Thoughts on Another

After Noah turned one, I started getting the question a lot. Those of you who have celebrated baby's first birthday know the question. "Are you ready for another one?" At the time, I wasn't. I kind of wondered if I was ever going to get there. I even talked about it here. Well ladies, I am finally there. I'm over the "but Noah is my baby" feeling. He's becoming more and more of a little boy each day, and while I long for the baby Noah days sometimes, I also feel excited about the idea of making a whole new little person to marvel at.

This is not something that we will be doing in the very near future. I find raising a toddler to be a bit exhausting and can't even imagine having an itty bitty baby to care for on top of everything else. I would like Noah to be on his way to being potty trained, able to be reasoned with around behavior, and more independent with play, dressing, and feeding before I take on another dependent, demanding little monster. I also want to try to time things to maximize maternity leave again. But I don't want to wait so long that the age gap is much more than 3 years. So that puts us in the ballpark of May or June, ideally. (Ideal to me anyways.)

Brian is not with me on this, at least not 100%. He worries about the financial aspects of having a second baby, and I think he also wonders when he can get back to his old hobbies like golf, poker, and snowboarding. It's true, things aren't nearly as carefree or spontaneous as they used to be, and money is tight. But somehow people do it all the time. People with even less money and more debt than us. So we'll find a way. I know we will.

And how can we not? Look at these amazing little hopefuls! If they turn out even half as perfect as Noah, it will all be worth it!

(Noah is the one furthest to the left.)

18 Months!

Look at me! I'm a year and a half!

I don't know how it happened, but suddenly I have an 18 month old! I remember back to a year ago when we gave Noah his first sweet potatoes tonight and he wasn't even sitting on his own yet. Now he's a wild man running through the house, eating chunks of chicken, and telling me "no, no, no." It's crazy how time flies.

Each month Noah's vocabulary continues to expand by leaps and bounds. He's pointing to all kinds of things and takes great delight in naming the things that he knows. He can repeat most words that we try to get him to say (except "gramma," much to their dismay!), but I only count the words that I think he knows the meaning to or uses regularly. New words this month are:

• side (for outside), shower, eat, bowl, papa, sock, walk, ride, phone, shirt, gate, eye, toe, mouth, head, teeth, boom, nose, apple, hat, foot, spoon ("foon"), bubble, yucky ("ucky"), whoah, mine, food, fork, rock, nana, house, bucket, book, park

Noah can point to all kinds of body parts including his head, hair, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, teeth, tongue, hands, belly, wee wee, knee and feet. He is able to follow simple commands like "get your milk," but doesn't always choose to listen. He likes to bring me random objects and places them in my hands. He will give a kiss when asked, or just spontaneously, and I love it! He also makes his toys kiss each other. So sweet! My mom taught him how to blow kisses over FaceTime, too. He's getting more opinionated and independent by the day. He lets us know if he really wants something by spinning in a circle and stomping his feet. Noah is also upping his game in the tantrum department. He gets upset when he can't have his pacifier, or when he has to come in from outside. He doesn't like having something taken away from him, and sometimes the tantrums just seem to come out of nowhere. He likes to throw his head back, flail his limbs, and scream. I guess the "terrible twos" start much earlier than two! He also has a tendency to hit or bite me if I make him mad. I've tried time-outs and an upset, stern voice to try to redirect this behavior, but so far he's not getting it.

In other developmental news, Noah got his first two molars this month. Along with them came his third ear infection. Boo! He has his official 18-month appointment on Halloween (trick or treat, you get shots kiddo!), but at his most recent ear checkup he weighed in at 23 pounds. I'm curious to see where that will fit into the percentiles. I think he's definitely still on the small side! He's my little peanut!

Happy Half-Birthday, Sweetheart!

Decision to Privatize

I know I'm being totally paranoid and overdramatic, but I still feel fine with my decision. Here's why I made it.

So a couple of weeks ago we had a very weird experience. It was a Wednesday night. Around 12:30am our dog started whining like crazy. I couldn't figure out what he wanted. Noah feeds him a lot of strange things so I thought maybe he had an upset stomach. I let him out in the backyard but all he did was pee. I went back to bed, but he just kept whining. By this point Brian was also awake. As we lied in bed feeling frustrated, we both noticed the sound of a large diesel engine idling outside of our house somewhere. We both found it extra annoying at this point and wished it would go away. After about 5 minutes the truck finally left, came back briefly, then left for good. The dog settled down and we went back to bed.

