16 Month Update

Our sassy little munchkin is 16 months old! People always used to marvel at how calm and easy-going Sarah was, but these days she's become much more feisty. If I ever try to re-direct her in a different direction or towards a different toy to play with, she gets quite angry. It's all fun and cute now, but I suppose eventually I'm going to have to figure out how to get her temper under control!

Sarah is finally walking most of the time. After many months of making us walk her around while holding her hands and a few steps here and there, she is now walking more than she is crawling. I suppose it was a bit easier to deal with her and Noah when she was not mobile (only one child to chase around) but Noah is a bit more tame now and Sarah is just getting too heavy! Plus I was really starting to get worried about the whole thing. So, fortunately she is on the move on her own two feet. Hooray!

Sarah's teeth are still ever so slowly coming in… She has almost six teeth now. Haha. I'm not sure if it's because her teeth hurt or she's just feeling sick, but she's been on another hunger strike and hasn't eaten much of anything in the past few days. Yesterday she had a large portion of oatmeal and then took a nice looooong nap, but today she seems to be back to her normal ways of eating very little, napping very little. Looks like little Sarah is going to be staying very little.

Although Sarah can get really mad when I try to redirect her, she fortunately does not need to be redirected often. Noah seemed to always have a knack for getting into everything he wasn't supposed to get into, but Sarah just explores but doesn't do crazy things like break glass pitchers or play in the toilet bowl (yet!). She is also pretty good at playing with toys on her own, so in that way she's a lot less high maintenance. Either girls are just way easier than boys, or we totally lucked out this time around! She crawled and walked later which made it easier for me to adjust to having two kids, never really rolled around (Noah used to get from one end of the room to the other just by rolling), learned to go up and down the stairs safely pretty early, is pretty good at feeding herself (when she's in the mood to eat), goes to sleep easily - sometimes even transfers from carseat to crib, and I think there's probably more to add to the list that I can't think of now. She's also more cuddly and gives juicy kisses with a big "mmmmmah!"

It's been a good month, and in the midst of the holiday festivities, I'm reminded of how lucky I am to have my little babies!

15 Month Update

Little Sarah is growing up, but is still a little munchkin to me. As much as I dislike having to do almost everything all the time for Sarah and Noah, I know I'm going to be so sad when they not only don't need me to do anything for them, but don't want me to. Anyway. Don't want to get too ahead of myself….because little Sarah is still working on walking (and Noah has yet to use the potty at school). She has become a little more confident this month and will take a few steps on her own, as long as her destination is cushy and nearby:

Still a ways to go, but she's making progress.

Sarah is also finally getting teeth #5 & 6. On the down side, that means she's been on a bit of a hunger strike again and only seems to want to eat chicken noodle soup and Cheerios. I really hope we don't find out one day down the line that Cheerios are actually totally bad for you. I tried giving her an organic substitute, but she quickly found me out and refused the organic variety. Sarah is tricky when it comes to food….she always wants to eat what I'm eating, and yet 90% of the time, she doesn't want to eat what I'm eating. Whenever she sees me munching on something, she crawls over and goes, "Ma ma ma ma ma ma ma?"- her way of saying I want to eat some. But then I give her a taste and she usually recoils in disgust. And then she doesn't want to eat what I give her because, well, it's not what mommy's eating. At least she's willing to give it a taste I guess. Sometimes she's also interested in what Noah's eating, which is usually more palatable to her, so that's another way to get her to eat. Oh the things I do to get my kids to eat. I feel like I should just say, "You don't want it, then starve." But then it's still me who has to deal with the hunger meltdown later. Lose-lose.

Other than "ma ma ma ma ma ma" and "dada" Sarah isn't really saying much, but she's understanding more and more. She can sign "more" and recently learned to sign "thank you", which she usually does while saying "dah". I think she also can say "hi" and "bye bye" but she babbles a lot so I'm not entirely sure she means what she is saying. Also, thanks to Noah, Sarah likes to move cars around and go "ooooooh" and other car-like sounds.

Sarah is playing more with Noah these days, mostly trying to get into his stuff and find out what he's up to. Of course Noah hates it and goes nuts every time Sarah moves one of his trains a few millimeters in the wrong direction. Haha! Noah totally loves having Sarah around though (it just has to be on his terms I guess). It's great for me that they can keep each other company, but I definitely struggle to be a fair referee between them. Noah may be older and can follow instructions, but he's still just three, and Sarah is still just a baby and is really far away from understanding what it is to be gentle and to share. So I'm busy telling Noah not to push Sarah or to take turns with her, while she's hitting him in the face just to see what his nose feels like and grabbing his Buzz Lightyear because she wants to see why Noah's so interested in it.

All in all it's been a fun month. Sarah will have her 15 month check up this week, so probably another round of shots. Hopefully everything else is good!

Noah at 3 years, 2 months

Halloween parade at school. Looking forward to Trick-or-treating tomorrow!

Noah is 3 years and 2 months old now, and is currently obsessed with sharks (and other sea animals) and riding his bike. He was going to be Buzz Lightyear for Halloween this year, but for whatever reason he wasn't really into the costume, even though he's still really into Buzz Lightyear. So, we decided on a shark and he's been pretty excited about that.

Here's Noah on the trail by our house in the spring right after we moved, and then yesterday, but riding his bike. It is so amazing to see how much he's grown from the spring to the fall. Even though he's been riding his bike for a little while now, the past month has been spent slowly working up the courage and confidence to ride more independently (starting and stopping on his own) and going down any type of hill. He's still pretty scared of most hills, which has been kind of nice since we have a sort of topological fence keeping Noah from taking off on his bike. It is so nice that Noah can, for the most part, entertain himself outside now since Sarah is starting to take more interest in moving around and doing things outside as well. 

Just so that no one reading this is lead to believe that it's all just fun and games around here (this includes myself, when I look back in the future), there have also been not so good things going on this month. Noah has not been very good at using his words at school and has instead been using his hands and feet  to communicate with pushing and kicking. We had a bunch of serious conversations with him last week about this and after he finally seemed to recognize the seriousness of the matter, he seemed to feel a bit sad about it. This past week has been good, so I'm hoping there are no more incidents in the future. It really must be hard for him though. The classroom is small, the playground is small, he has a lot of energy, he can be very strong-willed, he feels shy at school, and he goes to school Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. He usually has a great day on Monday, but by Wednesday I think he's really had enough. A MWF or maybe MTTh schedule might have been better for him, but I suppose eventually he'll be going to school every day, the whole week, so he'll have to adjust at some point. 

Aside from the school issues though, Noah has been more difficult at home as well. I recently started reading this 1-2-3 Magic book on discipline that a friend lent me, which has helped I think. The method is a bit gimmicky and I think recommends counting to three a little too often, but I've tried loosely applying some of the principles - particularly the one about remaining calm - and I really feel like I've seen a difference. And it isn't as though Noah has magically become super compliant, but when he starts misbehaving, he's quicker to stop misbehaving mainly because he knows that a) he's going to get a time-out and b) he's not going to - usually - get a rise out of me so he has nothing gain by continuing. But boy does he know how to test my patience. 

