One of the C-Ville pics

Time Keeps on Slippin'

It surely does. The days mostly repeat themselves. That's not a bad thing.

Last weekend we headed down to Charlottesville to have a friend take some photos of Noah. We couldn't believe how well he did. Normally if you set him down anywhere, he takes off crawling as fast as he can. This time, he sat there with his books and had his picture taken. It was a hot and humid afternoon and we took pictures at three different locations and he was such a trooper. He's not great at smiling or laughing on command, but he did what we asked him to for the most part. Can't wait to see all the finished photos!

We were also lucky to hang out with RR and her two Moms. She's just so adorable!

The only down thing lately is that Noah has apparently decided that long car rides aren't any fun. That, or having Nerdstar in the car with us isn't any fun. (heh) We're learning he mostly just has to fuss it out, nothing really makes a difference. My guess is he's a little bored after a while.

These days he's still throwing books at us all the time and making us read them to him. It's crazy. He's got five books he wants us to read over and over. I'm already tired of them, and I tried putting them up and bringing in some new ones, he wouldn't have it. Sigh. One of them is the Dr. Suess ABC book. I put on FB the other day that I'm sometimes quite tempted to just make up cuss word phrases for each letter. (See name of blog.)

Sometimes when he's sitting on my lap I think, Wow one day this adorable little boy, who I can pick up and toss in the air and all that fun stuff, will be a grown man. It's cool and disconcerting.

He's not in any hurry to walk - he crawls so fast that walking would feel like a step back to him. That's fine with me. The big milestones can take their time. I think he'd like to be able to talk. Sometimes he seems to be making an effort to repeat us. Some days he talks up a storm, telling us who knows what. Nerdstar thinks he's telling us the winning lottery numbers and we're just out of luck because we can't understand him. I can't wait to hear his stories.

Tomorrow is his one year ped. appointment. We're waiting to see how tall he is.

Nerdstar and Noah Reading

Noah Eating Birthday Ice Cream Cake

Thoughts on a Year

Nerdstar and I were talking about a week ago about what, if anything, had been a surprise for us this year. First and most of all, while I felt he would be a good baby/kid - I just can’t tell you how good he is/has been. He’s slept well, ate well, plays well. He's always so happy to go out to eat with us or run errands with me. We won the baby lottery!

I’ve been with him every day this year, and am so happy to be able to say that. I’m so grateful to God for him.

In picking words to describe him, one of the best is undeterred. Some would call it stubborn, but it’s slightly different from that. Two is goofy. In public, especially when strangers talk to him, he has this adorable serious face. He doesn’t laugh easily, (he’s not even really ticklish, but he humors us and laughs anyway) but he has this goofy spirit about him.

This last week, he's starting to warm up to strangers, smile at them, laugh at them, interact with them. It's so funny to watch him be a ham.

In the last week or two he's also started insisting on reading his books. Reading to him wasn't something we really did very often, but he's had his books laying around with his other toys. We noticed he knew which book was which, and he'd throw one to indicate he wanted it read. We've read "Five Little Monkeys" "The Hungry Caterpillar" and an ABC book by Dr. Suess a hundred times lately. He really loved having his Granny and Pa here to read to him.

It's just been a great year overall, in spite of all the worrying we did. We couldn't have asked for a better child!

A Few Birthday Pictures

Well, Noah's 1st birthday was a low-key family affair because the grandparents were in town. We got an ice cream cake. He likes ice cream and the cake wasn't too bad either.


I went ahead and got a few books for his future reading.


His favorite toys, other than balls to throw, are the ones where he can push a button and music plays. It was hard to find one we liked, but this has easy to push buttons and more than three songs, so it's cool.



And while he loves the music his toys play, he never really pays any attention when I have the iPod playing. But, we got him some more tunes anyway.


Granny and Pa brought him a few old toys, mine or my brothers or my nephews. I love that none of them have batteries!


The rocking chair was mine as a child. The tigger chair was my nephews. Pretty cool.

Noah At Play

For reasons unclear to me, most of Noah's favorite toys are trash - literally. He loves to crawl around with a baggy in his fist. (It's pretty funny to watch him crawl around with anything in his fist, but he's getting better at it!) He got a water bottle that still has a little bit of water in and loves to shake it. Of course, there's the cardboard tube from the foil. He also loves to pull up on the kitchen trash can and start throwing the trash on the floor. I guess he's looking for new toys.

Other than those, he likes toys that play music when he pushes buttons. And it was surprisingly hard to find him a new/good one like that for his birthday. But we found one. He still loves to throw balls and go get them. The most fun place to throw a ball is past the rails and down the stairs.

His other favorite pastime is pulling up on everything and pulling everything possible onto the floor. My brilliant strategy for that is to leave it all on the floor until the end of the day. Poor boy only gets to pull everything down once day.

Maybe most of all though, he loves to crawl very, very fast.