Baby Noah - 18 Months

He's 18 months (alright we're actually at 20 months...i'm a little late).

Once again I'm surprised how in only a year and a half they go from screaming slobbering newborns to walking and talking little people.

At A YEAR AND A HALF (!!!!)
 

Baby Noah is tall and skinny just like big brother:

Weight: 22 lbs 2 oz. (half pound bigger than Jett)

Height: 32 1/2 inches (1/4 inch shorter than Jett)

He still sleeps through the night.  But MUCH prefers Daddy to put him to bed rather than Mommy.  With me it's actually a bit of a struggle, he seems to want to nurse more and play more and just generally has no interest in going to bed.  He usually ends up screaming for a bit after I leave the room and often I have to go back in.  With Dom they go in to his bedroom, read stories and he's out a few minutes after Daddy leaves the room.

Naps are easier.  No struggle.  

He's down to one nap a day.  Generally 2 hours and I have to wake him up at 3pm to ensure he'll go down at 7:30pm

He still has his lovey.  Blue Bunny is THE BEST.  He also has a few other stuffed animals in the bed with him but blue bunny is by far his favorite.  Lately he spends an inordinate amount of time kissing it and asks everyone else to kiss it too, it's pretty adorable.

He loves to throw things away.  His diaper in the morning, the wrapper on Babybel cheeses, tissues, you get the idea.

He hates mess.  If he drops food at mealtime or drops a crumb on the floor while he's walking around with a snack he kind of freaks out.  He gets a funny look on his face and tries to pick it up and say "away".

He's much more of a talker than Jett was at this age.  He has a pretty big vocabulary and is adding words daily.  The best ones are Mommy and Daddy (also says mama and dada but mommy and daddy are cuter), Jett (love the way he says Jett) kitty, cat, plate, bowl, ball, nana (banana), muffin.  He has more but those are the ones that I can think of right off the top of my head.  He's VERY good at getting his point across.

He definitely understands EVERYTHING.  Just like Jett at this age I'm amazed at the comprehension.

Still nursing.  But not nearly as much as Jett.  I can get away with nursing 3 or 4 times on a good day.

Has graduated from the high chair (got MUCH more use out of it this time.  Noah used it for a full year).  But now he's a "big boy" and is loving sitting at the table in his booster seat.  He also loves sitting on the stool in the kitchen.  Especially if Jett sits with him in another stool.
 

Huge eater.  Loves food.  His favorties, curry, meatballs, blueberries, bananas and waffles. 

 

He loves anything that Jett loves.  So the toy cars get LOTS of use.  Tools, anything with wheels, so far the interests are the same.  Only huge difference from Jett is that Noah is a fan of balls, he loves to kick and throw them, something that Jett still has very little interest in.

LOVES the kitties.  Tries to lay on them, kiss them, stroke them and then hit them.
 

I love 18 months, they're such PEOPLE finally!

Baby Noah - Turns ONE!

I'm sorry but I'm just going to combine 11 months and 12 months.  I LOVE having these to look back on but OMG...so done.

So here we are, Baby Noah is ONE!!!

Eek!

It's bittersweet.  I love seeing him get bigger and more independent but it's also so sad that there's no babies left in the house!

At 11 months Baby Noah:
Waves when you say Bye Bye Noah.
Thinks the cats are amazing.  He actively seeks them out and TRIES to pet them gently.  It usually ends with him screaming and pulling their hair but he's working on it.
Likes to put things in other things.  I love this stage when they start doing this.  I've found "presents" in the most random places lately.
Unpacking and packing are FUN!  We pull clothes out of the dresser almost every day now.
Still sleeping through the night.  Even teeth didn't have him up at night!
Speaking of teeth.  He got 2 new teeth just a few weeks before he turned 1. For a total of 4.
This one is very vocal.  If he's unhappy, he let's you know it!
Generally he's been a happy smiley little thing.  People are always giggling and smiling at him because he's just so damn smiley and happy.
Expressing very little interest in walking.  Even if you try to hold his hands he wants to sink down to the ground.
Started swimming and seems to really enjoy it!

At 12 months he:
Started using utensils and now will not eat unless he can feed himself with the utensils.  It makes for LONG mealtimes.
He loves pushing things around the house.  Chairs, stools, etc.  He walks around everywhere by pushing furniture around.
He still absolutely refuses to get down of couches/beds/chairs safely, as in sliding down on his belly feet first.  He still wants to plunge head first over the edge.
I've been trying to teach him some signs like we did with Jett but to be honest he lets everyone know EXACTLY what he wants without the signs.  We were working on signing milk but he's only half interested.
No words.  Nothing even close.  But noisy...very noisy.
Came down with roseola this month.  OMG...so so miserable for almost a week straight.  I thought it was a fever from teeth but then that damn rash showed up.