14 Month Update

Sarah is 14 months old now and she is starting to show some rascally tendencies! She isn't walking yet, but she definitely wants to. She is always pulling herself up and cruising, or using anything nearby has a walker. She often insists on me holding her hands so that she can walk around...and gets really mad if I don't do it. Sarah has quite the temper. If things don't go her way, she screams and cries bloody murder. Noah wasn't really like that...but he was also walking by now, so I guess there wasn't much for  him to get mad about. I'm pretty sure he was more communicative as well. Sarah's form of communication right now is screaming when she's unhappy about something. Yesterday though, she signed "more" for the first time! So exciting. There's now a little less screaming during meal times. Other than that, she says dada and mama, hi and bye, and that's about it. She seems to making forward progress in talking and mobility, even if it is slow, so I'm not too concerned (yet!). For now, I'll just enjoy not having to chase another small child around. Noah is only now able to walk around and do things on his own without me having to worry that he'll do something dangerous at any moment... I'm not looking forward to going through that again with Sarah.

"more"

Noah hit most of the milestones earlier than Sarah, but Sarah is a waaaaay better eater. She doesn't necessarily eat more than Noah did, but she is more open to different foods. I definitely do not have to stress as much about what she will/can eat. She's game for just about anything, as long as it tastes good and she can mash it up a bit and swallow it. There are lots of meals where she'll eat things that Noah declares "too hard to chew", even though he has like 20 teeth and she still has only four. I tried to stay away from jarred baby food with Sarah and expose her to more "real" food earlier on, whereas with Noah I always made sure everything was soft, in small pieces, and easy to eat so I wonder if maybe I made Noah into a lazy eater. There's really no way to tell, but whatever the cause, I'm glad Sarah is (for now at least) more adventurous in her eating. Hopefully she doesn't get too picky as she gets older.

Sarah is still taking two naps a day, but the first nap is a quick one, and usually taken in the car on Ergo. She can't quite make it to after lunch without napping so I just let her steal a quick nap to get her through to the afternoon. It's kind of annoying though because then I can't go anywhere in the afternoon since she and Noah aren't napping at the same time. Oh naps. I can't wait until I am done being a slave to the naps! It's nice to have the free time if they nap at the same time, but it only happens a few times a week, if I'm lucky. 

Well, that's all I can think of for this month. The Halloween circuit is up next and I decided to try my hand at home made costumes this year (ok, semi-home made) so we'll see how that goes! Hopefully they don't fall apart...hahaha.

Noah Rides a Bicycle

I texted this photo to my mom I think last week? Her only response was, "Soon he's going to drive." That made me sad. Today he rode a bike without training wheels. Such an exciting but also sad day!

In the photo, he's riding the balance bike that he got for his birthday from Auntie Jumi and Uncle Eugene. I had just bought him a regular bike with training wheels, as I wasn't fully sold on the balance bike since it seemed like expensive training wheels to me. So not true. Noah wasn't sold on the balance bike either. He'd just recently started using the pedals on his tricycle, so he took to the regular bike w/training wheels right away - loved the new speed. He said the balance bike was "too wobbly" so he refused to ride it. We finally convinced him to give it a try, and slowly over the past few weeks he became more and more comfortable with it and would alternate between the two bikes. In this past week, he actually started balancing on the regular bike, even with the training wheels on. Today, I finally decided that the training wheels were starting to get in his way now that he was becoming more skilled with the balance bike, so I tried convincing him to let go of the training wheels... He cried and screamed and refused. So I said okay, he went off to ride his regular bike some more, and then a few minutes later came back and said, "Okay, you can take them off now." So he gave it a try, put his pedaling and balance bike skills together, and voila! Riding his bike by himself! After a few runs, he even started telling me to let go when I was hovering. He is still working on the take-off and stopping, but after we went out for another bike riding session when Peter came home, he improved a lot just in that hour or so.

Noah had so much fun riding without training wheels, and even though he fell quite a few times, he kept getting back on, which kind of surprised me. He tends to become defeated pretty easily. I think the speed is too alluring for him. When we went back inside though, he insisted that we put the training wheels back on. :)

Meanwhile, Sarah is still working on walking. Between Noah and Sarah, I think I'm going to have some serious back problems these next few weeks.

13 Month Update

Sarah is 13 months old today, and it has been a pretty exciting month since her birthday. She is still working on walking, but she has become pretty good at going up and down the stairs. She even makes sure to turn around when she's at the top to go down feet first. Sometimes though, she starts turning too soon and finds herself turned around too far away from the stairs, or her legs get stuck behind the banister. Instead of becoming frustrated though, she just repositions herself and turns again - unlike Noah, who probably would've just either given up or started crying if in the same situation. As Sarah has become older, more and more differences in her and Noah's temperament are surfacing. Of course we didn't expect them to be the same, but it's interesting to observe. Noah was, and still is, more easily frustrated, but while Sarah is more patient and seems to be more skilled in problem solving, she seems to have a fiery temper and gets mad easily. Maybe it's just a language issue though, so it may be too early to tell. Noah tends to be pretty good at vocalizing his feelings when he's upset, and often will talk about hitting or hating things, rather than just acting out. Sarah, not so much, but then again, she can't talk yet, so we'll see what happens. In general though, I don't remember Noah getting mad that much, even when he couldn't talk yet.

Sarah on the move:

Sarah has also been moving around a lot more this month. She's cruising around, digging and discovering things around the house, and trying to turn everything she can find into a walker. She's definitely interested in moving around, and enjoys being in a standing position, so perhaps walking is not so far off for her. Sarah is such a small little munchkin though, with a big head, and doesn't seem to have very good balance when she isn't holding on to something, so who knows. As parents we tend to be eager for our babies to move quickly to the next milestone and I'm no exception, but I can't deny that it's been a bit easier to deal with two kids with one less mobile....especially when the other is a little too mobile. :) She's making progress though, so I'm sure she's fine.

Sarah is a mini-Peter.

Loves playing with Noah's toys.

Sarah may have a fiery temper, but most of the time, she's a happy, smiley, low-key, silly baby. She doesn't say much, but she says mama and dada a lot and gives kisses making a "mmmah" sound, so we're obviously completely satisfied with that. She always has smiles for mama, dada and Noah and loves hugging. She's become a little less wary of strangers, but she's having a lot more separation anxiety. Is that contradictory? Last week at church, we left her in the nursery and we found out later that she cried until she fell asleep. :( She often is tired at that time, but the paranoid part of me keeps wondering if she just retreated into sleep because she was so traumatized. :(((

Eating has been tricky, but I think Sarah may be turning a corner. For a while she seemed to be on a hunger strike, and would only eat Cheerios and warmed up milk. Everything else she'd have a few bites and then be done. Recently I've been limiting the milk a bit and she seems to be a bit receptive to more actual food. She also loves croissants - who doesn't? As a result, I've been making croissant sandwiches with cheese and ham inside, at least once or twice a week. I hope I'm not contributing to childhood obesity too much. Sarah gained three ounces between her 9 month and 12 month checkups so I've been a bit frantic trying to feed her. I keep worrying that she isn't eating enough for proper brain development...hehe. She is eating more yogurt and other foods too though, and even had some chicken the past few days. She's just so picky and still only has those four little teeth to work with! But I promise, I'm not just feeding her pastries.

