New pictures!

I know that everyone tunes in for the pictures, and tonight I'm dog tired, so I'm not quite up to creating a cute, catchy title for this blog.

Let's see... Noah has become the recipient of many clothes this past week--Aunt Patti found a great sale & sent Noah the rewards of her hunt (one t-shirt is featured in the pictures below), and we appreciate it very much! I let her know that it was like Christmas combined with the Clown Cars at the circus--I opened up this box and just kept pulling shirt after shirt after shorts after shirt after shorts... Thank you, Aunt Patti & Uncle Steve! (I must confess, I love all the clothes, but the green checked seersucker shirt & the yellow Bug ABC t-shirt are probably my favorites!)

We ALSO received the outfits that Janet (aka Mimi to Noah) ordered for us from Children's Wear Outlet or somesuch--I can't remember the exact name; Rachel found the site and it's fantastic! The prices are outrageously inexpensive, and they've got really cute clothes! We picked out Noah's outfit that he'll wear to Kala's wedding in August as well as some Dickies brand socks (a bit big right now, but Noah seems to really like them, especially as sock puppets. I have no idea where that boy learned to put socks on his hands!), AND two outfits, both soccer-inspired. One has Tyrone (from the Backyardigans, as if you had to ask...) playing soccer (the top even has soccer ball buttons on it!) and the other features Diego, both of which Noah grabbed the shirts, put them in his yellow dumptruck & started off for parts unknown (well, it was his room, but "parts known" doesn't sound as adventurer-ish).

AND, if that weren't enough, we tried out the big boy underwear that Bill, Lorraine & Skyler gave to Noah for his birthday. They know that we've started the potty training thing, and we think it was so cool of them to get us started off right! They even gave us the vinyl pants that go OVER the underwear, to help catch any wayward liquids (or solids...). The vinyl pants are fabulous (we've already gone through two pair of underwear & two of the vinyl pants tonight)--and to be honest, I'm not sure that I would have known to pick some up had I been shopping for Noah's underwear, so thank you, guys, for sharing your hard-earned knowlege and preventing us from some major accidents!

And how is the potty training, you ask? We're still training. At this point, I'm not sure who is training who... Noah is very willing to sit on the potty chair, he knows it's a potty chair, knows what goes in the potty chair, and we try to be pretty good about making time to sit on the potty chair at regular intervals, but so far, we've had lots of peeing in the bathtub, a couple accidents in the big boy underwear, and lots of just sitting & listening to stories. He does love "No More Diapers for Ducky," "The Potty Train" (I think because Mommy says, "Chugga Chugga POOOO POOOOOOO!" really loudly when she gets to that point in the book.... I can't help it--it makes us both laugh!) and "The Potty Book for Boys" (it features a little boy named Joshua, and Noah will ask for "Josh?" when he wants to hear the story). I find it really amazing, because these three stories are all so different in the way the story is told (the plot line is the same in all of them, though, not to ruin it for you) and in the artwork, but Noah is crazy about these. We've got some other books, too, that he's just not as interested in; he'll sit through a page or two, then ask "Ducky? Diapers Ducky? Train? Josh?" and it's hard not to honor the request!

Every day it's something new--I love peeking in the window of the daycare & seeing Noah interacting with the other kids; today when we were leaving, a car was driving by & it slowed down. The back window rolled down a bit, and a little girl yelled "Bye-bye, Noah!" and she waved. Of course, our little flirt waved back, but it was hard to hear his "Bye-bye" over the pacifier in his mouth (he was one tired little boy when I picked him up today!). I love that he has made such an impression on some of his friends! I hope that he keeps that quality; moreover, I hope that we do what we can to continue to foster it!

He's really singing up a storm now; we took some great video tonight, and hopefully when Patrick gets an hour or so (because apparently even for a very rough video, it takes quite a bit of time to transfer it to the proper format...) he can download it & some of the birthday footage....

Speaking of, we had a wonderful visit in Knoxville, and I made a 2nd Pablo cake--actually the making of the cake was courtesy of Mimi, and yours truly decorated it, with some icing assistance from Rachel. Noah seemed very excited to see Pablo in cake form again, and much to everyone's delight, he dove FACE FIRST into the cake... Rachel got some great pictures, so as soon as I can get access to them, I'll post a few. Noah really had a great time running after Jordan & Skyler; even though they're both big kids, Noah did his best to keep up! Saw LOTS of smiles on his face that day!

He's been growing, I think...he's really sleeping a lot, and I swear I can watch him get taller. Today he took a 3 hour nap, and last night he went to bed at 7 & woke up at 8:45 this morning! It seems like forever ago that we were looking forward to when he'd sleep longer than 3-4 hours, and it was a Godsend when he slept 6 hours--in a row!!!!--at night. Now, when he sleeps longer than he normally does, I just look around, lost, waiting for him to wake up! I try to keep myself busy, but it never fails--I'll get started on a "Flip This House" or somesuch and he'll wake up... Murphy's Law, I guess. So, I usually just putter, trying to pick up the big chunks around the house, getting the 400 bags ready & in a staging position for when we DO leave the house for school & office! I swear, toddlers need a lot of bags... I'm not sure why, since it seems like most of what he needs can be found out in the world (food, drink...), but the stuff we carry for him has grown.

