I'll admit that, even in one of my recent posts, I've been a little snarky about swine flu.
I mean, it's a flu. People get the flu all the time. My household even had a collective bout of flu last month.
But the news today that a Littlestown kindergartner died because of complications from swine flu scared the bejesus out of me.
My Mr. Noah's vocabulary has totally taken off.
He's got quite the repertoire now. Among them:
I'm a nervous wreck.
I feel like it's only a matter of time before my daredevil Mr. Noah breaks a bone or needs stitches.
He's constantly climbing on things -- chairs, tables, stools, couches -- and then dangling precariously at the edges. Or, worse yet, he leaps off of them just for the half-second thrill of the fall.
I don't remember Sam doing this. Or maybe I've just blocked it from my memory.
And because he's growing so fast right now (thank goodness!), he's klutzy beyond belief. He's forever tripping or banging his head into walls or smacking the top of his head on the edge of our table, which he used to be able to walk beneath, or pulling open a drawer and slamming it into his nose or ...
I'm tired just picturing it.
Right now, he's got a bruise on his forehead, a bruise and abrasion on his cheekbone (he fell off a small stool onto the edge of a step in our house over the weekend), bruises on his knees and shins, and finger bruises on his upper arms from us having to grab him over and over again to keep him from falling.
We're not beating him, I swear. He just looks like it.
Is this a boy thing? Is it just that some kids are more daring than others? Will I feel this way until he's in his 20s???
I'm pretty certain Noah's a friggin' genius.
Why do I think this? Other than the fact that he's already saying really hard words like "washcloth" and "Spongebob"?
Because he likes to line up similar things in exact rows.
His favorite is plastic bottles of soap and shampoo in the bathroom. He gets them, one at a time, out of the basket we keep them in, and he carries them to the edge of the tub or the sink. Then, he turns them sideways, slides them gently until they're just touching each other, then taps and bumps them until they're in a straight line.
He's so focused when he does this. So intent. So serious. So exacting. So adorable.
See what I mean? Pure genius.
I was certain Sam was a genius about this age, too, because she could tell you what sounds 10 animals made (cow, horse, sheep, pig, cat, dog, mouse, monkey, snake and elephant).
I think we all get caught up at some point in how fast our kids learn new things that we just can't believe they're already doing whatever thing it is that's amazing us.
Why is your kid a genius?
Noah's learning lots of new words lately.
I love that he says "Dee doh" for "thank you" and "peez" for "please" (actually, it's always more like: "peez peez peez peez peez peez peez peez peez peez peez???")
He says "Yinya" for Linda, his sitter. And "eat" when he's hungry. And "bobble" when he's thirsty (even if he wants a sippy cup).
But my two new favorites: "What?" and "why?"
Here are examples:
Me (in one of the rooms upstairs): "Noah!"
Noah (in one of the other rooms): "What!"
or
Me: "Hey Mr. Stinky Pants, let's go upstairs and change your diaper."
Noah (heading for the stairs): "Why?"
He doesn't actually need a response yet to either of them, but the words sound so funny in his little baby voice that I just crack up.
Anything your kids saying right now that makes you laugh?
My little Noah is all boy.
He loves anything with wheels. He looks longingly at motorcycles when they drive past.
He went down a small sliding board the other day, the turned around and promptly climbed up it -- something Sam never even considered doing until she was, like, 4.
And right now he's fearless.
Noah has been adding to his vocabulary pretty much daily for the past few weeks.
He's also learned how to bellow to get your attention. So, for example, he likes to stand at the top of the stairs every night at bedtime and call down to Daddy that it's time for kisses:
"Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad! Ublty boblty abah nite-nite!"
He's also added "Spongebob" to his repertoire, although I don't think I can re-create the sounds he uses here to convey that name.
But my absolute favorite is what he said to me for the first time this weekend.
We were cuddling and playing on the couch, and I grabbed him and squeezed him against me and said, "I love you."
"Ah-dee do," he said back.
He's said it a few times now -- including at 5:30 this morning when he woke up -- and every time I just melt.
I'm such a sucker for a cute guy with a good line.
The other day, one of my friends put up a status update on Facebook asking us what crazy things we've said since we became parents -- things you totally would have no reason to say unless you had a kid.
I contributed the following:
"DON'T PUT YOGURT ON THE DOG!"
"Samantha, you do not have a penis."
and
"You can't lay on the cat's head because he can't breathe when you do that."
I've got a new one to add.
Within six hours of getting to my sister-in-law's beach house last week, Noah learned to say two new words:
"HEY!"
and
"NO!"
Both of those were environmentally based, I believe, because he suddenly had to stand up for himself to five other kids, all of them older.
He also learned to say:
"Wow!" (thanks to rides at the boardwalk)
"All done" (thanks to his cousin Ella, who is 12 days older than him. Now he insists on yelling "all done! all done!" throughout his diaper changes.)
"Boo!" (thanks to the nonstop game of peek-a-boo he played with me and my sunglasses one afternoon at the beach)
He liked the other stuff, too -- the sand, the waves, the rides, the cotton candy, the seagulls who run when you chase them.
And Sam, when I asked her what her favorite part of our vacation was, said: "My favorite part was the water park. No, it was digging in the sand. No, it was -- It was all my favorite part, Mom!"
It was a good trip.
BTW, to refresh your memory, here's what Sam learned at the beach two years ago.
Last night when I got home, I walked in on bath time.
Sam was in the tub, artfully debating with my husband over whether he should wash her or whether she should be allowed to wash herself. Noah was already scrubbed up and shiny clean, bounding around the upstairs on chubby legs and dressed in a white onesie and white pants.
When I got there, Daddy interrupted Sam in mid-argument and said, "Hey! Or Mommy could wash you!" And he tossed the washcloth onto her forehead and escaped to freedom in the living room.
Sam snagged the washcloth, startged to wash what I usually refer to as her "girl parts" and yelled, "Don't worry, Dad! I'm washing my penis and my butt now!"
"Sam, you don't --" I started to say.
"SAM, YOU DO NOT HAVE A PENIS!" Daddy yelled from the stairs.
"Well, then, what do I got?" she asked me.
"You have a vagina," I said. "Boys have penises."
"A va - gina?" she said. "Do you got one of them, too?"
"Yup," I said. "All girls and women have them."
And then we moved on to the argument over washing her hair. End of discussion.