Last bit of news is that I started taking Sarah to a music class this past week. It takes place during Noah's school and is actually right across the street, so it's very convenient. I took Noah to the same class when he was younger, but it seems like Sarah is enjoying it more than he did, so far. Mostly, I'm just happy to be able to do something with just Sarah, instead of just dragging her around on errands and Noah's activities, and she appears to be quite happy about it. Now that she's older and Noah's in school, we can have more mommy and second child time!

Happy (belated) 3rd Birthday Noah!

I can't believe that my little baby is 3!!! Every day I look at him and I think to myself, "When did he get so grown up??" Just today he went potty and washed his hands all by himself. Of course he ended up sitting on the toilet with the seat up to go number 2, but oh well. :) When I look back on our old videos and photos of him, it is amazing to see how much he's changed but also how much he's still the same. Every once in a while when I watch him play, I catch a glimpse of his newborn face. I think that for the rest of my life, I will be saying how shocked I am at how much he's grown...and it will always make me cry!!! I'm not crying now though, since he is actually still 3 and really not all that grown up, but he really has come a long way from the little peanut that he used to be.

Noah had a fun little birthday party, made extra special by his cousins' party entertainment: puppet show, balloon animals, and face painting; all of Noah's faves. He had been waiting allllll summer for his birthday party. Every time someone asked him how old he was, all he said was, "I'm going to have a Buzz Lightyear party." He got to wear his favorite Buzz Lightyear shirt, had a big Buzz Lightyear candle to blow out, and Peter got some Toy Story balloons. His most favorite part though was blowing out the candles. He likes to sing happy birthday to himself and then pretend to blow out candles. :) He was so, so happy. I'm not sure how he managed to go to sleep that night, let alone nap in the afternoon!

Noah has really been pushing the boundaries these past few months and has been kind of defiant, but I think we're starting to turn a corner. Just in the past week he's been a lot more cooperative. I think that after all that boundary pushing, he's starting to figure out where they are. Today I managed to take him to get a haircut, make a trip to Costco, then get home to make then finish eating lunch before noon. I felt so awesome about it, but really, I think the only reason I was able to be so efficient was because Noah was so cooperative. But after his haircut, we got in the car, and he said, "I was good at the haircut, I can watch something?" I didn't say he'd get to watch something if he behaved, and I didn't say that he had behaved well at the barber shop, but he's starting to work the system!! Haha.. He isn't usually that way though. Overall though I think he's finally starting to exhibit a little bit of self control and understand the need to be patient sometimes.

Noah and Sarah are starting to fight a little, and Sarah is fighting back. Noah really doesn't like her touching his toys (no surprise there) and he's always afraid she's going to lick them. Haha! I guess that's a reasonable fear. Sarah is starting to show her fire though and screams at Noah when he's not playing nicely. Otherwise, they like playing with each other. :) Sometimes when I'm occupied and can't attend to Sarah, I can ask Noah to keep her company and he will go and entertain her for a few minutes, which is nice. I never would've imagined it, but having two is sometimes easier than having just one! Yes it's definitely more exhausting having two and can be a little tricky logistically, especially around nap time, but overall it is more fun.

Noah is starting school this Monday, and though I've been waiting for this day ever since school let out in May, I think I'm actually going to be kind of sad to drop him off after being with him 24/7 this summer, even if it is only for three hours a day, three days a week. We've been reading Llama Llama Misses Mama to prep him for school and every time I ask him if he's going to miss mommy when he goes to school. He always says, "No, I'm a big boy," so we'll see what happens on Monday!

Happy 1st Birthday Sarah!

Happy birthday to my dear baby Sarah! I am so blessed to be your mother. I can't believe an entire year has already passed, and yet I also can't believe it's only been a year. I feel like she's still a little baby, but at the same time I can barely remember those first few days and weeks. I guess that's what sleep deprivation does to you. :) It must be all part of God's plan to make us forget how hard and tiring infant care can be so that we continue to have babies. All we remember is how cute and cuddly they are! (This is not a subtle way of saying we're having more babies. Negative on that front.)

I forgot about the 11 month update (sorry, Sarah) but the past couple of months have been quite exciting. I can't remember when she finally cut her first tooth, but she is now well on her way to four teeth. They've all been coming out in the past few weeks. Poor Sarah. She's been a bit more cranky lately I think (or maybe she is just a little firecracker who gets mad and likes to yell) but overall has been okay. Just don't get between her and her food and sleep and she's pretty much happy. A few nights ago she had a huge meltdown from overtiredness (she's in a transitional nap stage) and I had to practically wrestle with her and hold her to get her to calm down and go to sleep. With her tiny teeth she has probably eaten her weight in Cheerios and has started eating rice, pizza, and pasta, among other things. In general, she seems to be more into table food these days. Fortunately her teeth are arriving just in time.

Sarah has not developed her motor skills quite as quickly as Noah did, but in the past few weeks has made a lot of progress. She is now able to go from crawling to sitting position easily, and is becoming better and better at pulling herself up to standing position and then sitting back down again. Walking is still a far way off, but it has been exciting to see the sudden burst in development. She's managed to take a few steps while we hold her hands as well, but is still pretty wobbly.

I think we can officially declare "dada" as Sarah's first word. She'd been saying "da" and sometimes "dada" pretty consistently when she saw Peter, but I wasn't really sure of the connection at first. Now it's pretty clear. She says "mama" sometimes when she sees me, but she also says "mama" a lot for no other reason, so that one is still to be confirmed. I think she can also say "bye bye" and wave. In general though, she seems to be starting to imitate sounds. Recently I was saying "uh oh" to her, and though she didn't respond with "uh oh", she imitated the same two tones I used to say "uh oh" and she did this quite a few times. She's done this one a few other occasions too; she and I have had a few back and forth exchanges just imitating sounds back and forth. Haha. It isn't really talking, but it's fun for me to hear her engaging and responding. Although she isn't talking, I'm pretty confident she understands a good deal.

Sarah is finally sleeping through the night! I can't even remember when she started because I just stopped making it a goal, but she now consistently sleeps all night long. She'll wake up sometimes, but most of the times will find the pacifier and go back to sleep. While I'm excited that she's finally managed to get good solid sleep, it doesn't really make much of a difference to me since Noah wakes up every night now....to pee. At least it's just a quick wake up to use the potty and there isn't any soothing necessary for him to go back to sleep. You win, some you lose some, right?

