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.