Noah: 7 and a Half Months

Dearest Noah,

You are as cute as you are cuddly!  Your chubby little thighs and cheeks are the perfect amount of squishable!  You always find something to smile about and you’re great at sharing this philosophy with others! 

 

You love to watch your puppy race back and forth in the house and you especially love to feel his soft fur, but we have to keep a watchful eye on your curious grabby fists since you can grasp quite a bit of hair on him!  You also like to sit on your own and play with toys that we set in front of you like your stack-a-rings and your Baby Einstein piano, and the Elmo’s Home Run bath book.  

 

You have discovered your tongue!  You are constantly sticking it out of your mouth and curling it up on your lip.  You try to talk while it’s sticking out of your mouth, and it’s rare these days that we catch a picture of you without your faithful tongue sidekick.

 

You’re a pro at rolling over and you even get up on your knees now with your tummy off the floor.  You can scoot backwards from this position, which we know is the first sign of crawling!  I’ll be doing constant scans of the living room to make sure that the toys your brother plays with, but that you’re not old enough for, are a safe distance away.

 

Because of your milk protein allergy, you are more susceptible to having food allergies.  Therefore, we had to try out each new flavor of baby food for 5 days as opposed to 2 days like we did when your brother was first starting to eat.  So, after working our way through the yellow veggies and the green veggies, we are finally at fruit! You have not scoffed once at any flavor of baby food (although you don’t prefer your green veggies cold from the fridge, but who does?).  The first fruit we are trying out is baby food bananas—the personal favorite of your truly, and Grandpa Mike.  You like it, but you are not over the moon about it like I thought you’d be. We’ll see if we come across a true favorite as we try apples next, and then peaches, pears, and prunes (although not necessarily in that order).

 

You win the award for “Great Sleeper Baby”!  You are an awesome sleeper.  You go to bed between 6:30 and 7:00pm.  You wake once around 4:45 or 5:15 for a 4oz bottle, and then you go right back to sleep.  Recently, you’ve woken up around midnight and you’ll chat yourself back to sleep.  I’ll have to teach you how to whisper, though.  J  If we hear you cry earlier in the night, we can pretty much guarantee that you are having teething pains.  We just KNOW that a tooth will pop through soon!
 

You are wearing size 3 diapers and size 4 Overnight diapers.  You wear some 6 month onesies still, but you mainly hang out in 9 month to 12 month clothes.  We’ve tried putting one of Michael’s pairs of tiny baby shoes on you, but your feet were too big.  We tried putting a baby sized tennis shoe on you, but your feet weren’t quite big enough.  It’s a good thing you don’t need to wear shoes.  It would crimp your style anyway since you love to put your bare toes in your mouth. J

 

Your pretty blue eyes always collect compliments as we’re out and about.  I have an inkling that your hair will come in wavy and light brown.  It’ll be the cutest.  Just the cutest.

 

 

You are such a joy, my dear one.  You’re the perfect addition to our family and I know you’ll grow into a silly boy who loves to dance and giggle.  Those days will be fun, but I’m also treasuring the days we have now.

 

I love you forever, sweet boy.  Love, Mommy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael: 23 Months

Dearest Michael,

 

You are 23 months old!  Actually, I’m a few days late in writing this, so that means you’ll be 2 years old at the end of this very month!  I’ve gone ahead and adopted the phrase for your age and I tell people that you’re 2 when they ask how old you are.

 

You are far more vocal than I realized and every day you surprise us all with a new phrase!  Your Grandma Chips just texted me to tell me that your phrase of the day is “me do.”  At the end of last week, you started asking to hold Noah.  This weekend, anytime your Daddy or I had Noah in our laps, you would get up on the couch beside either of us and say “hold! Hold!” and you would pretend to grunt as you wrapped your arms around Noah to “hold” him.  Of course, your daddy and I never really let go of Noah but you were thrilled to think you were holding him. 

 

You are highly enjoying being a big brother and you love to give affection to your little brother.  On Saturday morning, you went into Noah’s room and began the day by talking to him.  He thought it was great.  I didn’t mind at all since I knew he was awake at the same time as you and entertaining himself by babbling in his crib.  On Sunday afternoon, you decided that when I got up from my rest, that you must be allowed then to wake Noah from his nap.  Noah didn’t mind.  And I only minded for about 3 seconds. J You two are so sweet together.  This is what I have been looking forward to—the bud of your friendship together. 

 

You are way too silly with your facial expressions and I find myself cracking up each day at the new things you do.  You are highly stubborn and I’m guessing that you are taking after your daddy.  You also know exactly where the line to cross is, and you put your tippy toes over it.  Daily. 

 

But, just as much as you can be stubborn, you can as easily be the sweetest boy ever who loves to cuddle.  On Friday night, after bath time and pajama time, you made it your mission to go back and forth between me and your Daddy and give us each kisses.  You probably did this for 10 or 15 minutes.  It was the sweetest thing. 

 

Last night after bath time and pajama time, you entertained yourself by tossing up your spoon into the air, grabbing it from the floor, and repeating the process about 100 times.   

 

You love stories and you especially love it when your Daddy does animal voice impressions during a current favorite book “Oink! Moo! How do you do?”

 

You also love your little brother’s book “Goodnight, Owl” and your book “Toes are for Tickling.”  We keep “Goodnight, Owl” in the living room so that we can read it any time of day!

If I ask you to sing me a song or tell me a story, it always involves the word “ball” over and over and over.  J  Your toddler voice is so sweet and cute that I don’t care how many times you want to sing or tell about a ball.  I’ll listen whole heartedly every time.

 

I am so very proud of you—you ate exactly what your Daddy and I ate for dinner starting at the middle of last week, and you ate exactly what we did for dinner and lunch all weekend long!  We had Hamburger Helper one night and you ate that as your supper (after an appetizer of blueberries and shredded cheese).  One day for lunch we had pizza rolls and you ate those too.  You had a hot dog on a bun (cut-up appropriately of course), then you had a hot dog without a bun.  You had rotini pasta and meat balls.  And you had grilled chicken thighs and mashed potatoes.  And each mealtime, you did the sign language for “more” and asked in words for “more.”  You’ve also started saying “please” which comes out as “plus.”  It’s truly fun to ask you a question and hear a legitimate response from you! 

 

You are still wearing size 5 diapers and size 2T and 3T clothes.  You sleep in your toddler bed now and you are doing fantastically!  You still like to sleep with and carry around 5 to 6 “mommy blankies” with you.  I don’t mind. 

 

 

 

 

You are so fun, energetic, rambunctious, carefree, sweet, lovable, loving, and kind.  You are a toddler to a “T” and I love every second of it.  I love you forever, dear one.  Love, Mommy