The next morning I opened the blinds to our front window so that Gilbert could enjoy the view for the day. I immediately noticed something sitting on our front steps. It looked like a small copper pipe standing on its end. As I left the house I walked around the garage and looked down at the object. I had no idea what it was. It kind of looked like a flashlight, but it kind of didn't. I called Brian on my way to our daycare provider's and asked if he left something on the step. He had no idea what I was talking about.

When Brian got home from work that night, he inspected the item. He was still unsure of what it was. We both thought back to the odd events of the night before and started to feel pretty creeped out. Whatever this object was, it was very conspicuously left on our step. I decided to call the county non-emergency line. I thought the dispatch would just laugh at me, but they sent an officer out within the hour. He showed up and stood in our driveway with binoculars to figure out what it was (I'm sure the neighbors were curious about that). He felt pretty certain that it was a flashlight. He took a long broom from our garage and tipped it over from a safe distance. And yes, it was a small gold flashlight. He inspected it inside and out and determined that it hadn't been tampered with in any way. We shared with him the strange things that happened overnight, and he agreed that it was all very creepy. He asked us to report any additional suspicious sounds or experiences to the police immediately. That really made me uncomfortable. I had all these visions of some weirdo wandering around our house overnight. I worried that maybe this person was tapping into the baby monitor, so I unplugged it. I made booby traps inside the house and lit up the outside like Fort Knox. I posted signs on the community mailbox to ask people to report suspicious activity to the police. (And people did respond by keeping their lights on overnight.) Nothing has happened since, and I've now considered several more innocent possibilities for what happened. But when it comes to Noah I'm not into taking chances. Is some weird stalker following my blog and planning to kidnap Noah from his bedroom overnight? Highly doubtful. (But did you hear that weird story from Kansas City about the 10 month old who went missing from her crib overnight?) So yeah, I'm paranoid, but I'm pretty sure those of you who left a comment asking to continue following are the only people following this blog so it may as well stay that way. Thanks for sticking with me and my craziness!

17 (and a half) Months

Ugh, I suck. At this point it's closer to 18 months, but whatever. The inner organized dork who lives inside me took detailed notes on my phone throughout the month about his 17 month "milestones" and then started a new note for 18 months. So, I can safely say that the highlights I am about to share truly do represent what Noah was doing at 17 months, and not a day older. :)

• New words: bread, wheee!, bee, oww, sit, yay, kick, caw (bird noise), baa (sheep noise), cow, shoe, water, uh oh (or as he says, uh uh oh), okay, go, bunny
• This month we said "bye bye" to bottles. Nothing but sippies from here on out! I'm just glad I won't be sending my son to Kindergarten with a bottle in hand.
• We have seen a real increase in tantrums. He is so easily frustrated!
• At his friend Max's birthday party, Noah slid down the slide all by himself. There were a couple funny spills at the end of the slide (which had no drop off, just straight to the ground which is awesome for a little one!), but he loved it. Each time he went down, he enthusiastically shouted "wheeeee!" So cute!
• I think "terrible twos" start way earlier than two. Noah wants to do everything for himself. For example, I can no longer read him books at bed time. He jumps off my lap, finds his own book, and reads to himself. If I try to read to him, he'll push my hand away and shake his head. I miss our bedtime stories, but figure this is just a phase that will pass. It is pretty cute watching and listening to him pretend to read though.
• He is working on using a spoon and fork by himself as well. I can still feed him as long as he has his own utensil to hold.
• We have ourselves a little dancing machine. Any time he hears music come on, he'll start swaying back and forth. Sometimes he throws in little arm movements as well. This is my favorite of Noah's habits right now. It especially kills me when he hears music in a commercial on TV and he'll stop whatever he was doing and start swaying.

So that's all I kept notes on for the month. I feel like I'm getting worse at remembering details each month. I think I'm just exhausted from my crazy work schedule this year which is a whole other post in itself, but I won't bore anyone with that garbage. I don't have any great pictures to share this month because I've also been too busy to sync my camera to the computer. Soon, I hope!

This will have to do for now!