Months Twenty-Seven and Twenty-Eight

January 04, 2018

Noah,

It’s been a fun two months leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not only did Grandpa & Grandma come to visit us, we got to go to Colorado to visit them as well. Grandpa is one of your favorite people, for sure. You can’t wait to see him, and he definitely gets the first hug.

You’ve been talking up a storm this month, with lots of new one and two-word statements. “Clean up!” “Taco night!” “Taco Thursday!” Also “Taco time!” Anything with salsa, big fan of salsa. And tacos. As clear as day, you can say “No” now, although it’s the cutest rising inflection, so it’s hard to take it seriously. In offset, you also acceptingly say “ok” to almost all of our requests, which is nice.

It’s third-person references this month, from “baby’s turn” when we’re playing or you want your brother to let you do something, to “baby did it!”. The latter is something we hear regularly, any time you manage to do something that you set out to do. For some things, that’s fun, others are a little more sketchy for us. Any time you need something on the first floor, we find you pushing a stool from the kitchen over to the cabinet, or the fridge, to get things or put them away. You’ve only fallen off once this month, so I guess that’s good. Climbing is a useful skill, but must be used wisely.

You’re following the family tradition in starting to escape from things. We’ve found you a couple of times now out of your sleep sack in the crib, though that may be more because you’re interested in getting your wet diaper changed. You also slipped right out of your pants to get out of the straps in the booster seat. It’s fortunate that we’re not out of options in this battle of wits.

You’re so observant of everything that goes on around you. We find you copying all sorts of different things we do, from putting your milk back in the fridge, to trying to put your clothes on, to singing Jingle Bells. The old solution at Nana & Papa’s house to prevent unwanted access to things was to turn the doorhandles around and lock them from the outside, especially for the pantry. We all sat and watched you walk over, unlock the door, open the pantry, look around, close the door, and then re-lock it. You’re also doing all the fun color and shape puzzles that we have.

As you learn to talk, so many things are copied from your brother. He’s taught you how to play rock, paper scissors (the four-count version, with “shoot!”). He also taught you how knock-knock jokes start, which you also extended to “ding-dong”. You definitely understand the concept, though the humor might take a few years.

The holidays have brought lots more fun, You weren’t quite old enough to really participate last year. but this year it’s all in. Decorating the tree, making cookies, decorating a gingerbread house, it’s all been fun. You helped decorate the Christmas tree. The ornament of Molly absolutely caught your eye, as did a few more. On a regular basis, you’re wandering over from the tree holding one or more ornaments. They’re migrating up the tree again this year.

It’s so hard to capture all the snapshots of you growing up each and every day. The things you say, the things you do are all so much fun, but we’d have to just have a video camera on record all the time to capture it. We so enjoy our time with you. Keep growing and learning.

Love,

Daddy and Mommy