Nursing.  He was doing so much nursing when he was sick with roseola but ultimately has cut way down on his nursing.  He loves real food so much that nursing is really just supplemental a few times a day.
And still no walking.  But is LIGHTNING FAST with the crawling.

I both can't believe how quick this year has gone by and also how much of it has seemed to DRAG.  Goodbye Baby Noah, Hello Big Boy!

Baby Noah - 10 Months

I have to admit I'm glad I'm almost done with these!
I love looking back at them but DAMN I am struggling to finish these last few months.

But here we go:

10 Months

This month baby Noah has picked up a few new skills.

He learned to clap.

He learned to wave.

He learned how to use a sippy cup properly.

He is also constantly saying Dadadadada...and every once in awhile Mamamamama.  Neither seem to really be directed at anybody as he says dadadada at me a lot.  But he's working on it.

He has a total of 2 teeth.  Both bottom have come in.

And HE IS OFFICIALLY SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT.  It is now the rare night that one of us ends up in there.  A whole month and a half before Jett!

As to the boob he is still nursing but could really take it or leave it.  We're at only 4 times a day now.  I can't imagine him going much past a year just of his own accord I think he'll end up weaning WAY before Jett.

Still loving all food.

And a few things that have been ongoing for several months that I never mentioned.  This kid LOVES baths.  I'm sure it helps that Jett is always in there with him but he absolutely loves the water.  I think we'll have fun this summer at the pool!

He gets MAD if he doesn't get what he wants.  There are a few things he REALLY likes/wants like the baby monitor, the remote and the phones.  If he sees any of these items and you remove them or don't give them to him he's sure to let you know how pissed off he is about it.

He's a climbing fool these days.  Anything he can reach that knee up to he manages to climb up on.  This means he can get on the couch by means of the ottoman, he can get on Jett's bed, he can get on a few of the smaller Jett chairs.  Lots of ways for baby to fall down!

Adorably he loves to lay his head down on anything soft.  Especially when he's tired if he's on a bed or a couch or there's a blanket or pillow on the floor he'll just lay his head down and rub his face in it.  SO CUTE.

And he has a lovey!  We had several small loveys that were gifted to us when Jett was a baby, he just never took to them. But from a young age Noah has really liked to scratch and rub his head so when it felt like he was ready I threw all 3 loveys in the crib with him.  He immediately took to "blue bunny" and has pretty much been in love with it ever since.

 

Only 2 more months little dude, just 2 more months before you're ONE!

Baby Noah - 9 Months

SOMEONE IS FINALLY SLEEPING!

Thank god.  Mama is ready to sleep again.

At 9 months once again I'd just like to direct you here to read Jett's update.

No?  Not cool?

Ok...fine.

At 9 months Baby Noah is doing exactly what Baby Jett did.

He's lightening fast when crawling ESPECIALLY if you leave a bathroom door open.  He will make a beeline for bathrooms.  LOVES BATHROOMS.  Why?  Why do they like bathrooms???  So the bathroom door must remain closed at all times now.

He also REALLY likes to go outside, so again if the door is open WATCH OUT, Noah will be there in a heartbeat.

He's working on stairs.  He's made it all the way up to the top a time or two, though he still has a tendency to stop and want to sit down and thus topple over backwards.  Lucky for him mama has made it to the stairs to follow close behind so that each and every time he's tumbled over I've been there to catch him.  One day I will not be there kid, DON'T TAKE A BREAK ON THE STAIRS!  It's up or down kid, up or down.

He's also really not a fan of going DOWN the stairs the way they're supposed to, you know SAFELY and backwards.  Work in progress.  There's no baby gate at the top currently...I'm thinking we might have to put one up, though really it was something I was hoping to avoid.  I loathe baby gates.

He spends most of his time standing and will cruise along furniture and move from one piece of furniture to another.  He also likes to walk with some of Jett's chairs, scooting them along the floor and walking behind.  I should really get a baby walker...

Food.  This kid is all about the food.  He LOVES food.  We're only nursing 5-6 times a day now, which is morning, after both naps, before bed and once at night (or two on really bad nights).  So much different than Jett in this one aspect.  Jett was still nursing every few hours and wasn't as into real food as this one.  Oatmeal is a current fave as well as pasta and scrambled eggs.  I think a huge part of why this one likes food is that he's offered so much more than Jett ever was.  I will pretty much give Noah anything we're eating, with Jett I definitely held back and only gave him certain foods.  I blame it on being a new mom.  I didn't let Jett have dairy or grains or just didn't think to offer him foods that didn't seem baby friendly.  This one has proven to me that I should really let HIM make that choice.  I offer almost all foods and he tries what he's interested in eating.

