with actual polite behavior.  For example, no more yelling, "Mommy!!!  What you talkin bout??!?!" every time I'm trying to have a conversation with someone.  Also in the talking department, Noah just recently said his first accidental swear words.  As I've mentioned in previous posts, Noah loves reciting lines from movies, and his current favorite movie is Toy Story.  One of Buzz's lines is "My ship!" so Noah goes around saying, "My sh*t!  My sh*t!"  I suppose it's a bit immature to laugh about it, but when he says it over and over again, I just can't help laughing.

We've also been seeing more of Noah's sneaky side.  He loves playing with the our phones so a lot of times he'll look at us, give us a really big smile, while he slowly slides the phone away.  He also likes to try to sneak off to get the iPad.  Again, he'll flash us a big distracting smile, then tip toe sideways off towards our room.  Once he makes it into the room, he'll turn and sprint towards the usual iPad hiding spots.  

I guess that's it for this month!  He still loves his trains, still loves Buzz, and is getting better at using utensils.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving.  My most favorite holiday.  Even though most holidays are spent with family, this holiday reminds me most of family and home.  We never really did the traditional Thanksgiving dinner when I was growing up: every year when Thanksgiving rolled around my mom would ask, "Do we have to have turkey this year?"  Though she asked, it didn't really matter what we said since she would be the one cooking (or not cooking) it anyway.  We must have had turkey at least a few times growing up, but not always, and definitely not with stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, etc etc.  For a very long time, we only ate mashed potatoes made from those instant flakes.  I really thought this was how one made mashed potatoes.  One year I remember insisting that we have cranberry sauce, so we bought a can and had a dish of can-shaped cranberry sauce, which only I ate.  I have to admit I saw something similar on the Simpsons, so I figured this was normal.  Maybe this is what happens when your parents are immigrants, or maybe I just didn't pay very good attention.  Looking back, I guess these experiences make the holiday special in its own way, but mostly they're just a little sad - particularly from a gastronomic point of view.  After I graduated from college and started working, I started paying attention.

Working at a school, I was kind of inundated with all things Thanksgiving.  My colleagues and students all talked about the Thanksgiving meals they were looking forward to and in particular the special pies or stuffing that so-and-so was going to make, and seeing relatives, etc.  I also seemed to walk by a lot of stores that sold Thanksgiving related food and kitchen items.  So that year, instead of trying to convince my mom to roast a turkey, it dawned on me that I could roast one myself!  I was an adult now, right?  And I could make stuffing and cranberry sauce that wasn't shaped in a can.  Maybe even mash some real potatoes.  So I got to researching, discovered brining, found a great stuffing recipe, realized that it was pretty easy to make cranberry sauce from actual cranberries, and even got a great pie crust recipe from a colleague.  I was ready to go after a quick visit to Williams Sonoma.

I decided to brine the turkey, but didn't really think to get a brining bag, so my mom dug out the biggest pot we had, and we put the turkey in there.  But there was no room in the fridge.  Fortunately, it was a pretty cold Thanksgiving that year, so we ended up putting the pot of turkey outside, in the car.  My sister made the mashed potatoes, I experimented with a cornbread sausage stuffing recipe, and it was a success!  I even took notes on what worked and what didn't work to look back on the following year.  It was a lot of work, it was the best Thanksgiving meal I'd ever had, not only because it really did taste good, but because I had actually roasted a turkey!  At 22 years old, I hadn't really done that much cooking beyond instant noodles and pasta, so it was kind of a big deal.  But I didn't make it all by myself, and that was what made it special.  Not only were we getting together as a family, we were putting together a meal as a family.  Now that I've moved to Virginia, I usually have Thanksgiving here, and though it's changed a bit, it's still cooked and shared by family and friends.  And I always think of those first Thanksgiving meals I made in NY.

3 Month Update

Sarah is 3 months old today!  I've forgotten how much tiny babies change over just one month!  Sarah is still just eating, sleeping, soiling diapers, and doing some tummy time, but all things sleep were the main focus this month.  Up until a few weeks ago, we had been holding Sarah and rocking her/bouncing her to sleep for every nap.  Every baby book out there says to put babies down "drowsy but awake" and not fully asleep, but I didn't really remember how to put her down for naps otherwise.  This was also an area of such stress with Noah that I just wanted to keep things as easy as possible...and hope that Sarah would just figure out how to "self-soothe" and fall asleep on her own later on.  No adult, or even older child for that matter, needs to be rocked to sleep, right??  In any case, the rocking to sleep was a problem anyway because Sarah was starting to get very heavy (95%-ile in weight!!), and because it was also just not working that well anymore.  During the weekend of Hurricane Sandy, Sarah also started staying up for an hour or two after night-time feedings, usually between 4 and 5 am.  I think she did this every night that weekend.  Fortunately Peter had Monday and Tuesday off due to the hurricane, but I was worried that this was going to continue even after he went back to work and I would've been in real trouble.  When Noah was little, I could at least nap during the day when I was really tired, but now I can only nap if Sarah and Noah are both napping at the same time....which doesn't happen often.  It's like waiting around for a lunar eclipse.  So when Peter went back to work on Wednesday, I made it my mission to be on top of Sarah's waking and napping and I watched the clock constantly to make sure she was never awake for too long.  I was convinced that her sleep problems were due to not enough sleep and irregular sleeping times, so I was going to at least try to fix that and see what happened.  I don't know if my efforts did anything or not, but somehow, she started sleeping better.  Not only was she sleeping better, but if I paid close attention to her tired signs and got her into bed, in a nice swaddle, and stuck a pacifier in her mouth, she fell asleep!  It worked far better than holding her!  I hope this method continues to be effective, because I really do not want to go back to rocking her to sleep.

Now that sleeping and feeding are somewhat figured out, Sarah is pretty happy most of the day.  She smiles a lot, and is very chatty!  Just about every time I look at Sarah, she has a big smile for me, and I feel so, so blessed.  She looks like the happiest baby in the world, and I like to think that it's because she sees me. :)  I don't remember Noah being like this....I think he saved most of his smiles for Peter.  Sarah coos a lot too, with lots of facial expressions, and it seems like she's telling me all about what's happened to her recently.  I was a little nervous about having a girl because I felt like I was getting the hang of having a boy and I worried about being able to bond and connect with her.  Sarah and I aren't having real conversations yet, but I feel like we are already forming a deep connection.  I also worried about loving one child more than the other, but I'm assured now that it's just not possible.  Noah may have been my #1 baby for so long, but I can see that my relationship with Sarah is and will be special in its own way.  Now I have two #1 babies!