His little brain is just soaking up EVERYTHING, too, even the stuff we don't want him to say. While we were in Knoxville, he took to saying "Oh my God" (which in his weird accent came out as "Oh my Gawd" with extra emphasis on the last "d" so it was UNMISTAKABLE as to what he was saying). I guess we say it more than we realize, because he picked it up from somewhere! And, when we try to correct him or steer him away from saying it, I think he knows that he's not supposed to say it & says it even more. So, I've been extra-vigilant about not saying anything remotely bad (though it is hard whilst driving...there are idiots on the road and sometimes it's hard to refrain from expressing what I REALLY think of them!), saying such things as "Oh my pickle" and things along those lines. I think we will have better luck with fun words like pickle (I don't know why it's a fun word, it just is!) and maybe he'll just forget about the blaspheming in time for our next family visit!

We started watching "School House Rocks" and he's seen the shows before, and he's heard the songs, but never really expressed an interest, until the last time we saw it, and he started singing "Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here" and "Conjunction Junction." So far, those are his two favority songs/episodes, but we're trying to get him branch out--as much as I love those songs, you can only hear them over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over so many times before you go nuts.

And, I'd like to put my squirrel story down for posterity. On Friday, before we left, I'd talked to Mom & Dad, who related some of their weird animal happenings (which involved squirrels...or at least one squirrel, RIP). After we spoke, I went out to the yard to do some final touch-ups before we left--bring in Noah's toys, wind up the hose, cover the pool. I got to the pool and found this: (To those of you who are sensitive, I'd turn away now.)


Yup. Those are two squirrels, one still floating, the other sunk to the bottom, of our beloved pool. I walked up on the pool, saw that, and I must admit, my first thought was, "You better not have poked a hole in my pool!" Then, the 2nd thought was, I must send this picture to Patrick! He immediately called to verify what the tiny picture on his phone was depicting--yup. Two squirrels. Dead. In our pool. Now, granted, the pool is somewhat under a large tree, but come ON--TWO??? So, I got the shovel, and the one that was still floating was easy to get. I didn't really have time to dig a hole & do a proper burial, so I sort of plopped him on top of what used to be the compost pile, but is now the weed-growing pile. The one that sunk to the bottom...he was a doozy. I didn't want to poke a hole in the pool with the shovel (no, I was not grabbing him with my hands, no matter how many pairs of gloves I had on. Dead humans are one thing, but deal squirrels are just nasty.), so I was sort of gently chasing him around the bottom of the pool, trying to flip him up just enough to get my shovel under him. Finally was able to scoop him up and out, and put him next to his brother. Or sister. I didn't really turn them over to look. Or maybe it was his lover, and they decided to go out like Romeo & Squirreliet, and took poison. I dunno. All I know is it was in my pool! Bastards. Oops. Can't curse--how about "Pickle eaters?" Our neighbor saw me walking to the back with something on my shovel, and I guess she put two & two together, and asked if it was a dead squirrel. I said, "Yup. There were TWO of them. In my pool!" We both agreed that it was nasty, and that squirrels aren't very smart.

So, that's the adventure I had. Fun, huh?

Oh, and to end on a happy note, I've started keeping a list of things that I've said to Noah that I never thought would be said to ANYONE, much less a two-year-old. I'll be updating the list as new things come along, but here's what I've got right now:

1. We don't sit on the cat.

2. Yes, that is your nipple.

3. We don't put our fries in our bellybuttons.

4. We don't hit our head with our hot dog.

and my favorite:

5. No, penis doesn't need to have his teeth brushed.

Enjoy the photos!

MMMM...peanut butter! Here he's sitting with Daddy, eating a peanut butter cracker (which, by the way and if you can't tell, he really, really likes)--note the bits of cracker stuck to his tummy. He's also holding his new Spiderman sandals!


Modeling his new big boy underwear...I love these. I can't help myself--I think he looks so cute!!! If the architect/engineer/doctor career doesn't work out, maybe Sears will come calling & he can model in their catalog...


The back of his big boy underwear--and he is an All Star! This is where he's taking Tyrone & Diego soccer jerseys and putting them in his Tonka truck. Notice his pinkie...


Another of his many modeling poses; here he's gazing wistfully at the future, whilst holding his Diego jersey, thinking of the many adventures he and Diego will have...


Here is the Bug ABC shirt--my favorite is the "H for Handsome Fungus Beetle!" AND, if that weren't enough, the bugs are slightly raised & puffy! So cool!



In the bug shirt, but you can sort of make out the vinyl pants, and you can see the Dickies socks--a bit big, but I think the fact that he wanted to put them on immediately is a good sign. Also, you can tell that our hope that he would not take after me as far as insect bites go has been dashed on the rocks. He seems like he is taking after me, with the swelling and the fact that the bites do not go away anytime soon. *Sigh* We've tried his Zyrtec, and that doesn't seem to help much, so I think I'm calling the Dr. again to see if there's something else we can try. I know I tried many, many things before I found that Allegra was what worked for me. I know that they do children's Allegra, but not sure about toddler Allegra, but we'll see. At this point, I'm hoping that he'll grow out of it, but with my history, not sure that we'll be holding our breath.



Helping put the dishes away...he's really, really great!!!!!