Chicken Tikka Masala!

Size.  I thought for sure he was bigger than Jett but after our appt last week it turns out that Noah is THE EXACT SAME SIZE AS JETT at this age.  Even though he eats and eats and eats...same size.

Height: 28 inches (me and Dr. actually think this was a mismeasurement but whatevs
Weight: 18lbs 4 oz.

Sleep.  As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, we've finally turned the corner on sleep.  Just after he turned 9 months old HE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT.  And I mean actual through the night like 7pm-6:45am through the night.  He only did it once so far but he's regularly waking only once at 3-4am which is heavenly at this point!

Naps have been good for at least the last month, both morning and afternoon are always at least an hour but less than two.  It's been so nice to finally have some planned down time in the day!  Now I KNOW I can get things done at 2 points during the day, allows me to get dinner done, do laundry etc.

And finally A TOOTH!  Just like Jett, only a few days after turning 9 months the first tooth popped out.

The Little Boy With Glasses

My firstborn is growing up so much these days, I feel every once in awhile I should sit down and document the changes going on in his life.

The biggest most important thing to happen to Jett lately is the diagnosis of a lazy eye.  Jett has officially become a glasses wearer.

As a mom this has been an incredibly difficult transition FOR ME.  Suddenly my perfect baby has such a HUGE obstacle to overcome and it makes me so incredibly sad that life is not going to be as easy as I hoped for him.

As a boy my biggest fear is that he's going to be bullied for being the little boy with glasses.  He's already so skinny (though tall) and now he's got glasses to boot.  It doesn't seem so harsh for girls, not until the teen years when contacts would be an option. Every once in awhile I hear bigger boys say, 'hey look, he has glasses.' I've never heard them say it with malice...but I fear there will be one day.

The discovery of the lazy eye came about when his eye started to wander, so he was looking a bit cross-eyed at times.  His preschool teachers noticed it and said it might be a good idea to mention it to his ped at our next appt.  Well, I didn't have a ped appt scheduled until August when he would be turning 4 and wasn't going to fuss about it until then.  But over Christmas our families were in town and THEY ALL NOTICED the eye.  So...off the Dr. we went.  Lo and behold poor Jett can't see out of his left eye AT ALL.

His glasses have an insanely high prescription for the bad eye, that glass is THICK.  He'll be in these glasses for 2 months and then the shitty part...he has to start wearing a patch OVER THE GOOD EYE.  Which means he will be damn near blind.

It breaks my heart.

And I have to be the enforcer.  I have to FORCE my poor baby to wear the glasses and this goddamn patch so that one day he will be able to see.

Luckily my younger sister (and Dom's mom, genetics at work) has a lazy eye and so at least this is familiar territory and I know what a lazy eye is and how they try to fix it and I have someone to talk to about the whole thing.  Also Jett has someone to talk to should he need.

Know what a lazy eye is?  Let me explain for those who don't know.  Basically it's when you have poor vision in one eye at a young age and your brain decides the blurred image coming from the one eye is irrelevant and quits using it.  It shuts down all the information coming from the one eye and so the eye just gets weaker and weaker and if it's not treated you are become near blind in one eye.  To fix it you have to force the brain to use that bad eye and how you do that is get rid of the good eye so the brain has no choice but to accept and use the information coming from the bad eye.

Jett's glasses right now are supposed to be strengthening the weak eye but what that means for him is that sometimes he eyesight is WORSE when he wears his glasses.  This is obnoxiously a GOOD thing because it means the brain is attempting to use the bad eye but try explaining that to a 3 year old!!!  The next step in another month is to patch the good eye and OMG I am dreading it!  It starts slow with just an hour a day and then slowly increase it until by September he should be wearing the patch for 8 hours a day.

Luckily kids are incredibly resilient and he doesn't seem too fussed about the whole thing.  I know he doesn't love the glasses but he tolerates them well enough.  He always asks to take them off at some point in the day and I let him have about an hour break but generally he'll put them back on without too much of a fight.

Unfortunately this is probably a lifelong chronic condition.  It was caught very early (usually it's diagnosed at 5-6 when they hit school age) but I don't know that he will every have great vision in that bad eye.  The goal is to strengthen the eye so that hopefully the eyesight isn't so poor in the left eye but ultimately I think he'll be wearing glasses or contacts for the rest of his life. 

And onwards we march through life whatever it throws at us.