Noah loves books and literally soaks them up like a sponge, so I've been trying to cultivate that interest in Sarah as well. It's hard because I just don't have as much time to devote to reading with her, but I'm trying...haha. So far she mostly likes touching and flipping through them, but it's encouraging to see her responding to the Pat the Bunny book. On cue she will pat the bunny, touch daddy's scratchy face, look in the mirror, play peek a boo, and wave bye bye, which also tells me that she really does understand what I'm saying to her! Fun times.

We celebrated Sarah's first birthday last weekend with family and it was a great time. I felt like I'd kept it pretty low key, and my mother-in-law did took care of all the food, but it still seemed so overwhelming! But it turned out well I think and we had fun. Sarah chose rice, which I'm told means she'll never go hungry. Good to know since she has only gained 3 ounces since her 9 month visit and is in the 17th percentile for weight right now! She's also in the 32nd percentile for height. Such a little nugget. She's got a big noggin though - 70th percentile! So she's a little nugget with a big head on top. Hahaha..

It's been a fun past two months watching Sarah grow and develop. Now that she's one, I think the more interactive things like walking and talking are really going to pick up so I'm excited. Sarah will also be starting a music class in the fall when Noah goes back to school. Sarah seems to really respond to music, so it should be fun for her. I'm also excited to have an activity to do with just Sarah and give her my full attention.

10 Month Update

My little baby is 10 months old! It's exciting to see her growing and developing every day, but it's always bittersweet, watching little babies grow up. It's been a long time since I've had to hold her to put her to sleep but these days, in the rare occasions that she does fall asleep in my arms I like to hold her a little longer and just watch her sleep on my shoulder before putting her in the crib. 

Sarah is getting better at her army crawl and can go from sitting to crawling position easily, but she hasn't started climbing or pulling herself up yet. I remember that when Noah was around this age, he was already climbing, and at about 10.5 months when we were on a flight to San Francisco, he was climbing up the airplane seats. Sarah is so not there yet! She also just cut her first tooth a couple of weeks ago. It's still not very visible, but it's definitely there. I'm pretty sure Noah had four teeth by this age. Oh well. She's eating pretty well though. She likes most of the food I make for her, loves yogurt and bananas like her brother, likes nibbling on toasted bread, and is warming up to the baby mum mums and puffs. She also got the hang of sucking those fruit pouches on her own this past month or so, which is super convenient, for both of us. She was starting to get frustrated with how slowly I was spooning the peaches into her mouth, so I figured it was time to let her try eating it herself. I haven't been as vigilant about having her practice using a straw cup as I was with Noah, but she seems to be getting the hang of it. 

Sarah is still a happy, smiley baby. She gets scared of strangers, but I think she's getting a little better. She always has a huge smile for daddy when he comes home. She smiles for me too, but she definitely seems to prefer Peter. Once again, mommy's just chopped liver. When Peter tries to pass her to me, she turns away and wants to stay with Peter. Of course Peter loves this. He often will try to pass her to me just to see her turn back towards him. I read somewhere on Facebook recently a quote that said a father is a son's first hero and a daughter's first love. So true. Well, Noah is a total mama's boy so it's okay for Sarah to be daddy's girl. Sarah has smiles for her big brother Noah also...although sometimes he makes her cry, like in the last picture above. It's already starting!! I'm beginning to get nervous about becoming the referee between these two and dealing with the fighting. 

Overall, it's been a pretty smooth month, even with our long trip to NYC and Ithaca. Exhausting, though! I'm always wondering when the pace will slow down...

9 Month Update

Sad after her shots, but she recovered pretty quickly.

Sarah turned 9 months old last week. At the Dr.'s visit last week, she weighed in at 18 lbs 11 oz (~50%-ile), was 27.75 inches tall (~55%-ile), and had head circumference of 17.5 inches (~65%-ile). She seems so big, I was surprised that she was actually pretty average in size. Maybe it's because she's just very compact. Haha. 

This month, Sarah has become increasingly mobile. She was already rolling pretty well, but now she's pretty much mastered sitting on her own, and has even made some forward motion in the past few days. Not quite crawling in the conventional sense, but inching forward like an inchworm. Noah did more of the commando crawl, but I think Sarah may eventually crawl normally, based on how she's moving now. She's also getting pretty good at going from sitting to crawling position without falling on her face.

Sarah is doing well with solids and eats just about everything, including the few things I've made for her. I've been trying to get her to feed herself the little baby puffs and baby mum-mums, but she mostly picks them up, looks at them, licks them, then throws them on the floor. She seems receptive to most foods, but still prefers more liquidy foods. Even when I scoop up a pretty soft banana, she has a hard time eating it because it's so thick. 

Sarah is very wary of strangers and is in general very aware...unagi? Haha. In particular she gets really scared of men she doesn't know. Hahaha.. She usually cries when men say hi to her or smile at her. She even gets scared of Peter when he's wearing sunglasses because she doesn't really recognize him. On the other hand, she's usually fine with women, even if she doesn't know them. She was also very suspicious when we were at the Dr.'s office last week when they started getting ready to prick her toe for her hemoglobin test and give her her Hep B vaccine. It's like she knew something bad was going to happen and she was on high alert. I'm pretty sure that when Noah was that age, he was clueless every time up until he got stuck with the needle. She also seems to pay pretty good attention when I read her books, following my finger when I point at the different objects in the book. I was feeling a little badly about the books because I really don't read to her as much as I did to Noah so it's a relief that she isn't just staring into space when she gets read to. 

Overall, Sarah is a happy little munchkin. She sleeps pretty well, eats pretty well, and plays well on her own. I don't know if she'll become more difficult when she gets older, but I'll take what I can get!

Potty Training Update/Parent Conferences

Noah has been in underpants for almost an entire week now! He's had a few accidents, but not as many in past couple of days and he's been staying dry through naps and even overnight! It's crazy that literally a week ago I had just worked up the courage to put him in underpants. Who knew it would happen so quickly! I wouldn't say that he's "fully potty trained" since he still really needs a lot of assistance to go, but he's definitely made significant progress in the past week. He's actually having a lot of time using the potty without me. He stayed dry at school today, but I think he held it in all day until I picked him up to go. I guess there's always something...hahaha.. I am just super excited that he's in underpants almost full time now. I almost can't believe that it's true!

I also had my second teacher conference today and I have to say it went better than the first. I don't think the first one went badly necessarily, but I was kind of nervous, and the teacher seemed kind of nervous too for some reason. Or maybe I was just thinking she was nervous because I've been on the teacher side of the conference for so long. In any event, it went well today, and I can confirm that parents really just want to know that their kid's teacher likes their kid! That used to always be my number one piece of advice regarding parent teacher conferences (again, from the teacher side of things) and now I know it's definitely true. And even though it seems like conferences for a 2 year old aren't really that important, I really felt like I got a lot of information today. Maybe it's because Noah's getting older? It was good to hear that he behaves pretty similarly at home and at school because it assures me that Noah is comfortable and happy at school. It was also reassuring to hear that he is engaged in activities...as opposed to sitting under a table in the corner all day long. Haha. I guess because he's gaining more independence, interacting more with classmates, and developing more skills, it's nice to hear someone else's perspective, particularly one that's tempered by broader experience. Other fun facts I learned today: Noah can recognize his name, and he might be ambidextrous!

