Daley Ponderings

After breakfast on Noah's birthday, we went to the dollar store to buy him some balloons.  Jonathan thought Noah shouldn't come, because it would spoil the surprise, but I said that since Noah likes to go on walks, he'd have a happier birthday if he came with us.  And what's another 10 minutes to wait for a surprise?  While we were there, both boys were intrigued by the gumball machine, so I consented, for the birthday's sake.  Noah didn't understand that it was gum and was ready to throw his ball across the room.  Then, when we told him it was for chewing, he sucked all the candy part off and then slowly nibbled off a bit at a time and swallowed it.  Right.  Too young for gum.  Oh, well! (More)

Today, Noah is two years old! He is a blessing to our family, and I look forward to watching and helping him grow more and more. Since the second birthday is not much more interesting to the recipient than the first, we'll be having a simple family celebration with balloons and cake. I'm also going to prepare one of his favorite meals, Split-Pea Dahl with Jeera Rice and Naan. What will he say when he finishes his first bowl? "Mo' dah' please!" (Ok., that's being a bit generous. He'll probably start out with just the "dah'" part and then we'll encourage him to say/sign the more and please.)

On 6/20, Noah walked up the stairs without holding onto the wall or railing.  His hands were full with a water bottle, and he just carefully stepped his way up. (More)

Jonathan enjoys blocking a doorway and demanding, "Three thousand dollars!" or some such amount. Sometimes he'll block every doorway from the laundry to the bedroom, charging an exorbitant amount of money every time. If there are any complaints, he always says, "Don't worry, it's just pretend money."

So now Noah, always happy to copy his big brother, has started in on the game. I come up from downstairs, and there he is at the top of the stairs with the door closed, his little hand sticking through the crack, saying, "Dah!" (dollar!) So now Mommy has to pay $3001 every time she goes anywhere. (:

Home stretch, here we are!  This will be the first time my third trimester is entirely in the summer, so I was glad for that stretch of cold, rainy May. (More)

Noah now has many more words that I can write down. They are still mostly only understood by me and Jonathan, but he's using his mouth to communicate. Most words have only the initial consonant and vowel sound (moo for "moose") and some have only part of the word (mo' for "remote") so much of our understanding must be gleaned from context. One example is that (ba-ba) can mean "paper" or "butter" or various other things depending on context. (More)

Jonathan wants me to write that he says, "blaller, blaller, hee haw haw."

Noah, on the other hand has some more words and signs.  Well, one sign, cereal.  Words are "down" (dow), "beep" and "bird" which really sounds like (bee.) (More)

I won't make this too detailed since Jon especially doesn't like this kind of stuff posted for everyone to read (and well, would you want your business customers - or worse, potential customers - reading about what your children are doing on the toilet?)

But I just wanted it on the record that when we unpacked the closets on 5/5 after Sanda's move, we found the little potty and Noah was immediately interested.  He has been successful several times in the last week and very happy with himself, too.  He usually uses the toilet sign to indicate his need.

4/8 - We were reading a non-word book about getting a new baby in the house, and Noah would say "baby" perfectly as he pointed to the baby in each picture.  He now says it often, sometimes referring to himself, sometimes to my tummy, sometimes to a picture of another baby, sometimes randomly. (More)

Whenever Daddy opens a bottle of Blenheim ginger ale, Noah takes several sips, too.

Tuesday (4/2) Noah thoroughly inspected the dishwasher handle.  You can tell he's in a family of engineers!

He can say "mommy" now, though not consistently.  He also says "me."  He said "cashew" unprompted once, but we're out of cashews now, so he has not had another opportunity.  He says "nana" unprompted for banana.   He also says diaper, which sounds like "dai-doo" or "ba-boo" or some combination depending on how he's feeling.  His new unprompted signs are help and apple.

I feel that on the talking front, it's like he took a year break and now he's making progress the way he "should have."

He can open doors pretty well, and he knows how to open our fence gate.

He can do the small knob puzzles, though sometimes he still gets frustrated if the piece is completely upside down (turned 180, that is.)  I guess he doesn't feel he should have to turn it that far for it to fit. 

He loves playing whatever Jonathan is playing, copying him precisely.

Speaking of precise, Noah likes for things to go in their places.  When he stirs a soup, he taps the spoon on the side of the pot, and then places it on the spoon rest.  He complains if the spoon rest is not there.  He likes putting away, but since Jonathan doesn't we are still working on cleaning up before moving on to the next thing.

I'm working on a slow night weaing process.  At this point, I don't want to do anything abrupt, and this is what has been working:  letting him nurse when he asks but limiting it to ten minutes, giving him a one minute warning.  Often he would stop and turn over at the warning.  If he does get upset, we help him calm down and he's been doing better at that.  Now I'm down to five minutes with a one minute warning.  He will often ask for more, holding up one finger for "one more minute" (which is very cute!)  If he asks nicely with no complaining, I usually say yes.  I will offer to hold his hand when we're done with nursing but he's still awake, and he usually accepts.  I change his diaper whenever it's wet and sometimes he'll just go back to sleep without nursing once he's dry.  Nights have been so much better recently, and I'm thankful.

Last week, Noah opened the childproofed cabinets in the kitchen.  It was no fluke - he closed it after the first time, and then deliberately repeated his action.  So we have disabled those and instructed him not to open those cabinets (he is obeying so far.)  These are the "glass" cabinets, whose contents are breakable.  The "lock" is still on the under-sink cabinet, which Noah has not yet tried to explore. (More)

2/9 - Jonathan: "What does special mean?" I say something about someone/thing that someone cares for. "How much do you care for me?" Well, I don't think I can really measure that. "Well, you may care for me abundantly." (More)

On Sunday after church, we were driving around the area and went to the lake we visited in the summer.  It was frozen over, people were ice fishing.  We walked on carefully, telling Jonathan to stay near us and of the dangers of weak ice.  We found an abandonded, yet fresh, ice fishing hole about three inches in diameter.  From this hole we were able to determine that the ice was about four inches thick.

Noah likes to help set the table.  When I ask him to put forks at the places, he will run to the drawer and grab a fistfull, then put a fork on top of each plate.  I usually have to help him put away the extras, or they end up all over the place.

Can I condense three weeks of activities into one post?  We'll see how it turns out.  One thing we discovered at Christmastime is that Noah loves cocktail sauce.  He just dipped his finger in and licked it off, licked the bowl clean and wanted more!