what a nice boy

I just had to share this lovely story about Noah.

Noah and a little girl in his nursery school class were having some trouble getting on their winter gear (um, more like refusing to put it on and running around instead). The little girl's Mom thought it would be a good idea to have them race to their lockers to get their stuff. I thought so too. Noah won the race, and the little girl had a bit of a meltdown (as would a lot of 4-year-olds who always win races at home). After I quieted Noah's celebratory yells and told him that his friend was sad because she hadn't won, Noah heard the girl's Mom explain that she couldn't always win. Noah piped in that he and his sister took turns being the first one in the bath tub. The kids had another race, and Noah very sweetly let the little girl win. I was so proud of him.

chore charts

Awhile back we started a chore chart for Noah, mostly as an incentive to get himself dressed for school. He had three chores to do each day, and he got to add a check mark and a happy face to his Larry Boy chore chart when he completed each one. It worked well for a little while, but after a couple of weeks we all lost interest.

Last night at supper, Noah decided he needed a check mark for taking his dishes to the kitchen. The chart had been lost, so he decided to make his own. After he finished that, he went on to create one for each member of the family. Here are our chores according to Noah:

Noah:
1. Get dressed.
2. Tidy the toys.
3. Take dishes to the kitchen

Me:
1. Feed Molly.
2. Clean the toilet.
3. Clean my room.
4. Play with Noah.

Marc:
1. Wash the dishes.
2. Help Noah tidy up the toys.
3. Play with Noah.

Molly:
1. Play with Noah.

and now some new photos

Here are some of the shots Marc has taken with my granddad's old camera. The colours are better on the actual photographs.

christmas shopping

So, I've done a little shopping. Not so much that I won't have to rush around like a mad woman mid-December. It's tradition.

I'm having a hard time shopping for Molly. There are so many things I see that Noah would really love, that suit his quirky personality, but everything I see for kids Molly's age seems generic and bland. Part of it is of course that Molly won't really care what's under the tree. She would be content with an old shoe if she hadn't played with it before. At the moment, I think the fondest wish of her heart is to allowed to chew the video cassette cases until they crumble away to nothing. Can you tell she's teething?

I'm feeling freed up to prepare and celebrate Christmas these days because we finally have daycare in place for both the kids. Noah will be going home with his friend Brayden after Nursery school, and Molly just got a spot in a lovely home daycare. The DCP does Yoga with the kids and felt board stories and music circle. I'm very excited about it. That's more than I ever do with my two! She will also cloth diaper, so that's a huge savings as well. Of course I'm still sad about going back to work, but I'm so relieved to have the kids in good hands. I've known Kate (Brayden's Mom) since Noah was tiny, and the new daycare lady is actually the mother of one of Marc's ex-girlfriends. As weird as it sounds, the fact that she is not a complete stranger makes things easier. (I may have to forgive the ex girlfriend for writing that letter suggesting Marc not marry me though. I suppose it's a grudge I can do without. It has been 10 years after all.)

late halloween story

It's one of those stories that prove your kids actually are listening when you try to teach them something.

The Sunday after Halloween, Marc's parents came over for supper. Grandpa was teasing Noah about eating all of his Halloween candy. Noah howled "no, grandpa! I don't want you to get sick." It was kind of nice that Noah was more concerned about Grandpa's health than he was about losing his candy.

and so it begins . . .

Before 10 o'clock this morning, Molly already had a cut by her eye and a fat lip from two separate falls. She is crazy adventurous. I love all this great new stuff she is doing, but boy, the daily heart attacks are taking their toll on me!

updates

So, I've been neglecting my blog lately. A crawling baby brings a new level of busy-ness to the life of a Mom. Our living room/dining room is pretty much baby-proofed, but there are always one or two problem areas that attract our little Molly-o, flies to honey, moths to the flame, etc. etc.

I don't have anything specific to blog about, but here are some updates:

Molly: the crawling, redheaded, almost walking dynamo. She is a delight and wants to be in on any action to be had, whether it is Noah playing trains or wrestling with Dad. She is no shrinking violet. When she sees something interesting, she lets out an excited yell and goes for it! She is balancing a little on her own. I am (stupidly) encouraging her to walk early so I don't miss at when I go back to work in January.