32 Month Update

Pretending to be the Little Red Hen.

Noah is 32 months old and it has been quite a month. Noah finally made the transition to his big boy bed after we moved into our new house and in just the past week he has made significant progress in potty training.

We weren't quite sure how to transition Noah to the big boy bed, so at first we made a big deal out of how cool the big boy bed was, and then basically treated it like a crib in that we just plopped him in and expected him to lie there and fall asleep like he did before. Obviously this approach didn't work. It was suggested to me that maybe he didn't need as much sleep anymore, but he's still pretty young and when I did finally get him to nap during the day it was always impossible to wake him up an hour or so later because he was still so tired. After many frustrating days of trying to get him to lie down and fall asleep, I decided I'd just lie down in bed with him until he fell asleep. It was already taking nearly an hour or longer every day to get him to go to sleep with countless trips in and out of his room trying to convince him to stay in bed so I figured just lying down wouldn't take much longer. The first time I tried this I said we'd read some stories for "rest time" and I told him that I'd lie down with him for a bit. He fell asleep in two minutes. Amazing. So now that's what we've been doing. It's still hard to wake him up from naps most days, and then he's cranky for about 20 minutes post-nap, but putting him down for sleep is a lot less frustrating on our end now.

This month has also brought a new thing to navigate: fear of monsters in the dark. Noah has started to become really scared of dark rooms, always saying that there are monsters or dinosaurs in there, and that they're going to bite him. He doesn't get really panicked, but he's definitely anxious about it and I think it contributes to him not wanting to go to sleep at night. He often wakes up in the middle of the night crying and one of us has to go in there and sleep with him so that he'll go back to sleep. He seems to be particularly scared of the sound of thunder. A few nights ago it was really windy I think and it sounded a bit like there was thunder and he not only needed me to lie down with him to sleep, he needed to hold on to my arm to go to sleep. I guess it was just a matter of time before these kinds of fears crept in. To be honest, I'm still a little afraid of dark, unfamiliar places. :)

On the plus side, Noah has made significant progress in potty training, just in the past week! A few nights ago, he actually had a bit of a poo disaster in the bath tub. Without getting into very gross details, he basically had a poo accident during bath time and was kind of freaked out by it. Although I was left with a pretty gross mess to clean up, the plus side is that he now tells us when he needs to go and only goes #2 on the toilet. He's making progress with #1 as well and has only had a few accidents since Friday, even staying dry through yesterday's nap. Noah still hates taking potty breaks, but he's been getting better so I'm hoping that he'll be done with diapers soon!

In general, Noah continues to grow and mature every day. He's made a lot of progress (I think) in playing with others. He no longer just plays alone or next to other kids, he seems to be actually interacting more. He loves preschool and loves bringing in toys for show and tell. Whenever we get in the car to go to a playdate or something he always says he wants to bring some toy to show his friends. His imagination is developing as well and he is engaging in more and more pretend play. I suppose this growing imagination goes hand in hand with the growing fear though. He loves pretending to play the piano like Elmo, sing like Elmo, "do work" with hammers and screwdrivers, "eat ice cream" like Curious George and the man with the yellow hat, fly like Buzz Lightyear, and make food in his kitchen. He's also currently obsessed with sharks. Whenever we have painting time he always makes me help him paint sharks and fish for the sharks to eat. He also loves hugging Sarah and giving her toys to play with or food to eat (the latter is a bit dangerous though). If she's crying, he tells me to go check on her, or he says he wants to go and make her happy. He loves asserting his independence and always wants to do things himself, or have things done a certain way. He is a handful but also so entertaining!

Potty Training Progress!

Today, Noah finally uttered the words, "Mommy, I need to go pee pee!!"  He had actually already peed/pooped in his pull-ups, but he kept saying he needed to go pee pee, so I put him on the toilet anyway, and he continued to pee and poop.  This was also the first time he'd ever pooped on the toilet.  So exciting.

On to the details...

I had put potty training on hold for a while because it was just too much to deal with since we'd just moved and moved Noah into a big boy bed.  This past month was all about moving & unpacking, and keeping Noah in his big boy bed.  We're still working on both of those things, but we've made some good progress.  I bought some pull-ups at Costco last week, and Noah has been wanting to wear the Lightning McQueen diapers, so I decided to try again.  He actually has been peeing pretty consistently in the toilet around bath time/night night time, but throughout the rest of the day either I forget to ask him, he forgets, or he doesn't want to go.  But this past week he's finally shown more concern about "keeping Lightning McQueen clean and dry."  This is how I've been trying to motivate him to use the potty.  He has real concern from Lightning McQueen when we are talking about it, but hasn't really wanted to take the time to follow through.  On Thursday he made some progress at school, actually telling his teacher that he had to go when she asked.  Since then he's been more vocal about wanting his diaper changed and showing concern about soiling his diapers.  This morning at church, he didn't quite tell the Sunday school teacher he needed to go, but after he'd peed already in his diaper, he told the teacher he wanted me to change his diaper, so they paged me to come to the classroom.  This afternoon there was poo coming down the pipes but I think he wasn't quite sure when it was coming so every time he thought it might be, he kept asking to get his diaper changed.  Finally the poo came, and after hearing him yell, "Mommy, I need to go pee pee!!" from downstairs, I came down to find him squatting in front of the bathroom door, pooing already.  Eventually I got him to go into the bathroom and sit on the toilet, and he continued to poo a bit more, and he peed, like he said he needed to.

Overall, it's been a good day for potty training!  I really feel like Noah figured out a lot about the pee/poo/toilet process today.  I'm hoping for more progress this coming week!!  Can it be that he might be out of diapers soon???

8 Months Old

Little Sarah is 8 months old!  She has made a lot of progress in mobility and sitting this month.  In just the past few days actually she has become a much more stable sitter.  Before she could sit for only a few seconds before toppling over and leaning forward to check out her toes, but now she can pretty much sit without tipping over.....at least until she gets distracted by something behind her and falls backward trying to reach it.  Sarah isn't crawling yet, but has been trying really hard to move around this month.  She has instead improvised by rolling and rotating...haha!  Can't turn my back on her for a second anymore!

