Noahlogy

Catching up with Noah...

• Well, he's finally reached one important milestone we've all been waiting for. Nope, still no teeth yet (!) but he has graduated to regular, hands and knees style crawling, although he prefers and is still faster at his freestyle carpet swimming. He's also been pulling himself to a stand and is even starting to take a few steps while holding onto the furniture. Yep, he'll be a bundle of tiny walking and talking trouble-making soon. :)

• When Brianna was a baby, I was worried that she'd be afraid of the vacuum. So, I made sure to smile broadly at her every time I started it up, to reassure her that I wasn't afraid, everything was okay, and it was no big deal. And, it seemed to work. Maybe too well in fact. I think she almost got to the point where she thought vacuuming was a funny joke and every time I pulled it out she would smile and giggle. But, alas, this vacuum reassurance strategy has not worked with Noah. He's still terrified of the vacuum. Hates it! That and the hair blow dryer, both. I'm not sure if it's just the loud noise, or if he thinks that it's hurting me somehow but he bursts into immediate and frantic sobbing every time. Pretty common thing for babies. The funny thing to me is that while he seems afraid of it, while I vacuum he insists on crawling along just behind me, bawling all the way.

• It's always amusing to me to watch the kids as they get older get into pretending. Noah's already at it. In particular he likes to pretend to be drinking stuff out of empty cups, or in one case, a candle. Recently, he found a candle, a blue gel candle inside a glass and at first he must have really thought it was a small cup full of water. He held it up to his mouth and tipped it towards himself. Funny part was, he kept doing it over and over and smacking his lips and everything even though I'm sure after the 20th time or so, he HAD to have realized it wasn't what he thought...he must have just been having fun pretending. His other big pretending game lately is to fake sneeze and then laugh at himself. I actually remember Bree going through this phase too (think I even blogged about it). Yup, it just never gets old for him, fake sneezing repeatedly and laughing.
  

• There's no question that Noah likes his big sister. He finds her funny, always laughing at her nonsense and following along behind her, wanting to play. But, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I know he must really like her because of his copycatting her the other day... Being the big sister, Bree has no problem yanking things out of Noah's hands and while she expects him to share, if she sees him with any of her things, she rushes over to yank it away. (We're working on curbing this lovely habit.) Well, for her birthday, Brianna got a jewelry box, you know, the kind with the little ballerina inside that dances to music when you open it? And Noah is just fascinated by this and wants to play with it all the time. Of course, what do you think happens when he gets his hands on it? Yoink! Snatched away by his sister. When this happened recently I said, as usual, "Bree, share with your brother and be nice to him. He likes that box. Show him how it works." Then I glanced over and caught Bree, instead of doing what I asked, holding her jewelry box out of reach and sticking her tongue out at her little brother. I was about to say something when Noah turned his head and looked at me and then stuck his own tongue out! It made me laugh.