 

 

Baby Noah - 8 Months

Eight months was the magic month.

At 8 months baby Noah has started sleeping and crawling and YAY on both counts.

Amusingly I went back and looked at Jett's 8 month update and lo and behold...it's like I'm reading an update about Noah.  Seriously...I'm going to be writing almost the exact same thing.

Shall I save myself some time?  Go here and read this Jett update and pretend it's about Noah.

I kid!

As a 2nd child myself I know Baby Noah needs his own update.

So here goes.

Baby Noah had been dabbling at crawling for a few weeks but wasn't REALLY on the move.  Until FINALLY after 3 unbelievably crappy nights in which he stayed awake FOR HOURS crying (we were convinced it was teeth, even gave him ibuprofen!), he woke up one morning a brand new baby.  He could crawl, he could stand, he could cruise.  He suddenly started exploring on his own, venturing out of whatever room you put him in (crap!) and just generally moving around with a confidence that did not exist before. AND quit fussing at me all the damn time! He had been such a whiner, but it seems he was just frustrated. Moving baby equals happy baby.

He's already made it up a stair or two.  Sigh.  Must keep a better eye on him now!

 He will use ANYTHING to pull to standing.

Sleeping also took a turn for the better.  After the 3 craptastic nights mentioned above the next night he did TWO 6 hour stretches.  Which means I ACTUALLY SLEPT FOR 6 HOURS STRAIGHT.  It was kind of amazing.  Then the next night he slept for 9.5 hours!!!  Followed immediately by a night of 4 hour stretches.  BUT HE'S DOING IT!  We do no more than 2 night feeds and some nights we get away with only 1.  The light at the end of the very sleep deprived tunnel.

Naps are finally becoming reliable and I'm almost at the point where they're at set points in the day rather than 2.5 hours after he's up in the morning.  We're settling nicely into a 9:30/10am and 1:30/2pm routine for naps.  Nap length is roughly an hour, sometimes a bit more and sometimes a bit less.

Food.  This kid loves food.  I feel most of the time he would prefer real food to boob.  Though he's still happily nursing 5 or 6 times in any given 24 hour period.  He'll try almost anything but definitely prefers to be eating WHATEVER YOU ARE EATING.  If you try to give him something different than what he can see on your plate HE'S NOT HAPPY.  I can't give Jett a yogurt or a banana without also giving one to Noah.  I see his point, clearly it's unfair to try to give him "baby" food!  So, yeah, he pretty much eats anything we're eating.

Jett continues to love little brother.  He went so far as to tell me he wanted MORE babies.  Another brother and a sister to be exact.  I don't know about that Jett...I just don't know.

And just like big brother...no teeth!  Jett's first came in at 9 months, will baby Noah follow suit?

Baby Noah - 7 Months

Dear blog, you are lame these days.

Sorry.

One day...one day I will write something interesting again.

But in the meantime...

At 7 months:

Noah is still fighting the good fight against sleeping more than 3-4 hours.  Sometimes he'll do a whopping 4.5 hours but usually there's a wake up somewhere around 2 hours.  So...no sleep for mama STILL.

He is also fighting the good fight against anything resembling crawling.  Tummy time equals screamy time.

But he has managed to pull to standing and would really love it if he could just stay like that all day.

Or walk.  Walking would make him happy.

Basically he is EXTREMELY frustrated that he is not more mobile and really likes to voice his frustrations.

It's super annoying.

He's doing some serious moving around in the crib these days though.  He can now roll onto his belly BUT does not seem to really enjoy the fact that he's on his belly once he's there.  So there's screaming in frustration anytime he wakes up from a nap or at night because OMG I'M ON MY STOMACH!  WHY AM I ON MY STOMACH?!  HOW DO I ROLL BACK OVER?!

Ugh...

In other news he LOVES eating.  His squeals and squirms in pure joy when he sees a banana, a pear or a date coming at him.  Other food loves include meatballs of all things.  Broccoli and asparagus seem to be a lot of fun to play with but he doesn't eat much of them.  He's also a huge fan of pasta!

Things he doesn't like to eat...cucumbers.  Which is weird because big brother LOVES cucumbers and it's the one veggie I absolutely ALWAYS have on hand!

We're still nursing but honestly he's not THAT into it.  He much prefers real food during the day.  At night it's a different story and he seems to want to still nurse 437 times.  I've tried offering the boob more during the day but he just isn't interested.

Such a difference compared to Jett who would happily forgo real food for boob ANYTIME.

 And how is big brother?  Big brother loves Noah and still happily includes him in all his games.  So fun watching these two start to interact!