Sarah is eating more solids now, like yogurt, bananas, pears, peas, and all other kinds of fruits and vegetables.  I haven't moved on to meats just yet.  She LOVES bananas I think.  Whenever she sees me mashing them in the little blue bowl I use for mashing food, she gets really excited.  The only other time she gets that excited is when she sees daddy.  She starts laughing/giggling excitedly until she starts wheezing, kicks her feet, and says "a-da!"  So, she loves bananas and daddy.  I tried giving her some puffs, to see see if she could eat those, but she's not quite there yet.  She actually choked on it.  Scary.  I think it'll be a little while before she'll be able to eat more chunky foods.  Until then, just more fruit, rice cereal, and yogurt.  Kind of like what Noah eats even though he's turning three in a few months and has a full set of teeth.  Sarah still has no teeth, but just yesterday started drooling more than usual, so maybe we'll be seeing some teeth soon.

As Sarah has gotten older, she's become a bit more resistant to naps, and she is still waking up at night for nursing.  But considering the fact that she has no consistent nap schedule, I guess I'm just thankful that she sleeps at all and isn't a total wreck all the time.  She's actually really calm most of the time and puts up with all of the errands I need to run all the time.  When Noah is throwing his tantrums, Sarah just sits peacefully and watches.  I hope this peaceful disposition lasts!

7 Months Old

Sarah turned 7 months old this week, but with all of the packing, moving, and renovations (in no particular order) I nearly forgot!  Okay, I actually did forget, until the BabyCenter app on my phone alerted me that my baby was 7 months old.  Oh, technology.

This month Sarah has become better at sitting, but still can only sit for a few seconds before toppling over.  She has become much better at rolling though.  She's not rolling across the room that I remember Noah doing at around this time, but whenever I put her down these days, she flips right over onto her stomach and likes to kick her feet and hit the floor with her arms.  Sometimes though, it seems like she gets stuck on her stomach and wants to be on her back and so starts whining/crying.  Kind of strange, because she's been able to go from stomach to back for a while....maybe she forgot how to?

Sarah still has no teeth, but is doing a bit better with solid foods now.  She is ingesting more, as opposed to pushing all of the food out of her mouth with her tongue.  Still seems like there's a long way to go though.  I don't remember Noah taking this long to adjust to solid foods, but oh well.  I feel like I fed Noah a bit too much solid foods actually so I guess it's not that big a deal that Sarah isn't too interested in solids yet.  She does stare at the rest of us and smack her lips while we're eating though, so that's a good start.

I think Sarah may have slept through the night last night.  It's been so long, and she only wakes up once or twice a night and goes right back to sleep fortunately, that I've given up hoping for her to sleep all the way until 7 am.  I think it may have happened last night though, so yay!  We'll probably be moving in the next week and transitioning her to a real crib (she's been in a travel crib) though.  I hope it doesn't disrupt her sleeping too much.  She seems like a pretty flexible sleeper though, so it's probably Noah that we'll be worrying about since he's finally making the move to a real bed.  I'm not very excited about that.

Even though Noah is at an age where he is so fun and silly all the time, this 7 month age is so fantastic. Sarah is just starting to be more interactive, expressive, and not getting tired all the time.  More so than Noah was, she really gets upset when Mommy or Daddy aren't around.  While that makes it difficult to leave her with others, it makes me feel closer to her too.  She is always so happy and excited to see us when we take her out of the crib.  I totally adore Sarah.  Noah is awesome and I don't love him any less than Sarah, but she is just such a precious little nugget!

30 Months Old

Noah loves cookies.

Noah is 2.5 years old today.  Sometimes I look at him lying in his crib and I just can't believe how big he is!  Where did my little baby go?  Every day his personality develops more and more...and he is clearly a little rascal!!  A couple of weeks ago, he started talking about his teacher, Ms. Jeannie, how she "kept saying stop" so I asked him what he was doing at school that she was telling him to "stop." He said "I keep running in classroom...Ms. Jeannie say stop." So I asked him if he listened to Ms. Jeannie and stopped running, and he said, with a big smile on his face, "Noooooooo..."  What a rascal! I was worried that he was causing a lot of trouble in the classroom so I mentioned this exchange to his teachers, and one of them just said, "Oh, Noah is such a lover [I'm not sure why she always describes him as a "lover"].  He's very sneaky, but he's so good natured and happy that you just can't be mad at him!"  Sigh.  I'm glad that he's good natured and happy, but it seems like he's just going to keep trying to smile his way out of trouble.  I have to admit that when he flashes those rascally smiles at me, I just can't help but laugh.  So sneaky.  He is also super whiny.  If a toy falls on the ground, or you close a door that he wanted to close, or if you turn the page of a book that he wanted to turn, he often goes into crying and whining mode right away.  Kind of annoying.  But again, it's so hard to keep a straight face and tell him to stop whining when he says, "I need a hug..." or "I need a kiss..." through his tears.  Terrible two's, we have arrived.  Or at least I hope it's the terrible two's...because then at least this phase will pass.

In other news, potty training is....progressing.  In general, Noah still doesn't like to stop play to use the potty, but he's used the potty successfully many times now, and has even initiated visits to the potty a few times.  And even though he still hates diaper changes, every once in a while he will ask that I change his diaper.  I've heard of those potty training in one day books, but I think Noah is going to have to be converted slowly.  I am convinced that he will eventually get used to using the potty over time and then maybe with a little push from me, it'll all just work out.  Haha!  I am also not interested in putting underpants on him and letting him pee all over the house until he learns....that will be the last strategy, if we are a week before school starts in the fall and I'm desperate.  I just hope it doesn't come to that.

Napping has become an issue this month.  Noah still takes naps in the afternoons, at around 2:00.  He naps until 4:00, sometimes 4:30, but then doesn't fall asleep at night until 10:00 sometimes!  We put him down for night night between 8:30 and 9:00, and he doesn't protest, but soon after we leave the room, we hear, "Where are you Mommy....where are you...Mommy where are you...."  The past few nights we've had to go back into his room multiple times to read more bed time stories before he finally fell asleep....and then he still wakes up at 7:30 the next morning!  Yesterday I tried waking him up a bit early from his nap so that maybe he wouldn't have such a hard time going down at night, but he was dead asleep.  I went in there, turned on the lights, nudged him, Sarah was in there being noisy, and he would not wake up!  This is going to be a serious problem when we move in a couple of weeks and transition him to the big boy bed.  At least right now he's still in his crib and doesn't try to escape.

Noah doesn't like to go to sleep, but once he's sleeping, he doesn't like waking up.........kind of like me.  Hahaha..

Finally, the most exciting thing that's happened this month: chopsticks.  Yesterday, he kept asking me for "chock siks" around lunch time, and I kept thinking he was asking me for chocolate, because he had just been talking about chocolate milk.  He kept saying, "I want hold my chock siks" and I just kept saying no, no chocolate.  Hahaah... Finally I realized what he was saying, so I figured why not, let's give it a try again.  So I gave him his chopsticks, briefly demonstrated the motion by opening and closing the chopsticks while he was holding them, and then he did it!  I ended up tearing up his grilled cheese sandwich up into pieces for him to eat using chopsticks, and then he ate some blackberries too... I'm pretty sure he picked up those blackberries faster than when he uses a fork.  Here's a video:



Yay!