Noah: our wacky 4 year old space boy. Noah is enjoying nursery school most days, and is learning to read. He's not quite at the sounding out stage yet, but he will attempt it with much prompting. A quotation, "Mom, how do you spell Larry Boy and Junior save the day?" Couldn't we start with dog and cat? He has an amazing memory. When I can't remember part of a poem or nursery rhyme (this happens a lot!) he tells me which book we can find it in. And often, it is a book we haven't read in months. At supper last night he also remembered that he promised to try tofu. Unfortunately, Molly was not having tofu last night. Maybe he'll go for it tonight.

me: very sad about going back to work. Very excited about the upcoming Christmas season. thinking hard about new baby soon. no, no. First, implement stay at home money-making scheme, then think about baby Ben (he already has a name tee hee).

Marc: has taken up photography with my Granddad's old camera. He is taking some really amazing shots of the kids and other things.

please oh please

let Molly enjoy playing with action figures soon!

I am tired of providing the voice of Archibald Asparagus!

fast forward

Both the kids seem to be on fast forward these days.

In Molly's case, she is passing milestones left and right. She starting crawling forward yesterday. She is talking more and more. She just loves saying mum mum mum mum mum. (I love it too!) To be fair she has mentioned Dada in passing . . . She is a rough and tumble baby. She loves noise and action and wants to participate.

In Noah's case, it is not so pleasant. His behaviour is impossible these days. He will not listen. In fact, he won't stop talking. His "not listening" has reached a new plateau. He has gone from doing what he wants to do to doing whatever he thinks will make Mom and Dad upset. It is very difficult not to yell at him. In fact, I have a few times, and he just laughs. It's infuriating.

I am really hoping these two phenomena are related. Molly is getting a lot of attention and praise for her accomplishments, and requires more attention because of them (to keep her from hurting herself). Noah wants more attention and acts out because of it AND has to defend his toys. I guess my strategy for the next little while will be to try and "catch" Noah being good and heaping on the attention.

One cool thing about Noah: He is learning how to print words other than his own name. He wrote Larry Boy in church yesterday.

molly motion

Molly is discovering how to move around these days. It is very cute, scary and just a little frustrating for her as her crawling attempts propel her backwards and further away from the toy she was after.

She has managed to pull herself up on her toy basket and grab toys from inside (before falling over backwards).

I think we may be in for some trouble when Molly figures out how to crawl forward. The object that most motivates her is Noah's beloved Larry Mobile!

another perfect morning

We have entered another lovely phase of my maternity leave. Noah goes to Nursery school, Monday to Friday. It's about a 20 or 25 minute walk. We leave the house with Marc in the morning and walk him to the bus stop and continue on to school. Molly and I then have the morning to ourselves. Sometimes we hang around the neighbourhood, go to the park, drop in our midwife Toni, go to a baby group, and sometimes we just come home. Molly usually naps if we do this, and I have time to blog . . . er, I mean, clean the house!

The days are getting cooler now, and the morning walks are quite crisp and refreshing. I think I'm losing my baby weight (finally) -- must be sure not to frequent the neighbourhood bakery too often. Noah gets out of school at 11:25, then we walk (or drive) home. One of Noah's favourite lunches is pancakes. We often mix them together, then he plays computer games while I cook them.

It is life at such a lovely pace. It is obviously busy enough with two kids, but they don't feel the stress of rushing around except maybe a little getting out the door for school. These would indeed be perfect mornings if Molly enjoyed the stroller a little more.

you know what?

There is room for one more. Absolutely. In a couple of years, I'll be 37. That's not THAT old. I want another baby. Yep, I do. Marc has no objections (that he has mentioned). OK. There it is. I am going to work hard to create a lifestyle that will accommodate 3 kids.

I love walking Noah to school and coming home to be with Molly, and doing community and neighbourhood stuff. What goal should I set so that I can keep doing that?

I have to go back to work for at least 6 months, and I can't make less money than I do now (adjusted for daycare expenses of course). So, I've got a little time to create some fabulous home business.

cheating

So, my post today is not something I made up, but an email from my sister. I want it in my blog so it doesn't get lost like so many emails do. I sure do miss my family. I would love for the kids to see their cousins at least once a week instead of 3 times a year.