6 Months Old

Sarah is 6 months old today!  And she is a happy, happy baby who makes this mommy very happy.  Our checkup with the doctor isn't for another few weeks, but I think it's safe to say that Sarah is a healthy size.  Haha!  She weights about 17.5 lbs, and is filling out her 6-12 month size clothing pretty well.  She seems to be following a similar growth trajectory to Noah's: very fast growth in the first few months, then slowing down around the 6 month mark.  Although I guess this is similar to most kids since the clothing is 6-12 month size, instead of the 3 month intervals...duh.

I'm not as on top of the milestones with Sarah, but she's getting close to sitting up on her own, rolls easily from tummy to back, and can support herself with her legs.  She still can't roll from back to tummy; she can only make it half way, and needs a little help the rest of the way.  Sarah is also very grabby and is always putting things in her mouth.  I guess she's a very eager little explorer!  It's time to teach her the scientific method.  Once she stops using her mouth as her primary method of observation.

Sarah also started eating some solids this month.  I know some people start as early as 4 months, some as late as 6 months, so I just started giving her a little here and there at around 5 months.  In the past couple of weeks I've been more consistent in giving her solids and letting her practice eating, and I think she's starting to get the hang of it....instead of pushing all the food out of her mouth with her tongue, she's probably ingesting about half of it now.  I also let her try yogurt yesterday for the first time and she seemed to really enjoy that.  I wonder if she'll end up only wanting to eat fruit and yogurt like her brother.

Sarah is still not "sleeping through the night," whatever that means.  I feel like different people have different definitions of this.  I've read in some books that some people define it as sleeping for 6 hours straight.  Well, if that's the case, she has done this.  I define it as me getting to go to sleep and wake up at 7:00/7:30, which hasn't happened yet.  Haha.  She usually only wakes up once or twice though, and then goes back to sleep, so I'll take that.  Her napping is still somewhat irregular, but I think there's nothing that can be done about that since the main issue is that we need to leave the house and can't always accommodate her naps.  Today she had to take a 25 min nap in the Ergo with the Great Zucchini and a roomful of loud, excited preschoolers in the background.  At least Noah had fun.  We were originally going to go to the library - much more conducive to napping - but I forgot that they didn't open until 1:00 today, so we checked out Jammin Java's Great Zucchini show instead.  Sarah didn't seem too upset though...she took her short nap and was in a pretty good mood during the entire outing.  She may not have a regular nap schedule, but at least she's flexible?

Potty Training Begins

A couple of days ago, I decided to really start trying to potty train Noah.  He has to be potty trained before preschool in the fall, and though it's quite far away, I'm already anxious about getting him trained in time.  About a month ago, he started getting pretty good at peeing in the toilet, but it was always me taking him there, rather than him letting me know he had to go.  But then he stopped wanted to go altogether.  He never wants to stop playtime, even for diaper changes.  Whenever it's time for a diaper change, he always spends like 5 minutes collecting toys to bring to the changing table for a diaper change that takes 1 minute.  Every. Time.  A couple of days ago, I decided to try working in some incentives, so I bought some M&M's since he loves chocolate.  I gave him a few pieces, then said that if he wanted more, he'd have to go use the potty.  I'd never seen Noah go to the bathroom and use the potty so fast!  He got his M&M's, he was happy, and I was super excited and thought that it would be smooth sailing from there.  Unfortunately, it only worked that one time.  After that first time, even when we said he'd get chocolate after he used the potty, he just said "I no want chocolate."

A few days have passed since that first day of potty training with M&M's, and it seems like we're back on track!  I bought some Disney Cars pull-ups, and those with the M&M's are getting Noah to the potty with minimal push-back.  He loves Lightning McQueen, so we tell him that he needs to keep Lightning McQueen clean and dry, and that he'll get chocolate if he uses the potty, and he's used the potty many times in the past couple of days!  It all sounds so ridiculous, the special diapers, the chocolate, the coaxing, all to get him to pee...

5 Months/29 Months

I had considered skipping this month's updates and just waiting until next month, especially since Sarah and Noah are both going in for their check-ups, but I figured I should stick to the program, lest I fall off schedule completely.

So, Sarah. It didn't seem like much was happening with her this month, but in the past few weeks she's made improvements in sleeping and eating solids.  For one, she's actually swallowing some solid foods these days, even if it's just a little.  I know it's still early, so I'm not concerned about how much she's eating.  I just want to make sure she's getting in the practice time so that when it really does matter, she knows what she's doing.  I never really thought about it when Noah started solids, but it's crazy to think that Sarah really just doesn't know how to eat food!  So far she's had a taste of rice cereal, sweet potatoes, carrots, and pear.  Noah loved pear, but Sarah seems to like the pear the least.  Every time I put some in her mouth, she cringes.  She doesn't seem to like solid foods in general, but the pear definitely seems the least tolerable.  Her sleeping has become, if not better, a bit easier on me.  She seems to be getting better at falling asleep without my assistance.  She still needs the pacifier, and I use the sleepy sheep sound machine (I'm not sure how useful it really is, but we have it, so I just use it), but often, especially if I get the timing right, I can put her in the crib with the paci and sleepy sheep, walk out, and she'll go to sleep on her own.  If she cries, I let her cry for 15 min or so, then go back in to give her the paci again, and that usually does it.  In the beginning, I was holding her to put her to sleep for every nap, and I worried about weaning her off that.  I tried the cry-it-out method a few times, but her crying always seemed to just keep escalating and it sounded like she was being tortured, so I ditched that.  But it seems like we're slowly moving towards being a more independent sleeper.  She is still waking up at least one or two times in the night to nurse, with the longest sleep stretch being about six hours.  Sometimes she'll do more, but it doesn't happen often.  Overall, a month of good progress though.  In the gross motor skills area, she can roll pretty easily from tummy to back, but otherwise doesn't really like being on either her tummy or back.  Haha... she's more of a jumperoo kind of gal.

As for Noah, since he's older, there isn't as much going on on a month-to-month basis, but I have noticed that he has become much more obedient in the past couple of weeks.  Peter was pretty busy at work this past month, so I was alone with the kids a lot more than usual.  I was worried about having to deal with the two of them alone, especially during the dinner/night-night time, but with Sarah becoming a more independent sleeper, and Noah following instruction better, it was semi-manageable.  Exhausting for sure, but manageable.  On the flip side, he's also become MUCH better at pushing the boundaries, and as a result has also been driving me mad.  I wonder if Noah sensed the anxiety in me when Peter was busy with work and just decided to be more cooperative.  He's not quite two and a half yet, and often I just assume he doesn't understand things, but maybe I underestimate him.  Last night I got so mad at Noah; he was just pushing all the right buttons, doing everything I didn't want him to do and then laughing about it. When Peter came home, I just needed to take a break.  But when I was putting Noah to bed later that night, I told him I was sorry for being so impatient, instead of being his usual silly, rambunctious self, he got really quiet and seemed to really understand what I was saying.  Then we hugged it out for a long time. :)  Sigh.  Still such a little baby, but growing up so fast!

Finally, a fun video of Noah "reading."  This guy is such a little ham sometimes.

4 Months Old/28 Months Old

I have been delinquent in all areas this past month, including blog entries.  My computer overheated and melted a few weeks ago and things just fell apart from there!  Then there were Christmas festivities, we were out of town, then New Year's festivities... We were finally able to get somewhat back to normal life today.  We stayed home all day.  Tomorrow, Noah goes back to school again.  Celebrating the holidays and seeing family is fun, but it can be rough with little kids.  Poor Sarah hasn't had any kind of normal nap schedule for the past week, and even took most naps either on the go or in the Ergo.  Tomorrow will be another on the go day for her since Noah's going to preschool and I need to get an oil change.  Anyway, on to the updates.

First, Sarah.  At her check up, she was 24.5 inches tall (~60th %-ile), weighed 16 lbs (~90th %-ile), and had a head circumference of 16.5 inches (~73rd %-ile).  In short, she's a little round nugget!!!  I love it. I'm not sure if her temperament now is any indication of how she will be in the future, but if it is, she will have the sweetest disposition ever.  Is that bragging?  Hahaha...seriously though, I'm just in disbelief all the time because Noah was not like this.  Noah wasn't bad tempered, or even particularly difficult to handle, but Sarah just seems so much sweeter.  Maybe it's her eyes.  Or is it just a girl thing?  I have no idea.  All I know is that it's amazing to see how different they are - and yet look almost identical, especially when Sarah's wearing Noah's hand-me-downs...haha!  As for sleeping, Sarah continues to wake up 2-3 times at night unfortunately.  I only feed her that first time she wakes up, and she's pretty content waiting until morning to eat again, but I dread the hours between 2:00 and 5:30.  Sometimes she wakes up and goes right back to sleep after I give her the pacifier, but sometimes she is wide awake and will not go back to sleep for at least an hour.  I can't figure out what causes this... Sometimes Sarah naps too little during the day, sometimes she naps too much during the day, but neither seems to have any direct correlation with these annoying night wakings.  The only thing I've been able to come up with is irregular sleep schedule.  Unfortunately that can't be entirely avoided since Noah's preschool drop off and pick up times occur during both of Sarah's naps, and with two kids it's just impossible to live by their sleep schedules since that pretty much means I'd have to be at home all day.  Even if I didn't want to go anywhere, I still need to buy groceries!  Oh well.  All I can hope for is that she'll adjust eventually... I wish babies were just born ready to sleep like adults.

Sarah is starting to sit better in the Bumbo and has been having fun in the jumperoo.  She doesn't seem to like tummy time that much anymore, but she can hold up her head steadily for a while.  Not much rolling though... Poor Sarah doesn't get a whole lot of playmat time because I'm constantly dragging her around in the carseat.  Oh, the plight of the second child.  Maybe her nightly wakings is her way of getting back at me.  As for solids, I started giving Sarah some rice cereal in the past week, but she didn't seem to be a fan.  It's still early, so I'll just keep trying a little each day.

On to Noah.  Still rascally.  His personality continues to develop to the point where I don't feel like I can properly capture him in these little updates anymore.  The main highlights this month are his inability to be obedient, his difficulty in letting go, and his care for Sarah.

I don't know what is going on in his head, but everyday he deliberately ignores/disobeys things we ask him to do.  I give him time outs, and he cries, and then when I ask him why he got a time out, his response is usually, "I no listen Mommy."  Or sometimes he'll out of the blue say, "I no listen Mommy, I get time outs."  I'm starting to think the time out thing might not really be working...haha!  Sometimes he's on super good behavior and does exactly what I ask (and I'm usually quite shocked), and other times he just does whatever he wants.  I also sometimes employ the "counting to three" strategy.  Strangely, this works very well.  I'll say, "do I have to count to three?"  And he'll yell, "no!!" and then do what I asked.  Sometimes he'll say, "No say one two three!!!"

We've also found recently that Noah seems to have a hard time letting go... There are three recent incidents that Noah talks about all the time.  The first is this one time when I brought him to one of those indoor playspaces.  I let him play, then I sat down in the cafe area with Sarah.  After 5 minutes, he wanted to come out.  I asked him why he didn't want to play, and he said, "I no want play...I miss mommy."  Since that day, he'll randomly say, "I no want play...I miss mommy," always referring back to that day.  The second is a recent scary encounter with a dog on our floor.  A few weeks ago, Noah had run out into the hallway when the UPS guy came and Peter had opened the door to receive a package.  But the UPS guy also had to deliver a package down the hall to an apt where a dog lives...and the dog ran out.  Noah was really scared, and Peter picked him up and he was fine.  But everyday he says something like, "Dog running hallway... Daddy carry me."  He was so traumatized!  The most recent incident was just before Christmas when Auntie Juna and Uncle Dan came to VA to visit.  Uncle Dan had hurt his ankle and since that day, Noah can't stop talking about Uncle Dan and how he hurt his foot.  He's always saying, "Uncle Dan get owie...hurt foot," and puts his fingers together to show the impact.  I don't know if these incidents were just really memorable because they are so different from what happens in his daily life, or if they really were that traumatizing!  He didn't cry when we went to the indoor playspace or when Dan got hurt, and he doesn't cry or seem scared when he recounts any of the incidents, so I don't know.  It's a mystery!

Noah continues to be a great older brother to Sarah.  I'm not sure when/if they will start fighting, but I'm enjoying and savoring the peace for now.  When Sarah cries, a lot of times Noah will run over and start gently patting her and say, "don't cry baby, it's ok...don't cry..." and then tries to give her a hug and a kiss.  Sometimes he will bring his toys over and try to share them with her or dangle her toys in front of her the way Peter and I do to entertain her and get her to stop crying.  And sometimes it works!  I don't know how one boy can be so disobedient and at the same time so sweet.  The best is when out of the blue he'll say, "Mommy, big hug."  I'm not sure if he just needs a big hug then, or if he thinks I need a big hug, but it's nice either way. :)

1/9 - I had to add this edit: Just a few days ago, Noah started recounting another incident.  He had choked on some clementines a few weeks ago at my sister-in-law's house because he had too many pieces in his mouth and he was running around the house like a crazy person.  We tried to explain to him over and over again that he couldn't run around with food in his mouth, that he couldn't eat too much at once, and that he could choke again.  We weren't sure if he was really taking any of it in, but a few days ago, all on his own, he started saying this monologue: "What happened noona's house?  I running.  There's oranges.  I keep choking.  I no breathe."  Since then, he's repeated it multiple times every day, particularly when he tries running around with food in his mouth.  I'll tell him to stop running around with food in his mouth, and then it's, "What happened noona's house?  I running..." etc.