Hey Seester,
Just thought I'd let you know that Beah is thinking about
you guys even when we haven't seen you in a while...
Yesterday, Bridget wanted her big mommy bear out. Then I found the Daddy and a baby. When I found her another one, I asked who it was and she said "Noah bear". When I found a smaller one, she decided it was Beah bear and made the smallest one Baby Molly Bear. Then a small pink one appeared and she called it Auntie Edie bear. Then I told her we were out of bears and she got really upset because there wasn't an Uncle Marc bear -- so we substituted a little gorilla. So you guys are now a bear family (with a monkey dad!).

For those who don't know, Beah is what my 2-year-old niece Bridget calls herself, and I am Auntie Edie, so named by my oldest nephew Josh.

important events

So, a few landmarks have been celebrated without any mention here, so here they are.

10 years ago August 31st

Marc and I were married. We celebrated by going out for Sushi and cheesecake (without the kids). There are no pictures of this, but hard as it is to believe, it did happen. It was nice. We're going to do it again. . . as soon as we can fly in a babysitter. Here we are 10 years ago:

4 years ago: September 7th

Noah was born. We celebrated with a few friends and the grandparents. Noah had a blast. He was so excited about the balloons and streamers, we left them up for almost a week. Here's our superhero.

1st day of school: September 11th

Noah started Nursery School. He is having fun, I think. He's pretty close mouthed about the details.

silly parental advice

Ever since we started bathing Noah and Molly together, we've been warning Noah not to splash Molly too hard. "Be careful of the baby, Noah." That's too much splashing Noah" etc. . .

Turns out, one of Molly's favourite things is being splashed in the face. She giggles her cute little butt off.

cake

We had Noah's birthday party yesterday. I'll post more about that later. I just really wanted to show off the cake my Mom and I made and decorated!

making sense of it all

While they are going on, Noah's melt-downs seem to have very little to do with anything, no rhyme or reason. I find myself thinking: is he hungry? tired? Does he have to pee? But often once the storm is over, I find there is a reason for these things and one that is quite different from the run-of-the-mill reasons I just mentioned. Here is an example:

Noah had a huge meltdown at my Mom and Dad's the last night we were there. All his cousins were there, and we were having a surprise birthday party for Kiera who will be turning 11 next month. All of a sudden he was crying about everything, yelling at everyone and generally being very hard to be around. I took him to our room, and he cried and screamed for awhile. Then, when he was getting tired, he said: I wish all these kids lived in Winnipeg. Wow. My heart just broke.

cocooning

One of Noah's favourite games is playing caterpillars. It is often a welcome change from super-Noah/super mommy, engineers, cowboys and detectives which are quite boisterous and draining. Playing caterpillars involves crawling around on our wall of mattresses, eating leaves (pillows), crawling into a cocoon (also pillows) and emerging as beautiful butterflies. It's a wonderful thing. We do it over and over again (because Molly keeps changing us back into caterpillars).

I sometimes think this is Noah's year for cocooning. We often get glimpses of a beautiful butterfly trying to emerge.

noah-isms

I love to listen to Noah and Marc talk. One day, I had been telling Noah about Marc's job in a research firm. That night, at supper, the following conversation ensues:

Noah: I research too Daddy.
Marc: Maybe I should work at home some days and you can be my research assistant.
Noah: Daddy, you can be MY research assistant. . . and I will be your sidekick.

That one did make it into the baby book.

Today while we were walking to the park, Noah asked me if it was very windy in Bethlehem. I had to admit I didn't know.

the beginning of the end

OK, ok so I'm being a little dramatic. Molly has started eating solid food, if you can call baby cereal solid! More than her other accomplishments, this one makes me a little sad for some reason. Maybe it's because she doesn't need me so absolutely anymore. I know that our breastfeeding days are not coming to an end by any means, but . . . I can't express it. My baby is growing up.

That said, she is doing great with the cereal. We started a couple of weeks ago, and it has been a bit of a struggle getting her to open her mouth. All of a sudden, she figured it out and now she will ask me for cereal. She makes these cute little smacking noises and mmmmmm sounds (instead of the oh-so-subtle cue that she would like to nurse - grabbing my shirt both hands and headbutting my breasts).